Authorship of Computer-Generated Works

A computer-generated work is one produced by a computer in circumstances where no human being is its author. Under Indian copyright law, its author is the person who causes the work to be created, not the computer or software acting by itself.

Statutory rule

Under Section 2(d)(vi), the author is the person who causes the work to be created. The provision attributes authorship to a person responsible for the creation, rather than to the computer itself.

Scope and copyright protection

This rule applies specifically to computer-generated literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works. Under Section 2(ffc), a work is computer-generated when it is generated by a computer in circumstances where there is no human author.

• Authorship under Section 2(d)(vi) does not automatically guarantee copyright; the work must also satisfy the applicable requirements of Section 13, including originality.
• A computer program is separately included within the definition of a literary work; this is distinct from determining authorship of an output generated by a computer.

Authorship and ownership

Authorship identifies who legally created the work, while ownership identifies who holds its copyright. Under Section 17, the author is ordinarily the first owner, subject to statutory exceptions; ownership may subsequently pass through an assignment under Sections 18 and 19.

• The Act does not automatically identify the programmer, user or computer owner as author; the relevant inquiry is who caused the particular work to be created.