AI-Assisted Works and Human Creativity: Insights from Recent Registrations in Kazakhstan

This post continues the discussion initiated in my recent contribution and turns from legislative developments to emerging administrative practice. In late 2025, two related AI-assisted works were registered in Kazakhstan at Qazpatent: the novel “Aisha against Albasty” and the prompt used to generate its content. This development brings to the forefront a fundamental issue for copyright law: how human creative contribution should be identified and assessed where a work is created with the assistance of artificial intelligence, particularly when administrative recordation precedes any judicial scrutiny?

Background: Copyright and AI in Kazakhstan

Kazakh copyright law is based on the classical principle of human authorship. Under Article 2(1) of the Copyright Law, an author is a natural person whose creative labor has resulted in a work of science, literature, or art, and copyright arises automatically upon creation without the need for registration (Article 9).

The AI Law does not introduce a separate copyright regime for AI-generated content but reinforces a human-centered model based on accountability and control over AI systems. Accordingly, content generated solely by artificial intelligence is not protected, while copyright protection for AI-assisted works is available only where a human creative contribution can be demonstrated, as required by Article 23(1) of the AI Law.

Competence of Qazpatent in Copyright Registration

Under Articles 9-1 and 9-2 of the Kazakh Copyright Law, Qazpatent acts as the expert organization responsible for maintaining the State Register of copyright-protected works. Its competence is limited to recording, amending, and annulling entries in the Register on the basis of an author’s application or a final court decision, and to issuing certificates confirming such entries. Registration is carried out within one working day following the submission of the required materials and does not involve a substantive examination of originality or authorship.

The First Registrations: From Rejection to Recognition

Kazakhstan’s first encounter with AI-related copyright registration occurred in 2023, when an applicant sought to register a graphic novel created using ChatGPT 3.5 and Kandinsky 2.2. Although a natural person was indicated as the author in the application, the work itself stated that both the text and the illustrations were created by AI systems. As a result, the information contained in the application conflicted with the content of the work.

Under the Rules approved by Order No. 104 of the Minister of Justice, an application for copyright registration must contain consistent information about the author and the work. Given that Article 2(1) of the Copyright Law defines an author exclusively as a natural person, the explicit attribution of creation to AI systems was incompatible with the claim of human authorship, which led to the refusal of registration.

The applicant subsequently amended the claim, asserting authorship only over the graphic novel as a composite work, without seeking protection for the individual AI-generated elements. On 19 October 2023, a protection certificate was issued for the graphic novel “Sparks of the Eastern Elephants: The Saga of Talismans and the Empire of Golden Peaks.”

Following the adoption of the AI Law, administrative practice developed further. Two AI-assisted works were registered at Qazpatent, the novel “Aisha against Albasty” and the prompt used to generate its content, each receiving separate registration. Unlike the 2023 case, these registrations were not framed as composite works and instead reflected an administrative willingness to record both the generated output and the human-authored prompt as distinct objects.

Registration Does Not Resolve Authorship or Originality.

Copyright registration in Kazakhstan is declarative rather than constitutive. A registration certificate merely confirms that a work has been recorded and does not finally determine authorship or originality, which remain within the competence of the courts. In judicial practice, the authorship and originality of traditionally human-created works are generally not questioned unless expressly challenged, in which case they are assessed on the merits.

Accordingly, current registration practice does not resolve the question whether AI-assisted works would withstand judicial scrutiny but reflects a more open administrative approach to recordation, while reserving the substantive assessment of originality for judicial determination in individual cases.

Human Creative Contribution in AI-Assisted Works: Unresolved Questions

Against this background, the central issue is not whether AI was used, but how it was used, as discussed in earlier posts on this blog (here and here). This question is likely to be decisive when an author seeks to establish copyright protection or to prove infringement by a third party.

Kazakh copyright law does not require novelty in an absolute sense but demands a minimum level of originality reflecting the author’s personality, including works created with assistance of AI, as provided by Article 23(1) of the AI Law. Its practical implications, however, remain unclear: there have been no reported court disputes in Kazakhstan addressing originality in AI-assisted works, and no established methodological or interpretative framework for identifying human creativity has emerged.

A related difficulty concerns the prompts themselves. Even if prompts are protected as copyrightable works, they do not predetermine or guarantee a specific output, as identical prompts may lead to significantly different results each time an AI system generates content. This variability further complicates the assessment of human creative contribution and the causal link between the prompt and the resulting work.

Implications for Authors, Applicants, and Future Disputes

These questions have practical implications for authors, applicants, and litigants. In the absence of methodological guidance, authors of AI-assisted works bear the burden of demonstrating human creative contribution, which makes documentation of the creative process important.

In infringement disputes, the unpredictability of AI outputs complicates the assessment of copying. As identical prompts may generate different results, establishing a causal link between a protected prompt and an allegedly infringing work becomes more difficult, which may limit the evidentiary value of prompts and shift the focus toward patterns of creative control rather than textual similarity.

The absence of judicial practice leaves uncertainty as to how Kazakh courts will approach these issues. Future cases will determine how originality and human creative contribution in AI-assisted works are assessed in practice, with implications for registration practice, enforcement, and litigation risk.

Photo by Daniil Komov on Unsplash