Who owns the content created by AI?

IN THE age of generative artificial intelligence, creators, lawyers and companies are asking, "If I prompt an AI system to write an article or generate a picture, is it still my work?

- PREVIN VEDAN

Can that same AI system generate identical content for two different users and leave us both none the wiser? And what rights do I, as a South African creator, have to protect so-called AI-protected work"?

These questions are central to authorship, ownership and the future of our cultural economy.

Copyright in South Africa is governed by the Copyright Act 98 of 1978 ("the Copyright Act"), which grants the owner of original works the right to reproduce, adapt and distribute them.

The Act defines an "author" as a natural person and in limited instances, acknowledges "computer-generated works" where the "arrangements necessary for the creation" are made by a person.

However, the world of AI strains this definition. Recent articles note that while South African law may recognise human-assisted AI output, purely autonomous AI creations, which lack identifiable human creative input, fall into a legal grey zone.

Therefore, if you stand behind the prompt, editing and curating the result then you may claim authorship. If the AI does it all and you simply click "generate," then the work may not be protectable.

Imagine two journalists, Alice and Bongi, both prompt the same AI tool with "Write an opinion piece on workplace bullying in South Africa." They both receive near-identical texts. Who owns what?

Because South Africa lacks an explicit statute for AI-authored works, the analysis focuses on whether there is human originality and sufficient input. If both simply input identical prompts and do no further editing, the "author" argument weakens and the output may not be uniquely owned.