Originality

The threshold of originality is a concept in copyright law that is used to assess whether a particular work can be protected by copyright. It is used to distinguish works that are sufficiently original to warrant copyright protection from those that are not.

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Originality, Subject matter (copyrightable), USA

(University of Milan)/ /Leave a comment

Introduction Part 1 analysed an Italian case related to the copyright protection of a “floral fractal” generated via machine-learning (see RAI vs Biancheri). Even more recently, another case dedicated to protection of AI generated visual art has been decided by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Thaler vs Perlmutter, Civil Action…

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Italy, Originality

(University of Milan)/ /1 Comment

Introduction One of the main contentious points when artificial intelligence, deep learning or machine learning (for the distinction between these functionalities, see here) are used for generating creative works is the question of attribution of works to an author, usually a human who has used the tech tool with some level of involvement in the…

Case Law, Infringement, Originality, United Kingdom

, (Bristows LLP)/ /1 Comment

Perhaps it comes as no surprise that a copyright dispute regarding a fire-breathing–sneezing dragon would get so heated. The case of Evans v John Lewis Plc & Anor [2023] EWHC 766 (IPEC) is a copyright infringement claim in which the IPEC (a specialist IP court in the UK) was asked to decide whether John Lewis’s…

Case Law, France, Infringement, Originality

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In a case between Google and the creator of the font used by the French newspaper Le Monde, the Paris Court of First Instance (‘Tribunal Judiciaire’) has handed down a judgment in which it ruled that the font created for the newspaper is original and thus protected by copyright, even though it found that Google’s…

Authorship, Database right, Originality, Ownership, United Kingdom

, (Bristows LLP)/ /1 Comment

Summary In the case of Wright & Ors v BTC Core & Ors [2023] EWHC 222 the High Court was faced with a technical copyright question about whether literary copyright can subsist in the file format used for the Bitcoin System (the “Bitcoin File Format”).  Justice Mellor concluded that copyright could not subsist in the…

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Authorship, Originality

(Vanderbilt University Law School)/ /Leave a comment

My university, like so many others, is offering prompt engineering lessons to both students and faculty. The same is true at high schools around the world from what I can see. Cool professors have already modified their exams to ask students to write a prompt that could be submitted to a Large Language Model (LLM). …

CJEU, Design Rights, European Union, Legislative process, Originality

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This post is based in part on the Position Statement of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition of 23 January 2023 on the ‘Design Package’, but expresses the authors’ own personal views.     On 28 November 2022, the EU Commission published proposals for amendment of the Design Regulation and for recast of…

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Authorship, Infringement, Originality

(Vanderbilt University Law School)/ /1 Comment

The recent blog post by Matt Hervey provides an interesting summary by someone who clearly has a good understanding of the subject matter. It does seem a bit one-sided in making it sound (to me, anyway) like people, governments or courts who oppose copyright protection of AI-generated works are fighting a rear guard battle and…

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Authorship, European Union, Legislative process, Originality

(University College London)/ /Leave a comment

Works generated through complex AI systems, such as machine learning and text-to-image generation models, have recently stirred up many discussions and even given rise to lawsuits (here and here). Voices emerged questioning whether current EU copyright laws should be amended in light of the many AI-generated works that have come about. One important question has…