Copyright, understood broadly, protects works of artistic expression. But what about works created by a computer with no human interaction? Can a computer create and own all possible new works – and can the computer’s owner use copyright law to protect those works?
Qentis Corporation, which is based in Russia, is either a brilliant tech startup, an art project, a joke, or something in between. They claim to own the copyright to “97% of all text ever produced by man.”
Their website states:
If you are planning to publish any text in these languages [English, German, French, Russian, Polish, Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish] we must inform you that the chances are almost 100% that they are already part of the copyrighted inventory of the Qentis Corporation and that you are about to violate these and you will be held responsible for this.
How is that possible? According to TorrentFreak.com,
[Qentis’] business model is to use massive computing power to generate digital intellectual property on a never-seen-before scale and transfer the rights to its partners.
The idea is that, through computing power, they are attempting to create every possible combination of words (up to a certain length of text) in a variety of language, and every possible photo. They will then, presumably, use copyright law to protect those works, prevent others from using them, and, I’m guessing, take over the world.
Why didn’t I think of that?
Probably because it won’t work (in the US, at least.) The US Copyright Office states:
…the Office will not register works produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically without any creative input or intervention from a human author.
So there needs to be a person involved in the creation of the work for it to be copyrightable.
In addition, if Qentis were to file a copyright infringement lawsuit, the supposed infringer could assert independent invention as a defense. Generally speaking, if you independently come up with a copyrightable work, the plaintiff (Qentis, in this example) has to show that you were exposed to the previous work in order for the infringement claim to proceed.
So, does Qentis own that book you’re about to write, the picture you take tomorrow, or the song you compose next week? No.
It’s not clear that’s really their intention anyway – there’s some info out there to suggest that this is all an act of satire rather than an actual business plan – but the lesson still applies. Until our robot overlords take over, human agency is required for copyright to apply.
