World Book Day coincides with World Copyright Day, and today this date enters one of the most complex periods in history. Artificial intelligence is now capable of writing text, creating images, and mimicking authorial styles, which fundamentally changes the question: who is the author today and how are creative rights protected?
Who is considered an author under the law?
Lawyer Marek Oleksin, a partner at the SK&S law firm, points out that "from a legal standpoint, a work must be the result of human thought." This means that content created exclusively by artificial intelligence does not formally meet the primary requirement for copyright protection—it lacks human authorship.
However, the line between the creator and the tool is becoming increasingly blurred. When a person uses AI as an assistant to help edit text, generate ideas, or even partially write chapters, legislation has not yet clearly defined exactly where this line is drawn.
How the law is attempting to keep pace with technology
Experts note that current copyright laws in many countries are "chasing reality" rather than proactively understanding it. While there are plans to introduce the concept of AI-generated works into legislation, for now, the idea remains in the discussion phase.
In practice, employers and rights holders globally are facing the same challenge: how to secure rights for work already created using generative models that do not fit into conventional copyright definitions. Most often, this situation is being addressed through judicial practice, as seen in the US and Europe, where the first decisions on disputes over AI-generated content are being handed down.
AI content and risks to existing rights
The development of artificial intelligence is shifting the scale of creation and giving rise to new areas of risk. Generative systems are capable of processing vast quantities of existing works, which in practice increases the probability of the unauthorized use of copyrighted materials.
If a text can be generated in seconds and a writer's style reproduced via an algorithm, it becomes harder to identify what constitutes a unique human creative contribution versus what is merely borrowed or repackaged. Similar dilemmas are emerging in other fields—such as the protection of inventions and patents—where there is also ongoing debate over whether AI outputs can be considered intellectual property.
The future of the book as a copyrighted object
The very method of content creation is evolving: some text and illustrations are now automatically generated, while others are refined by human authors. Legislation has not yet fully kept pace with the rate of technological change, which is why the role of the courts and individual legal acts is becoming increasingly prominent.
Nevertheless, the question of who the author is and how to protect creative rights remains central. In the era of artificial intelligence, publishers, writers, and audiences continue to search for clear criteria that distinguish the tool from the creator and allow the book to retain its status as a distinct object of copyright.
