Marcinoska-Boulangé - Labour and employment law

Artificial intelligence has burst onto the business scene: it assists with writing e-mails and taking notes, creating products and services, and even designing advertising materials. The operational benefits for employers are undeniable, but they are accompanied by serious risks regarding copyright and other intellectual property rights. We identify quite a few in our practice. Below, we highlight two key areas that have become shrouded in certain myths and misconceptions.

Employers frequently find no need to include provisions in employment contracts that regulate copyrights to work produced by an employee. They rest on the general principle that the employer automatically acquires economic copyrights to work created in the course of performing assigned tasks1 or that the right to them arises to his benefit by law (as in the case of computer software)2. Therefore, regulations in an employment contract are unnecessary. This is obviously true to a certain degree. The devil nevertheless lies in details. If an employer solely rests on statutory provisions, he may...