Where credit is due: Why Musk and Dorsey are wrong
“Delete all IP law.”
This was the call that Jack Dorsey (founder of Twitter) and Elon Musk (owner of X [formerly Twitter], Tesla, and SpaceX) put out a few weeks ago. They claim that intellectual property laws impose restrictions that stifle technological progress. At first glance, this is a compelling concept. Why not remove all legal restrictions in the field of intellectual property? But on further examination, it is a radical approach that has much more demagoguery to it than seriousness.
Imagine a world without cultural works by human creators: without the music of your favorite singers, without theater productions by your beloved playwrights, without films by the directors and actors you admire, without the TV series you’re dying to binge, and without books by the authors you yearn to read. Imagine a world where almost all cultural works are made by AI.
Why? Because no human creator would be willing to make the effort to create a piece, knowing that there would be no legal protection through which they could earn a living from their talents. This is the dystopian world that would follow if we listen to Dorsey and Musk’s: a world without intellectual property laws, which is also a world without the intellectual property we know, that we grew up on, that we raised our children on, and that we want to continue consuming.
The implications go beyond culture. Imagine a world without patents to protect the inventions in which time, effort, and resources were invested, from effective vaccines in accelerated development for pandemics like COVID, through technological solutions to threats on the battlefield or in cyberspace, to technologies that advance science and humanity in fields such as quantum computing, space sciences, climate, agriculture, and molecular development.
The statements by Dorsey and Musk are also disingenuous and are steeped in irony, considering that under their leadership, Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX have made sure to register patents on inventions and copyright on works of authorship. These contributed to the companies’ value, and Twitter even used its copyrights as collateral in a financing deal.
They also invoked their intellectual property rights in lawsuits against competitors and other infringers. Tesla has been sued for patent infringement in numerous lawsuits, and according to a recent report, it is considered the automotive company that faced the most lawsuits in 2024. This may be one of the reasons for Musk’s criticism.
The most significant technological advancement of our time is artificial intelligence (AI). Artificial intelligence is expected to bring about economic and social changes more profound than those we have seen so far. Here we need to admit honestly: Intellectual property laws are lagging in adapting to the age of AI. Therefore, improvements and updates to intellectual property laws in the face of this new technological reality are warranted.
In the field of copyright, optimal regulation is required for central issues that artificial intelligence raises. Who owns the copyright to an image, article, or software code created by artificial intelligence? Whether and in what way is it permitted to train an artificial intelligence model using content protected by copyright? Is an artificial intelligence model worthy of copyright protection, and if so, who are the rights holders? How should rights holders in works used to train artificial intelligence models be compensated?
Regulations should seek the right balance between the need to protect the rights of creators to give them proper incentives to continue producing their works and the need for the public to use those works for the purpose of advancing human knowledge, culture, science, and entrepreneurship.
Similar questions also arise in the context of patent law. For example, today an inventor must be human. So far, attempts have failed in patent offices around the world, including in Israel, to suggest that a machine be registered as an inventor. However, there are artificial intelligence-based tools that arguably assist in the invention process itself, and their use should be approved. Even today, extensive use is made of artificial intelligence tools to assist in summarizing, developing arguments, and expanding knowledge. Such use raises the question of who is the “Person Skilled in the Art.” This is a central criterion for examining whether a patent application meets the conditions of invention. How should we weigh the power of artificial intelligence into this criterion?
Complete abolition of intellectual property laws, as Dorsey and Musk called for, is the complete opposite of balance in the legal system of intellectual property. Improvements and updates to the laws, including on the issues we described — definitely yes. Abolition and elimination of the laws — definitely not.
This article was co-authored by Yoav Alkalay.
