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.

AG Opinion, Authorship, Case Law, CDSM Directive, CJEU, Communication (right of), Digital Single Market, European Union, Legislative process, Liability, Originality, Private copying, Round-up, Text and Data Mining (TDM)

(University College London) and (Institute for Information Law (IViR))/ /Leave a comment

Welcome to the third trimester of the 2023 round up of EU copyright law! In this edition, we update you on what has happened between July and September 2023 in EU copyright law. The autumn has started with full speed – the courts and the policy makes have been very active. This round up series…

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Authorship, Originality

(Vanderbilt University Law School)/ /1 Comment

The intersection of Artificial intelligence and Intellectual Property is complex. It involves several IP rights, some of which overlap in some cases: copyright, trademarks, patents, trade secrets/confidential information, and the right of publicity (and similar rights with different names). The situation has increased in complexity now that not only the input but also the output…

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

(REALEX)/ /Leave a comment

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

, (Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition)/ /Leave a comment

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…