A technology company based in Berlin commissions a generative AI platform to produce marketing copy, product imagery, and a software module for its Romanian subsidiary. The output is commercially valuable. Then a competitor reproduces the content. The Berlin parent asks: who owns the IP, and what protection does Romanian law actually offer? The answer is less settled than most businesses assume.
Romanian intellectual property legislation conditions copyright protection on an original creative work produced by a human author. AI-generated output does not automatically qualify. Protection depends on demonstrating sufficient human creative involvement in directing, selecting, or shaping the output – a threshold that Romanian courts have not yet definitively defined.
This analysis examines the doctrinal foundations of copyright and related rights in Romania, the gap between existing statute and emerging practice, the interaction with EU-level AI regulation. Additionally. The strategic options available to international businesses that generate, commission. Alternatively, license AI-produced content in the Romanian market.
Doctrinal foundations: authorship, originality, and the human-creation requirement
Romanian intellectual property legislation follows the civil law tradition. Authorship vests exclusively in natural persons. The law does not recognise legal entities or automated systems as authors. This is a structural feature of the civil law model. it contrasts sharply with the limited copyright protection that common law systems such as the UK afford to computer-generated works where a human author cannot be identified.
Originality is the second pillar. Under Romanian intellectual property legislation, a work qualifies for protection when it reflects the author's own intellectual creation. This standard aligns with the EU threshold established through the broader body of EU intellectual property legislation and associated court guidance. The work must carry the author's personal stamp. A text or image produced entirely by an AI system – with no human shaping of expression – fails this test.
The difficulty is that most commercial AI deployments sit between these poles. A human operator selects a model, writes a prompt, iterates on outputs, and curates the final result. Whether that chain of decisions constitutes sufficient creative authorship is the central unresolved question. Romanian courts have not yet issued authoritative guidance on where the threshold lies. In the absence of direct precedent, practitioners apply the general originality standard analogically.
Related rights provide a partial alternative. Romanian intellectual property legislation recognises neighbouring rights for producers of databases, phonograms, and certain other subject matter. Where AI output is compiled into a structured database with substantial investment in obtaining, verifying, or presenting the content, database producer rights may apply. These rights do not require human authorship. They protect the investment rather than the creative act. For businesses generating large AI-produced datasets, database protection is often the more reliable instrument.
Software presents a distinct profile. Under Romanian intellectual property legislation – which implements the EU software directive – computer programs are protected as literary works. The source code generated by an AI system raises the same authorship question as any other AI output. However, where a human developer writes code that calls an AI model and integrates the output into a larger system, the overall software product may qualify for protection as the developer's own work. The AI-generated segments are treated as a tool rather than a co-author.
The gap between statute and practice: what Romanian courts and authorities face
Romanian courts have not yet issued decisions directly addressing AI authorship. The Înalta Curte de Casație și Justiție (Supreme Court of Romania) has not been called on to rule on the ownership of AI-generated content. Lower courts – the tribunale (county-level civil courts) and the curți de apel (courts of appeal) – have similarly not published reasoning on this point. This creates an environment of genuine legal uncertainty for businesses operating in Romania.
In the absence of AI-specific precedent, courts are likely to apply existing doctrinal tools. Two interpretive approaches compete. The first applies the authorship test strictly: no human author, no copyright. Under this reading, AI output that cannot be traced to identifiable human creative choices enters the public domain on creation. The second approach focuses on the human upstream of the AI system. Courts may find that a person who exercises meaningful creative control over an AI tool – through prompt engineering, selection, and refinement – is the author of the resulting work. The work expresses that person's intellectual creation, even if the technical execution was automated.
The second approach is doctrinally strained but commercially attractive. Practitioners in Romania note that the strict no-authorship reading creates perverse incentives: it rewards infringers who copy AI-generated content while penalising the businesses that invested in its creation. This policy tension may influence how courts develop the law once cases reach them.
Algorithmic accountability adds a further layer. Where an AI system produces content that infringes a third party's rights – by reproducing protected training data, for example – questions of software liability arise. Romanian civil legislation imposes liability on the operator of a system that causes damage. The precise allocation of liability among model developers, deployers, and end-users is unsettled. Businesses that deploy AI tools for content generation in Romania should document their due-diligence steps. This documentation becomes critical evidence if an infringement claim is raised.
The Romanian copyright administration body, Oficiul Român pentru Drepturile de Autor (ORDA – the Romanian Copyright Office), has not yet issued guidance specifically addressing AI-generated works. ORDA's registration system is voluntary and declaratory rather than constitutive. Registration does not create rights; it records a claim. For AI-generated content, registration may still serve a practical evidentiary function, provided the applicant can articulate a credible human authorship argument.
