Articles

Copyright in AI-Generated Content: Key Legal Features

Artificial intelligence has become an everyday tool for lawyers, designers, musicians, programmers, and entrepreneurs. But a key question arises: who owns the rights to AI-generated results?
Law has no universal answer yet. Approaches differ by jurisdiction, but the main principle remains: only humans can be authors.

International approaches

• EU (incl. Moldova): protection only for human-created works. Fully machine-generated content is not protected.
• USA: Copyright Office rejects full-AI works, but protects elements with “substantial human contribution.”
• UK: since 1988, authorship can be assigned to the person making the “necessary arrangements,” but this remains debated.
• China: courts protect AI works if there is human input (editing, creative choice).

Moldova’s approach

According to Copyright and Related Rights Law:

• only natural persons can be authors;
• AI has no legal personality;
• protection applies only when there is human contribution (settings, data selection, editing).

Practical aspects

1. Who is the author? If AI is a tool — rights belong to the human. If entirely AI — no protection (public domain).
2. Joint authorship. Possible if multiple people contribute (prompt + editing).
3. AI licenses. ChatGPT, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion often transfer rights to users but may impose restrictions.
4. Risks: plagiarism in training data, difficulty proving human input.

Recommendations for authors and businesses

• keep evidence of human input (screenshots, drafts, edits);
• add original creative elements;
• review AI service terms;
• voluntary registration (AGEPI, WIPO);
• include ownership clauses in contracts.

Conclusion

AI content remains a legal “grey zone.” In Moldova and the EU, only human-created or human-enhanced works are protected.

Our team assists authors, companies, and startups to:

• register rights in AI content,
• draft contracts and licenses,
• defend interests in authorship and plagiarism disputes.