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OPINION
The evolving use of AI in AEC projects raises complex legal questions about authorship, copyright, and ethical responsibility. Authorship, AI, and the AEC industry
A recent legal case has highlighted important common ground shared by AEC projects and a selfie photographed by a monkey: both are governed by the laws of intellectual property and are confronting novel questions about authorship. In the United States, copyright law is a key component of intellectual property rights and serves a dual role of protecting creators’ original works from unauthorized use and reproduction while also promoting the advancement of knowledge and innovation. As the industry evolves with innovations in technology and process, architecture, and by extension the AEC industry, has been at the forefront of the evolution of copyright law and is now navigating a new critical practice issue: artificial intelligence.
Irina Rice, Esq., LEED AP
In considering AI’s application to our industry, it is crucial to remember that for a work to be copyrightable in the U.S., there must be authorship and the author must be human. U.S. copyright protects original works of authorship that are fixed in a tangible medium of expression. As a general rule, the author is the original person or people who actually create the work. However, authors can assign, give away, or sell their copyrights to new owners, and for works made for hire, authorship can automatically vest in other parties. The case of the photogenic monkey named Naruto, known as the “monkey selfie case,” illustrates the importance of authorship. Naruto took a selfie using
a camera set up and provided to him by a British photographer named Slater. Slater published the photos, and they went viral. Wikipedia uploaded the photo and tagged it as being in the public domain, reasoning that a monkey could not own a copyright. This initiated a legal battle over authorship, which settled in the U.S. but could receive different treatment in the U.K., posing problems for Wikipedia’s handling of the photograph – and raises questions of how to reconcile differing approaches to authorship across various jurisdictions when the internet is worldwide. While the monkey selfie case is a light-hearted
See IRINA RICE, page 10
THE ZWEIG LETTER DECEMBER 2, 2024, ISSUE 1563
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