Generative artificial intelligence is transforming how cultural works are created, challenging a foundational premise of copyright law and artistic practice that creativity is inherently human. Systems capable of producing text, images, music, and code blur the boundary between human expression and machine-generated content, raising fundamental questions about authorship, agency, and the nature of creativity itself.

This paper examines the emerging distinction between AI-assisted works and AI-generated productions through an interdisciplinary lens combining copyright law, understanding of machine learning, and theories of creativity. While legal frameworks traditionally require that a work reflect the author’s own intellectual creation, generative AI systems complicate this assumption by reducing human control over the expressive form of outputs.

The analysis argues that AI systems do not possess agency or intentionality in the human sense, and their outputs are better understood as statistically generated artefacts rather than creative acts. At the same time, human interaction with these systems – through prompting, selection, and integration – introduces new forms of hybrid creativity that challenge existing categories.

Building on recent conceptual distinctions between (copyright) “works of the mind” and AI “productions,” the paper proposes a framework for distinguishing human and machine contributions in creative processes. It further explores how generative AI reshapes creative cognition, authorship practices, and cultural production.

By situating the legal debate within broader humanities discourse, the paper contributes to understanding how creativity is evolving in the age of AI and why preserving the role of human agency remains essential for both copyright systems and cultural development.

Authors:
Dino Gliha, Joint Law Office dr. sc. Marković, Grbavac & Gliha, Croatia

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Dino Gliha, AI & Intellectual Property strategist and patent representative with hands-on AI development experience. Interests: AI, copyright, creativity, and regulation. Current project: analysing authorship and creative processes in ML systems.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dino-gliha-1265a8120/

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