The Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property has clarified its position on the protection of creative works generated by artificial intelligence, confirming in new guidelines it issued that legal protection under the copyright system is limited to works that include genuine and substantial human contribution.
The Authority explained that outputs produced entirely by AI tools without any significant human intervention do not fall within the scope of protected works.
This analytical document comes at a time when the world is witnessing a profound transformation in creative content production tools due to the rapid development of generative artificial intelligence.
Supporting Creativity
Through it, the Authority aims to enhance legal certainty and provide a clear vision for creators and practitioners in the creative sector, in line with technological innovations and supporting the creative environment in the Kingdom.
According to the guidelines, the decisive criterion for granting protection is “human originality,” a legal and philosophical concept that refers to the uniqueness resulting from human mental effort, personal expression, and creative choice.
The Authority based its position on an in-depth reading of the Saudi copyright protection system, which defines the “author” as the person who created the work, along with the associated moral rights and legal responsibility that can only be conceived in a human entity.
The Authority clearly distinguished between two main cases of AI outputs; the first is outputs produced by intelligent systems completely automatically based on simple input, which lack the condition of originality associated with human creativity and therefore are not protected.
The second case, which is more common, relates to outputs resulting from human interaction with AI tools, which may be eligible for protection if the user proves the existence of actual creative contribution.
Human Intervention
To determine the adequacy of human intervention, the Authority established several elements for evaluation, including “directive creativity,” which involves preparing precise and complex commands that substantially affect the form of the final work.
The degree of interaction and modification is taken into account, where the human uses the initial outputs as a raw draft and performs radical editing that reflects their artistic vision.
The process of selecting among multiple outputs and arranging them in an innovative manner is considered an intervention with authorial value if based on artistic and aesthetic considerations.
This position aligns with the most prominent international trends and judicial practices in advanced countries such as the United States, the European Union, Japan, and South Korea, all of which have confirmed that the absence of significant human intervention deprives the work of the authorship condition necessary for legal protection.
The Authority emphasized that these principles are not a binding regulatory reference but aim to clarify the policies it follows in evaluating applications.
It also acknowledged that future technological developments may require a comprehensive legislative approach at the national and international levels to deal with new patterns of independent AI outputs.
