A House with Two Masters? Copyright Law and Originality in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and the implications that it has for authorship has created a crisis within copyright law. There has been much debate about whether copyright should permit AI authorship within its borders. However, the major question that needs to be addressed is really what happens after AI-authored or AI-augmented works are permitted within the boundaries of copyright law. What would be the implications for originality? Where works have been concerned, originality has long been the primary doctrinal vehicle gatekeeping entry into the copyright system. A change in the law that would permit AI-authored or AI-augmented works to sit within the system of copyright protection would call that role into question. In this article, we argue that originality will face challenges, but it will survive as a re-purposed doctrine delineating which level of protection a work may enjoy.