Beyond Firewalls: Copyright, AI Content, and the Cybersecurity Reality Check

Abstract

Cybersecurity has historically been viewed as being a technical-based discipline such as firewalls, encryption and intrusion-detection systems245 . With the rapid adoption and spread of artificial intelligence (AI) in the creation of content, we have now entered a new phase of Digital Security, which combines copyright law with Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) at the intersection of AI-generated content with cyber security246. This chapter will show how the commonly-held view that cyber security is a solely technical discipline has blinded us to the fact that legal loopholes — many of which stem from AI-generated content — can represent significant threats to cybersecurity as well.
The introduction of generative AI has introduced disruptions to existing copyright systems, which have traditionally been structured around human authorship247. As a result, many questions remain about originality, ownership and liability for works created by AI, meaning that they exist in a legal grey area. Courts and legislators across the globe have struggled to apply established concepts of copyright law in the context of machine-generated creations, such as whether works generated by machines can be protected under copyright law and whether existing copyright holders have been infringed by the use of their protected materials to train the AI systems that produce these works248. These issues have major relevance to the cyber security space since malicious actors are using ambiguities in copyright as a means of perpetrating takedown abuse, spreading of misinformation and perpetrating data poisoning attacks through the weaponization of intellectual property disputes in cyberspace.
This chapter situates the issues discussed herein against the greater Cybersecurity Myth-Reality Divide. It will examine where copyright disputes interact with threats emanating from the cyber domain, showing how the lack of a clear legal framework erodes confidence in the digital ecosystem. It does so by relying on several increasingly prominent scholarly articles related to these matters, such as Jiang et al.'s Blockchain Enabled Approaches to AI Copyright Management249; Yang & Zhang's Economic Modelling of Fair Use and AI Copyrightability250; and Muthu's analysis of current Indian and International Copyright Law251 . As such, all sides will have access to both the global and jurisdictionally specific aspects of the challenge at hand.

The chapter will also argue that to achieve strong cybersecurity, it will be necessary to build upon both technical defences as well as strong legal and/or policy frameworks to meet the real-life challenges submitted by AI to traditional perceptions regarding copyright ownership.
Ultimately, the chapter will call for hybrid solutions that bring together law, technology and policy. By bridging the gap between the legitimate and illegitimate perceptions of ownership and the actualities created by AI-based content creation, the chapter aims to develop a blueprint for how to secure digital creativity in a world dominated by generative AI252 . The chapter will also assist in furthering the overall realm of Beyond Firewalls which highlights how to build a successful cybersecurity infrastructure through the recognition and mitigation of the inherent legal risks associated with digital innovation.

DOI - https://doi.org/10.65525/SVUP.9788199328631.2025.137-150