Decisions · Policy · United States

Coding creativity: copyright and the artificially intelligent author

Annemarie Bridy (University of Idaho) · 2012 · Proposal · non-binding

2012 Stanford Technology Law Review 5

Protection of AI output

Can AI-generated work be protected?

Closer to AI output protected

Autonomous AI works fit copyright more easily than assumed, since all creativity is algorithmic

Why hereCloser to 'AI output protected': argues autonomous computer works fit copyright more easily than assumed, since all creativity is algorithmic. Not at the pole, because the argument is that the gap is smaller than it seems, not that existing law already protects such works.

What it says

Drawing on the critique of romantic authorship and on work about computer-aided creation, Bridy argues that all creativity is inherently algorithmic, so works produced autonomously by computers are less different from human works, and from copyright's existing structure, than they appear.

An early and influential case for accommodating AI output within copyright.

Sources

This record

Data as of 2026-10-21.

Drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources linked above; not yet reviewed by a lawyer. Methodology

No changes logged yet. The change log started on 2026-10-20.