LEGAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE AUTHORSHIP STATUS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE-GENERATED WORKS IN THAI COPYRIGHT SYSTEM

Abstract

The development of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI, has brought about significant changes to the creative process in the digital age. This is because AI systems are capable of producing content in various forms such as literature, visual arts, music, and digital media by leveraging machine learning processes and large-scale data processing. This capability results in legal issues concerning the determination of the status of the “author” in works created by artificial intelligence, which is a fundamental principle of copyright law. This article aims to examine the legal issues concerning the status of the author of works created by artificial intelligence under the Thai copyright law system, as well as to analyze the limitations of the law and propose approaches for its development in alignment with technological advancements. According to the study, the Copyright Act B.E. 2537 assumes that creation is a human activity. Section 4 defines an “author” as the person who creates the work, while Section 8 provides that the author is the copyright owner. However, such provisions do not clearly accommodate works created by artificial intelligence, as AI is not a legal person. Meanwhile, related parties such as developers or users of the system may not have a direct role as the creator. This lack of clarity gives rise to issues in determining authorship, acquiring copyright under Section 8, exercising moral rights inherently tied to a natural person, and having the risks associated with the use of copyrighted data in training AI systems. These issues reflect existing legal gaps within the Thai copyright system. Therefore, the researcher would like to proposed that: 1) clear criteria should be established to identify the rights holder in works involving artificial intelligence processes; 2) Sections 4 and 8 should be amended to accommodate new forms of creation; and 3) specific protection mechanisms should be introduced for AI-generated works in order to promote legal certainty and foster innovation.