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The rapid advancement of technology has spurred a significant shift toward digitalization, impacting various aspects of our daily routines (Sivathanu & Pillai, 2019; Iyamu, 2020). Currently, there is a great focus on technology, which has generated many challenges (Ghazi & Alsamara, 2023; Khater, 2023). One of these challenges is AI, which is considered a new strategy of digital transformation (Azar et al., 2023). AI is involved in different areas, including copyright. Copyright is a type of intellectual property (IP) that gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights to use and distribute that work. Copyright law protects works of authorship, such as books, movies, music, and websites. It also protects inventions, such as software, business methods, and industrial designs (Almarzouqi & Albakjaji, 2022). For many years, copyright law has been an important tool for protecting the IP of creators. As technology evolves, new forms of IP are created. The recent development of AI presents new challenges and opportunities for copyright protection. The current copyright laws do not fully account for the unique properties of AI works.
IP can relate to artificial intelligence (AI) in protecting patents, trademarks, copyright, and industrial design. IP also extends to trade secrets and confidential information, showing the importance of data analytics. An example of this is that AI machines can build subject matter that can be protected by IP. AI machines can easily produce artwork, write a piece of literature, build an object (and maybe even print it in 3D), or establish a new brand name. It is also foreseeable that an advanced AI system could be responsible for creating new inventions or medicines that could attract copyright protection. Copyright will protect some of these works but not all of them. The question is: which ones? One of the hurdles is that copyright law requires a work to be original to be protected. This means that the work must not have been created by someone else previously. This is a difficult hurdle for AI because many things that are considered “original” in humans—like creativity and imagination—are often generated by AI.
Forms of IP and the ownership of matter generated by AI are hot topics. In general, the first owner of a copyrighted work is the author, the person who made the work. Furthermore, the first owner of such a design right is the designer, and the initial owner of a patent is the inventor. In all of these cases, ownership is related directly to the creation of the subject matter.
AI has become a challenge, not only at the national level but even at the international level (Albakjaji & Almarzouqi, 2023). This research discusses one of the contemporary AI challenges. The new technology makes the current law unable to keep updated with technological developments (Feltus, 2019; Tripathy & Mishra, 2017; Albakjaji & Adams, 2016; Meskic et al., 2021). The challenge is that current IP laws are not up to the task and must be amended to keep up with evolving technologies (Albakjaji et al., 2020; Almarzouqi & Albakjaji, 2022).
The objective of this paper is to focus on the issue of copyrighting creations by AI. It aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and issues involved in copyrighting AI works. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a key player in the development of AI and has been working to develop a comprehensive IP policy that will protect its IP rights. The study examines how KSA approaches the issue of copyrighting AI works, what policies are currently in place to protect these works, and how Saudi IP Laws are applied in copyrights when AI is involved.