Eliza is a global nomad working as an Advisor for Innovation Ecosystem Development at King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi.
She is also an attorney with over 15 years experience in patent law as a patent examiner, patent agent, and patent attorney and over 6 years experience in government and academic research.
Guest Author: Eliza Stefaniw
You have probably experimented with generative AI like ChatGPT and MidJourney. You may even be using AI tools to help generate content for self-promotion or work tasks.
However, is content created using generative AI tools actually copyrightable in the Philippines? The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines has said that AI-generated works are not.
For most written and artistic work you create, you are the automatic copyright owner, unless you have been hired to do the work for someone else. However, Filipino copyright law requires the author of a copyrightable work to be a human. So copyright law lags behind technical progress.
The Philippine Intellectual Property Code is modeled on US Copyright law, which only allows for protection of works created with limited AI assistance.
So parts of your creation that you, a human, actually create can be protected; for example, if you write a story but get generative AI to illustrate it, only the story would be protected.
In the future, the Philippines may consider how to appropriately protect AI-generated content, whether it is through copyright law, allowing private parties to settle ownership by contract, i.e. through Terms of Use, or creating a new form of intellectual property.
Until then, read the terms and conditions and be aware that your AI-assisted creations may not have the copyright protection you’d usually expect.
