Main trends in ensuring legal protection of copyright and related rights in the digital environment

The article is dedicated to the study of the peculiarities of legal protection of copyright and related rights in the context of the digital environment. It proposes to consider the digital environment as a unique and modern space in which processes related to the processing, storage, and transmission of information, as well as its direct creation, take place. It is noted that judicial protection of violated copyright in the Internet network is often ineffective due to the lack of specialization among judges and the unresolved issue regarding the functioning of the Higher Court for Intellectual Property Matters. It is established that Internet piracy is one of the most widespread violations of copyright and related rights on the Internet, significantly affecting the author’s ability to exercise intellectual property rights and generate income from the economic potential of their created work. Based on an analysis of the legal definition of Internet piracy, it is concluded that defining all unauthorized methods of using a work as piracy significantly broadens the scope of this concept. The author states that today, the starting point for determining the protectability of works created with the help of artificial intelligence technology is the level of human intellectual creative activity involved in optimizing the process of creating a specific intellectual property object by using AI to enhance the effectiveness of the creative concept’s realization. The following vectors of essential and substantive transformation of legislation in the field of copyright and related rights are highlighted in the context of the development of information technologies and the use of the digital environment for the creation, placement, and distribution of creative works: improvement of the legal protection mechanism for copyright and related rights objects on the Internet; ensuring a balance between the interests of authors and Internet users; refining the legal regulation of the status of objects created using AI without human creative activity; harmonizing national legislation with the legislation of the European Union; ensuring the effective functioning of the Higher Court for Intellectual Property Matters.