Can AI be an Author under Copyright Law?: Revisiting the Concept of Originality in India

This paper investigates whether artificial intelligence (AI) can be recognised as an "author" under India's Copyright Act, 1957, and proposes rethinking originality amid the rise of generative AI systems. The Act's Section 2(d) ties authorship to natural persons or, for computer-generated works, "the person who causes the work to be created"—a 1994 provision inadequate for today's autonomous AI. Key cases, including the Indian Copyright Office's 2021 withdrawal of RAGHAV artwork registration, U.S. guidance mandating human creative control, and Beijing's emphasis on user refinement, illustrate the human-authorship requirement. The Supreme Court's "modicum of creativity" test in Eastern Book Company v. D.B. Modak (2008) reveals purely AI outputs lack protectable originality absent sufficient human input. Ongoing litigation like ANI v. OpenAI (2024–), alongside personality rights and deepfake rulings, protects human creators while exposing authorship gaps. The paper recommends amending Section 2(d), adopting a "human-centric modified originality" standard centred on "sufficient creative control," and issuing guidelines to balance AI innovation with human creative rights.