New Legal Conundrums
New technologies are coming at us every day, some of them so novel that it's hard to fit them into traditional legal categories. We saw the rise of the first distributed databases with companies like Napster and Pirate's Bay. This was just an issue of sharing digital files. But technologies related to smart machines, automation and robotics, not to mention Blockchain, are going to raise a number of tough legal issues that haven't yet existed. Sure they were imagined in Science Fiction, but who knew they would arrive so soon?
Can Intelligent Algorithms be Copyrighted?
For example, one emerging controversy is whether or not to offer copyright protection to intelligent algorithms. Intelligent algorithms will do work of various kinds with little or no intervention from humans. And with machine learning, machines will be creating their own algorithms. Should smart machine generated algorithms be patentable or copyrightable?
Questions become even weirder when we talk about the legal status of robots and those who fall in love with them. If a person develops a parent-child or a love relationship with a robot and loves the robot can they have a legal relationship.
Can Robot Music Be Copyrighted?
In an article "Hard Rock and Robots Strike a Cord on the Music Scene" a robot band featured was a four armed drummerand a lead guitarist with 78 fingers.
In the following video Compressorhead Finger and Stickboy play TNT.
Image Courtesy David Orban on Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/5EVkUY