New Ways of Plagiarism? At the Meeting Point of the Specific Form of Co-Authorship and the Transparency Criteria of the EU AI Regulation

Abstract For decades, copyright law has been suffering from having to answer questions that are formulated in a coordinate system that is far removed from the context in which it was created, to which artificial intelligence (AI) has added a massive dimension. The present paper aims to draw attention to the fact that while the recent period has brought a strong scientific discourse on the distinction between AI-generated and AI-assisted content, dilemmas of methods of AI training, and on ethical issues, attention should be paid to related issues of practical, but also of dogmatic importance. On the one hand, it is necessary to examine what impact the current landscape and the EU’s (essentially non-copyright) ambitions will have, or are having, on fundamental copyright concepts such as what is considered a work of authorship, how the proof of copyright is evolving, whether presumptions can be used in this regard, whether the categories that have been considered as such can really be objectively assessed, and whether a turnaround is expected in this respect. On the other hand, looking prospectively, it is worth examining how the evolving transparency rules can be used to restructure and adapt copyright, and what effects can be anticipated, despite the fact that the field is under strong competitive pressure.