AI boom raises fresh copyright challenges for businesses
GEORGE TOWN: Paying for an artificial intelligence (AI) platform or writing the prompt does not automatically give businesses ownership of AI-generated content, an intellectual property (IP) expert has said.
Brandguard founder and CEO Visharad Venugopal Mannadiar said many businesses wrongly equate a licence to use AI-generated content with ownership of enforceable IP rights, exposing themselves to potential legal disputes.
READ MORE: Lawyer urges Copyright Act reforms to address AI-generated works, not AI Bill
“The first question is whether copyright exists in the output at all.
“Copyright law is built around identifiable authorship and original creative effort, so protection for a purely machine-generated result remains uncertain,“ he told theSun.
His comments come as the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO) conducts a public consultation on proposed amendments to the Copyright Act 1987, including the treatment of AI-generated content and the use of copyrighted works to train AI systems.
The consultation closes on Aug 14. Visharad said businesses should first determine whether copyright exists in the AI-generated output before considering ownership.
He added that they must then establish who owns the human contribution, which may depend on whether the work was created by an employee, freelancer or agency, as well as the contractual arrangements between the parties.
“The third question is whether the output is safe to use.
“An AI platform may give the business contractual permission to use an output, but that does not necessarily mean the business owns enforceable copyright or that the output does not resemble somebody else’s work.
“Permission to use an AI output is not the same as ownership of enforceable IP.”
He also said businesses adopting generative AI must understand the legal risks surrounding ownership, originality and copyright infringement instead of relying solely on the technology’s convenience.
Visharad said companies should also avoid depending on copyright protection alone and instead adopt a layered IP strategy to safeguard AIassisted creations.
He added that meaningful human involvement must remain central to the creative process, with the final work edited, refined, selected and shaped by a person rather than simply accepted from an AI system.
He also urged businesses to clearly define ownership through contracts with employees, designers, agencies and freelancers, conduct clearance searches before launching AI-assisted content, and strengthen protection through trademark registration, industrial design protection, development records and, when appropriate, voluntary copyright notification.
Visharad summed up the practical approach as “create, clear and control”.
“Create with meaningful human involvement, clear the output for legal risks, and control it through contracts, registrations and records.“
He said the amount of time spent producing AI-generated content should not determine authorship, adding that what matters instead is whether the individual exercised meaningful creative control over the final expression.
“A person could spend three weeks entering prompts without exercising meaningful control over the final expression.
“Another person may spend less time but make substantial creative decisions by developing the concept, controlling the composition, rewriting sections, combining elements, redrawing the output and deciding what the final work should look like.”
He also said someone who merely accepts the first AI-generated result has a relatively weak claim to authorship, while a person who directs and substantially shapes the final work has a much stronger claim.
“Treat AI as an assistant, not as the final decision-maker. The human must still be able to identify what they personally contributed.”
Visharad said he expects disputes involving AI-generated works to become more common, including cases involving synthetic voices, likenesses, imitation of distinctive creative styles and AI outputs that reproduce substantial parts of existing works.
“The central question in many cases will be accountability. Who selected the tool, who supplied the material, who approved the output and who benefited commercially from it?”
He advised businesses to adopt formal AI-use policies rather than merely keeping folders of screenshots of prompts.
He also called for amendments to the Copyright Act 1987 to provide greater legal certainty over AI-assisted works while balancing innovation with the interests of human creators.
Visharad said the law should distinguish between AI-assisted works and predominantly AI-generated works, while also clarifying how copyrighted material may be used to train AI systems.
“Malaysia should be pro-AI without becoming pro-piracy. The aim should be to encourage innovation while ensuring that human creators remain part of the economic value chain.”