For international businesses with intellectual property interests in Romania, this absence of settled practice means that protection strategies must be built on multiple instruments simultaneously rather than relying on a single copyright claim.
The EU AI Act and its interaction with Romanian IP law
The EU AI Act entered into force in 2024 and applies directly in Romania as an EU regulation. Its phased implementation schedule means that obligations for general-purpose AI models and high-risk AI systems are becoming operative across 2025 and 2026. AI Act compliance is not an IP ownership mechanism. However, its requirements have significant indirect effects on IP strategy in Romania.
General-purpose AI models – the large language and image models used in most commercial content generation – are subject to transparency obligations under the AI Act. Providers must document training data and respect EU intellectual property legislation in the training process. Where a provider fails to comply, that failure creates grounds for liability in the jurisdiction where the harm occurs. For a Romanian business that purchases access to a non-compliant model, the downstream IP exposure can be material.
The AI Act also requires providers to publish summaries of the content used to train general-purpose AI models. These summaries, once available, will allow Romanian practitioners and courts to assess whether specific training datasets incorporated protected Romanian works without authorisation. This is a concrete shift in the evidentiary environment for IP litigation in Romania.
High-risk AI system deployers face additional documentation and conformity-assessment obligations. Where a business deploys a high-risk AI system to generate content that it then commercialises, its conformity records may serve as evidence of the human oversight exercised during the generation process. This is directly relevant to the authorship threshold: a well-documented human oversight process is stronger evidence of creative involvement than an undocumented one.
Digital services that distribute AI-generated content in Romania are also affected by the EU Digital Services Act, which applies alongside the AI Act. Platform operators must address notices of IP infringement. Their response obligations do not turn on whether the infringing content was AI-generated or human-created – the removal and counter-notice procedures apply equally. Businesses distributing AI content through digital services in Romania should have notice-and-takedown procedures that account for both regimes.
Practitioners advising on AI law matters in Romania observe that the interaction between the AI Act. The Digital Services Act. Additionally, the existing body of Romanian intellectual property legislation creates a compliance matrix that requires coordinated advice rather than siloed analysis.
To explore how AI Act compliance affects your IP strategy in Romania, reach out to info@ferrazwhitmore.com for a tailored assessment.
Cross-border implications for European businesses
Romania sits within the EU single market. IP rights that are valid in one EU member state are not automatically enforceable in others. Copyright under Romanian intellectual property legislation protects works in Romania. Cross-border enforcement requires either EU-harmonised rights – such as those available for databases or software under the relevant EU directives – or bilateral and multilateral treaty mechanisms.
For businesses headquartered in Germany, France, or the Netherlands that operate Romanian subsidiaries, the IP ownership question arises at the point of assignment or licensing. If the parent commissions AI-generated content and claims ownership, that claim must be supportable under Romanian law when the content is used or infringed in Romania. A technology licensing agreement governed by German law does not automatically produce a valid copyright assignment under Romanian intellectual property legislation. Each jurisdiction's requirements must be met independently.
A client accustomed to the common law approach – where computer-generated works can attract statutory protection without a human author – will find the Romanian civil law position more restrictive. The practical consequence is that IP portfolios assembled under English or Irish law may contain works that receive weaker or no protection in Romania. Portfolio audits should flag this gap explicitly.
Training data sourced from Romanian works creates an additional cross-border dimension. If a model is trained on Romanian literary, artistic, or scientific works, Romanian intellectual property legislation governs the licensing of those works. The text-and-data mining exception under Romanian law – which implements the EU copyright directive – permits mining for research purposes but applies more narrowly to commercial AI training. Businesses building or fine-tuning AI models on Romanian-language content should obtain appropriate licences rather than relying on the exception.
Enforcement across borders follows the general rules of EU private international law. A rights holder may bring proceedings in the Romanian courts where the infringement occurred or in the courts of the defendant's domicile. Judgments of Romanian courts are enforceable in other EU member states under the EU civil procedure regime. For AI-generated content that is distributed digitally across the EU, the infringement often occurs in multiple jurisdictions simultaneously. Coordinated multi-jurisdictional enforcement is more effective than sequential national actions.
For a comparative perspective on how these questions are addressed in another EU civil law jurisdiction. The analysis of AI-generated works and intellectual property in Portugal covers the parallel doctrinal landscape and highlights points of divergence and convergence.
For a preliminary review of your cross-border AI content portfolio and its treatment under Romanian and EU law, contact info@ferrazwhitmore.com.
