TOKYO -- Japan looks to extend intellectual property protection to creative works produced by artificial intelligence, aiming to match other countries in coping with changing notions of authorship and use in the digital age.

The nation's copyright law protects creative works including music, literature and visual art from unauthorized use. But the law covers only productions "in which thoughts or sentiments are expressed in a creative way" -- a designation that does not apply to works produced via artificial intelligence with little human input or creative intent.

Legislative changes are seen as necessary to address advancements in AI. Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters, led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, will make recommendations as part of a broader policy plan to be released in May. A subcommittee report due out Monday will give some details on the process.

Business concerns

Rather than extending the copyright system, the policy body will look into a framework that handles works created by AI in a manner similar to trademarks, protecting them from unauthorized use through legislation prohibiting unfair competition.

The person or company responsible for a technological system that produces creative work would be granted rights to the results. Rights holders would be allowed to seek injunctions against or damages for unauthorized use, letting them more easily recover investment costs.

The framework is seen initially covering technologies such as systems that automatically compose music based on simple instructions. But the plan is to grant protection only to properties that achieve a certain degree of popularity or otherwise hold market value, in light of AI-based systems' ability to create an enormous body of work in a short time.

Strategy Headquarters also will consider legal measures to pave the way for more AI-based content production, such as changes to the copyright law that would let existing works be analyzed en masse and used as the basis for new properties without creators' permission. Though the collection and analysis of data involve the duplication of works, requiring that permission be sought in every case would make it difficult to process a massive amount of information.

Catching up

The push for legal revisions reflects Japan's emphasis on AI in its quest for equal footing with the U.S. and European nations in the Internet field. American and U.K. legislation already include ample leeway to address ownership of AI-made works.

The U.K.'s 1988 copyright law specifies that the author of a computer-generated work is "the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work are undertaken." Tests of that definition in court have resulted in rights over images produced by game software being awarded to the design company, for example.

U.S. law does not explicitly limit the notion of a copyrighted work to properties produced by humans. Ownership and the extent of protection are instead determined case by case based on factors including creative intent. For example, a federal court ruled in January that a monkey taking a selfie does not own the rights to that image.

AI authorship presents unique challenges. The sheer amount of work a computer can put out demands robust policies to prevent numerous frivolous lawsuits. Solving that and other tasks will be key as Japan aims to make its industry more competitive.