The Metaverse Authorship Dilemma: Delineating IPR Conflicts and AI Creators.

AIl India Commercial Law Review
2 days ago
7 min read

Written by Samiksha Shah, currently pursuing BA.LLB (Hons) from Mumbai University

Introduction

Picture entering a realm where digital creations, such as virtual performances, AI-generated art, or music, not only exist but can be owned, traded, or challenged. This is the Metaverse, a vibrant world of engaging 3D environments where individuals interact, cooperate, acquire knowledge, and enjoy themselves. Now, combine that with Artificial Intelligence (AI), a technology crafted to replicate human intelligence through learning, reasoning, and creation. As AI enters the Metaverse and starts creating works, it raises a pressing question: “Can AI truly be recognised as an author with copyright rights in the Metaverse era?” This blog argues that instead of giving AI copyright rights, we should create a new type of law (sui generis) to protect human investment while encouraging innovation.

The Metaverse and IPR

The Metaverse is an all-encompassing virtual space that users access through 3D avatars and interact with via technologies such as VR, AR, blockchain, and AI; in the Metaverse economy, users trade NFTs of virtual goods, attend concerts, take classes, and even purchase property, all while wearing digital clothing. However, without Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), these creations would lack real value, as IPR provides the holder with legal rights to their original design, music, or software and ensures recognition for creators in both physical and virtual worlds. Protecting this type of art, avatars, or branding assets (for example, a digital Gucci bag in Roblox) requires IPR because it is essential to uphold ownership and investment, while also preventing misuse in an environment where things can be copied or replicated so easily.

Copyright and AI Authorship

In the Metaverse, one can witness a scenario where the ownership of a digital asset and the intellectual property (IP) rights related to that asset are in different places, thus making the legal landscape complicated. Generally, the acquisition of a digital object like an NFT means that the person is the owner of the token or file, being the digital subject matter, and along with it, he/she is given the right to keep, sell or show that particular instance. Nevertheless, these transactions seldom transfer the underlying copyright. All the exclusive IP rights, which may also involve the right to manufacture, distribute, and create derivative works, will be with the original creator only unless there is an explicit licensing contract. This point becomes very important in virtual worlds where smart contracts may only give limited rights to buyers for their personal use, and platforms for user-generated content may still have the rights to the creations made in their ecosystem. As a result, it is totally feasible to have a digital asset that can be verified without having any legal rights to control or exploit the creative work it represents. Copyright protection is going to its limit, where artists find that their digital paintings are being wrongly minted and sold as NFTs by third parties without their consent. Such acts violate copyright holders' rights to the exclusive reproduction of their creations. The main dispute in the lawsuit is not about the fake brands but the copying of the original work without the permission of the creator. Companies quickly register digital trademarks across various classes to prevent infringement, but enforcement remains challenging in this fragmented market. As tech giants submit applications for immersive technologies like biometric tracking, VR/AR, and avatar personalisation engines, which spark discussions about who owns them, patent disputes are on the horizon.

Case Laws and Global Perspective

We start our exploration of this new area with the unwavering copyright law tenet that authorship is solely human. The Copyright Office in the US has stated unequivocally that creative works that do not have "human authorship" are not eligible for copyright protection. Many jurists and lawmakers still see AI as akin to a camera or pen, valuable tools but not entitled to be called authors. However, jurisdictions differ. Even minimal human input may be sufficient, but the purely AI-generated output, devoid of identifiable human contribution, falls outside its scope. This highlights a larger debate: Is AI merely a sophisticated tool in human hands, or does it stand on its own as an autonomous creator? According to India's Copyright Act, the "author" is the person who created the work. Because they lack human origin and creativity, works produced exclusively by AI are disqualified. Generative AI is a nuanced new frontier in copyright protection that goes beyond typical infringements such as unauthorised NFT mints. The main obstacle is that the creativity of AI, such as ChatGPT, depends to a large extent on the user's prompt. If the user supplies a simple and generic command, the AI will most probably present a typical output; on the other hand, a very detailed, imaginative and stylised prompt can steer the AI to come up with a completely new work that mirrors the user's specific intellectual and creative traits. Such a vast range of possibilities leads to significant legal uncertainty, giving rise to the determining Q-point as to who the author is—the AI developer, the user who supplied the complex creative input or maybe the work is one of copyrightable at all. Generative AI, unlike the unauthorised copying that is straightforward in many digital art cases, changes the main legal problem from merely infringement to redefining creation and authorship in a human-machine collaboration, which is highly advanced. Some proposals, which were influenced by the UK's strategy, propose identifying the individual.

Looking at recent precedents, several legal milestones and institutional reforms exemplify how the law is responding to AI and authorship. The Naruto Monkey Selfie case, Naruto v. Slater, No. 16-15469 (9th Cir. 2018) , in which an animal's selfie was not granted copyright because authorship cannot be attributed to a non-human being, has been repeatedly referenced as setting the precedent that human authorship is required for copyright. In the United States, the U.S. Copyright Office has consistently denied registration of works created by AI without any human involvement; however, in one recent case (Thaler v. U.S. Copyright Office), Thaler v. Perlmutter, No. 23-5233 (D.C. Cir. 2023) a federal appeals court found that creations must be produced with some degree of human authorship to be copyrightable. Complementing this guidance, the U.S. Copyright Office has released guidelines stating that while works created using AI where human creativity is present may still qualify for copyright if marked by sufficient human creativity, those created solely by machines are not eligible. For example, across the Atlantic in the United Kingdom, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act treats the person who creates the necessary.

The big question: Is AI just a tool, or can it be an autonomous creator?

Pros and Cons of AI Authorship

The AI Authorship Supporters claim recognising machine-generated creations encourages innovation, rewards machine creativity, and avoids unfairness when AI-produced works like music, literature or visual art have actual commercial value; acknowledging AI as author could provide a clear legal basis for licensing and protection to spur additional development in creative technologies. The concept of human authorship is at the very core of copyright law and has been since its inception. Machines cannot be held responsible or have moral rights; they do not demonstrate creativity or originality (unless pre-programmed by a person) and granting them authorship could dilute the core purpose of copyright, which protects the personal investment and intent of human authors.

Conclusion

While AI is expanding the boundaries of creativity in ways no one could have imagined decades ago, the legal and ethical question remains whether AI can be an author for purposes of copyright. Copyright law doesn’t see AI as the author, so humans stay in charge and own the work, but because technology is changing so fast, strict rules could slow down new ideas. The future may require sui generis protections for AI-generated works and clear rules about attribution for AI-assisted creativity with international coordination to harmonise standards. Legal reform will be needed to address this new frontier in creative spaces: from sui generis protections for AI-generated works to delineating rules around digital authorship. As countries grapple with questions surrounding authorship and copyright, the global task ahead is simple: we must shape laws that both incentivise innovation and uphold the fundamental values of human creativity, or face an uncertain future for intellectual property. As seen in Thaler’s case and other gaps in current laws, human-only authorship rules don’t work for AI. Therefore, a sui generis system is needed to balance innovation and IP principles.

References

The Metaverse Authorship Dilemma: Delineating IPR Conflicts and AI Creators.

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