Strategic recommendations and the path forward
Businesses generating or commissioning AI content for the Romanian market should treat the current doctrinal uncertainty as a structural risk to be managed, not a temporary gap that will self-resolve. Several concrete steps reduce exposure and preserve optionality.
First, document human creative involvement at every stage of the AI generation process. Retain prompt records, iteration logs, and selection decisions. These records form the evidentiary basis of a human authorship argument if challenged. The stronger and more specific the documentation, the more persuasive the claim.
Second, use written technology licensing agreements that explicitly assign all IP arising from AI-generated output to the commissioning party. The agreement should specify the Romanian law governing IP assignment, identify the human decision-makers involved in the generation process, and include representations about compliance with the AI Act and applicable training-data licensing requirements. Absent such an agreement, ownership is determined by the general rules of Romanian intellectual property legislation and civil legislation – which may produce an unexpected result.
Third, consider database protection as the primary instrument for large AI-generated datasets. Where the investment threshold is met, database producer rights under Romanian intellectual property legislation offer protection that does not depend on resolving the authorship question. This right lasts for a defined term from the date of completion of the database and can be renewed through continued substantial investment.
Fourth, register AI-generated works with ORDA where a credible human authorship argument can be articulated. Registration is not constitutive, but it creates a dated public record. In enforcement proceedings, that record shifts the evidential burden and signals a serious ownership claim.
Fifth, monitor the AI Act compliance posture of AI tool providers used in Romania. Non-compliant providers create downstream IP exposure. Procurement contracts for AI tools should include warranties of AI Act compliance, audit rights, and indemnities covering IP claims arising from training-data issues.
Sixth, review existing IP portfolios for works generated with AI assistance and assess whether those works are properly protected under Romanian intellectual property legislation. Many businesses have already built commercial assets on AI-generated foundations without pausing to verify their legal status. Identifying and addressing those gaps now – before a dispute arises – preserves the value of those assets.
The outlook over the next two to three years will be shaped by three developments: the full implementation of the AI Act's general-purpose AI model obligations. The first Romanian court decisions on AI authorship. Additionally, any legislative amendments to Romanian intellectual property legislation in response to the EU's ongoing review of the copyright acquis. Each of these developments may shift the balance in favour of – or against – protection for AI-generated works. Businesses that have built defensible IP positions now will be better placed to adapt as the law evolves.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Can an AI system hold copyright in Romania?
A: No. Romanian intellectual property legislation links authorship to natural persons. An AI system cannot hold copyright. Ownership may vest in the human operator, developer, or commissioning party, depending on the contractual and factual circumstances of creation.
Q: How does the EU AI Act affect IP rights in AI-generated content in Romania?
A: The EU AI Act imposes transparency and documentation obligations on high-risk AI systems and general-purpose AI models used in Romania. While it does not directly assign IP ownership, AI Act compliance records can serve as evidence of human creative involvement – which is the threshold Romanian courts apply when assessing copyright eligibility.
Q: What is the safest contractual approach for businesses commissioning AI-generated content in Romania?
A: Businesses should use written technology licensing agreements that explicitly assign all IP rights from the generator to the commissioning party. The agreement should document the human creative direction given to the AI tool. This dual-layer approach – ownership assignment plus creative-input documentation – is the most defensible position under current Romanian intellectual property legislation.
About Ferraz & Whitmore
Ferraz & Whitmore is an international law firm based in Lisbon, advising business clients across 46 jurisdictions. Our IP and technology law practice covers the full spectrum of AI-generated works, technology licensing, software liability, and AI Act compliance – including the specific challenges that arise under Romanian intellectual property legislation. Engaging a lawyer in Romania with cross-border IP experience is essential when AI-generated content forms part of a commercial portfolio that spans multiple EU jurisdictions. As a law firm in Romania and across Europe, we work with technology companies, institutional investors, and in-house legal teams who need results-oriented counsel across civil law and common law systems. Our practitioners have advised on digital services matters and algorithmic accountability questions across both EU and non-EU markets. The firm's Lisbon base provides direct access to EU regulatory regimes, while our common law expertise supports enforcement strategies in English-speaking jurisdictions. To discuss how Romanian and EU IP law apply to your AI-generated content strategy, contact us at info@ferrazwhitmore.com.
Disclaimer: This publication is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The information herein should not be relied upon as a substitute for professional legal counsel tailored to your specific circumstances. Ferraz & Whitmore assumes no liability for actions taken or not taken based on the contents of this material. For advice regarding your particular situation, please contact info@ferrazwhitmore.com.