Generative artificial intelligence is not a mere tool: Revisiting Indonesian Copyright Law

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) is capable of creating original works with such a remarkable degree of autonomy that it makes no sense to be considered or analogized to traditional technologies that are merely used by humans. The human who provides the initial input (prompt) to the GAI does not make sense to be considered as the author of the GAI's self-created works. The internal characteristics of GAI that enable it to create its own works and the works per se challenge the four prevailing justifications in Indonesian Copyright Law: the biological humans, the idea-expression dichotomy, the Hegelian, and the Lockean justifications. This research finds the problem that there is a legal vacuum in the copyright regime in Indonesia regarding the legal status of GAI's self- created works. The research uses normative legal research method; with theoretical, symbolic logic legal interpretation––which assists in logical modeling of new legal provisions, comparative law, and conceptual approaches; this research aims to answer the legal lacuna which can be addressed with the proposed solution of placing GAI's self-created works as sui generis and should be put into the public domain with attribution given to GAI which is logically coherent, efficient, and in line with existing justifications and principles of copyright. However, this research also found that the Indonesian copyright regime itself does not formally acknowledge the concept of public domain, which complicates it compared to the United States Copyright Law, hence the urgency to revise it by adopting and adding a concrete formulation of public domain––as elaborated in this article––which is different from public domain in the informal sense, and then adding the formulation of attribution provisions to GAI.