143 Yet, the “prompt” is often seen as a mere “suggestion” rather than an “instruction,” and the AI’s autonomous role in generating the final result weakens the user’s claim to being the “author.” The Machine While some scholars propose recognizing AI as a copyright owner, this approach faces fundamental obstacles. AI lacks legal personhood, cannot enforce rights, and doesn’t need financial incentives to create. Granting AI copyright would undermine the law’s purpose of incentivizing human creativity, make moral rights unjustifiable, and potentially harm human authors by reducing human-generated works. Joint Authorship Could the human and the AI be “joint authors?” This doctrine requires a collaborative intent and a significant contribution from each party. While conceptually intriguing, machines lack legal personality and the capacity for “intent,” making this a difficult fit for current statutes. The “Work Made for Hire” (WMFH) Model Some scholars, like Annemarie Bridy, suggest using the legal fiction of WMFH. Just as a corporation can be the “legal author” of a work created by its employees, we could treat the AI as an “employee” and the user/ developer as the employer. This provides a practical path to ownership without needing to grant the AI itself legal rights. The Public Domain Finally, a strong argument exists for placing AIgenerated works in the public domain. Since machines do not need financial incentives to “create,” and since they are trained on the collective heritage of human culture, their output should be free for all to use. The risk, however, is an “anti-incentive” for human authors, who might find themselves overwhelmed by a flood of “cheap” or “synthetic” creativity. Toward a New Legal Framework: Sui Generis and Public Domain How do we resolve the tension? We cannot force the AI genie back into the bottle, nor can we allow it to incinerate the livelihoods of millions of human authors. Several potential paths have been suggested for the next decade of jurisprudence: Instead of trying to fit AI into the 18th-century “Copyright” box, we could create a new, sui generis (unique) right. This right would be significantly shorter-term (e.g., 10–15 years) and specifically for “Algorithmically Assisted Content.” This would acknowledge the investment and “curation” effort of the human prompter while ensuring that these works enter the public domain much faster than human works (which last 70 years post-mortem). This maintains a “hierarchy of value” that prioritizes human biological creativity over machine-generated efficiency. Other scholars argue that copyright law does not provide the most appropriate legal framework for ownership and rights in computer-generated works. Senftleben and Buijtelaar for example, recommend adopting a Neighboring Rights approach, currently applied to music recording producers, due to its more flexible solutions and adaptable protection framework. The rationale underlying this category of techno-economic rights is investment protection. Conclusion: Guarding the Creative Spark The evolution of AI is not merely a technical challenge; it is an existential one for the legal profession and for culture at large. As discussed, the “automation of the creative process” risks decoupling effort from reward. If we allow the creative process to become a “black box” where humans only provide the abstract input and machines provide the entire expressive soul, we may find ourselves in a culturally sterile landscape—filled with perfect images that mean nothing because they cost nothing to produce. We should ensure that the law remains a tool for human flourishing, not just industrial efficiency. We must protect the “small” human author from being drowned out by the “large” algorithmic echo. The future of copyright is not about choosing between humans and machines; it is about defining the terms of their coexistence. We must ensure that while the machine may hold the brush, the hand that guides it—however distantly—remains tethered to human intent, human ethics, and human meaning. The brush has changed. The canvas is now digital, latent, and infinite. But the reason we create—to communicate the incommunicable and to leave a mark of our brief existence—must remain the north star of our legal evolution. We protect art not because it is beautiful, but because it is human. As we move forward, let us ensure that our laws do not forget the “author” in favor of the “algorithm.” ISRAEL — ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
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