Authorship and Artificial Intelligence
Copyright in the Age of AI-Assisted Works
Questions about who—or what—can be an “author,” or what constitutes authorship, have never felt more urgent. As generative systems reshape the creative process, courts and the Copyright Office are grappling with whether, and to what extent, protection should reach works created with the assistance of artificial intelligence.
This program will begin with Cathleen Hartge, General Counsel of Runway—an applied AI research company that enables creators to craft AI-assisted film and video works—providing a walkthrough of Runway’s tools to illuminate how AI-assisted works come to life. Following the demonstration, Hartge, along with Professors Xiyin Tang and Ryan Abbott, will discuss how existing copyright standards apply to these emerging forms of creative production. This will include a discussion of Prof. Abbott’s role as lead counsel in the Thaler v. Perlmutter and Allen v. Perlmutter cases—the two earliest lawsuits testing the boundary of how much human creativity is needed to give rise to copyright protection. Together, our panelists will explore the contours of this area of law as it currently exists, and what the law should look like going forward.
Please join us for this timely conversation at the intersection of law, technology, and the creative arts—examining both the legal frameworks and the real-world stakes for artists, innovators, and the platforms that support them.
Cathleen Hartge is the General Counsel at Runway, an applied AI research company building the next generation of creative tools. Prior to joining Runway, Cathleen founded and built the legal department at Branch, after several years of private litigation practice at Munger, Tolles & Olson. Cathleen has a J.D. from Stanford Law School, a M.A. in International Business from Sciences-Po Paris, and a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University.
Ryan Abbott is an attorney and scholar whose practice and research focus on artificial intelligence and intellectual property law. He has served as lead counsel in the landmark test cases Thaler v. Perlmutter and Allen v. Perlmutter, as well as global litigation through the Artificial Inventor Project, which examines whether AI-generated works and inventions can qualify for copyright or patent protection. Abbott is also the author of The Reasonable Robot: Artificial Intelligence and the Law (Cambridge, 2020) and editor of Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence (Edward Elgar, 2022), along with numerous articles exploring how courts and agencies should address authorship, inventorship, and accountability when machines assist in creative or inventive work. He is Professor of Law and Health Sciences at the University of Surrey and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine at UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine. Abbott earned his J.D. from Yale Law School, M.D. from UC San Diego, Ph.D. from the University of Surrey, and B.S. from UCLA.
Xiyin Tang is a Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. She has previously served as a lead counsel for Facebook and an associate at Mayer Brown LLP and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP, where she worked on a variety of transactional and litigation matters in the technology, media, and entertainment sectors. Tang’s research focuses on the roles that technological evolution plays in the law of intellectual property. Her publications have appeared or are forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, New York University Law Review, and Yale Law Journal, among others. She received her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, and her B.A. from Columbia University.
2025-10-15 CLE Materials.zip
