Abstract
The swift development of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought new complications into the legal landscape of intellectual property (IP) law, particularly concerning authorship and ownership rights over AI-generated works. With the proliferation of AI systems capable of creating art, literature, music, and inventions, questions arise about a number of legal and ethical issues. One of such issues concerns the ownership of intellectual property (IP) rights to such works. Adopting a doctrinal approach, this paper analyses the legal architecture governing authorship and ownership of IP in Nigeria. It further identifies the challenges posed by AI-created works and assesses the applicability of the Copyright Act 2022 together with other relevant legislation. Additionally, this paper explores an inter-jurisdictional comparative study of the legal terrain in jurisdictions like the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and the European Union (EU) to appreciate their approaches to this subject. Emerging issues here arise on whether AI can be considered as an author or inventor under existing laws, the rights of developers and users of AI-generated works as well as the feasibility of achieving a global legal consensus on the subject. The paper finds that the traditional property law frameworks which recognize authors and inventors as natural persons do not contemplate works autonomously created by non-humans, thus leaving a regulatory vacuum. It concludes with recommendations for Nigerian legislators on how to address the advancement of AI in the creation of works.
Keywords:AI-Generated Works, Artificial Intelligence, Authorship, Intellectual Property Law, Ownership Rights.