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SILICON VALLEY—Womble Bond Dickinson attorney Chris Mammen has closely examined potential copyright issues arising from artificial intelligence creating music and art. A new article published by the Fitness Industry Technology Council includes quotes from Mammen on this rapidly shifting area of technology and the law.
Mammen points out that copyright law typically does not protect art “in the style of” other artists, because nearly all music and art is influenced by previous artists’ work. The question then becomes: If an AI algorithm mimics the sound and style of a human artist, does that violate copyright law?
“Should the original artist whose style is being used to train an AI be allowed to have any [intellectual property] rights in the resulting recording? The traditional answer may well be ‘no,’” Mammen says, “because the resulting work is not an original work of authorship by that artist.”
Music licensing is important to the fitness industry. Many gyms and health clubs pay licensing fees allowing them to broadcast music to customers using their facilities. But the Fitness Technology Licensing Council article says that AI services may allow gyms to provide customized music to their customers – without paying a traditional licensing fee.
Chris Mammen, D. Phil. is a veteran intellectual property litigator and thought leader in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. He has been litigating patents and technology cases since the start of the first dot.com boom in the late 1990s. With the growth of artificial intelligence, Chris has emerged as a leading commentator on both AI in intellectual property law, and ethical issues surrounding using AI in law practice.
