The Canadian Federal Court is requested to declare that only humans – not artificial intelligence – can be considered authors under Canadian copyright law.

This is the first legal case in the country testing how copyright law handles content artificially created, such as texts, images, and videos generated by systems like ChatGPT.

David Feuer, director and general counsel at the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa, stated that one of the goals of the clinic's work is to lay the “cornerstone” that only humans are authors under the law.

Feuer said the time to do this is now, given the volume of content being produced by artificial intelligence.

He emphasized that artificial intelligence and copyright are at a turning point, and we are at the beginning of a wave of content “being placed before us that is generated by artificial intelligence and not by a human.

He added, “It is important at this stage, before these things enter the commercial realm in a really serious way, to establish the rules.”

The case challenges a registration made two years ago by an intellectual property lawyer from India. Ankit Sahni used artificial intelligence to combine his own image of a sunset with Vincent van Gogh's painting The Starry Night, according to the court filing.

The application stated that in Canada, where the Canadian Intellectual Property Office grants copyright applications immediately and without verification, “Suryast” was granted copyright registration in 2021.

A spokesperson for Innovation Canada, where the intellectual property office is located, confirmed that the system is set up for courts to determine authorship.

He added, “A person who believes that a work has been registered in violation of copyright law can apply to the federal court, which can then issue an order to remove the registration from the record if that is an appropriate remedy.”

The spokesperson explained that the intellectual property office “takes no position on such matters.”

The law firm based in India listed in court documents under Sahni did not respond to a request for comment by the deadline.

This is one of the cases currently under consideration by the federal government, which is in the process of determining how copyright law addresses artificial intelligence.

In that consultation, Canadian creators and publishers asked Ottawa to do something about the unconsented and often unreported use of their content to train generative artificial intelligence systems.

Unlike the United States, which has seen multiple lawsuits, copyright holders in Canada have so far refrained from challenging this use in courts.

According to a proposal in the application, “major stakeholders in Canada may be waiting to see if Parliament will do anything with the consultations recently held,” or they may have decided that pursuing licensing plans is a better approach.