Browsing by Author "Widanapathirana, S. H."

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Open Access
Anthropocentricity and Copyright Protection; A Theoretical Emphasis on the Human Authorship Requirement in Copyright after Thaler v. Perlmutter
(School of Law, Faculty of Humanities and Sciences, 2025-10-10) Widanapathirana, S. H.
The rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has created new avenues for creativity across diverse fields. While expanding the horizons of creativity, AI has also introduced a plethora of challenges to the intellectual property law regime. Copyright protection, as a cornerstone of intellectual property law, safeguards the moral rights and economic rights of authors who create original artistic, literary or scientific work utilising independent skill, thought and efforts. Thus, creations generated by utilising AI models via prompting, conflicting notions surrounding the ownership and authorship of the rights attached to such creations have been subjected to extensive debates. The recent decision in Thaler v. Perlmutter by the Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia Circuit has decisively addressed the debate pertaining to the ownership of copyright in AI generated works. The judgement cemented the view that copyrightfor works that are generated by AI platforms cannot be attributed to the AI system itself,depicting the quality of anthropocentricity. Thus, by employing the doctrinal and explorative approaches in qualitative research methodology, this study methodologically evaluates the judgement in Thaler v. Perlmutter with the goal of developing a conceptual foundation for the domain of authorship and property rights for AI generated works. The study drew upon the natural rights theory and personhood theory of intellectual property law for the purposes pertaining to the evaluation. The findings depict that Thaler v. Perlmutter reinforces the necessity of human authorship for copyright protection portraying conformity with the theoretical underpinnings of intellectual property law. At the same time, the study recognizes emerging calls for legal reforms to accommodate the evolving nature of creativity motivated by AI-relatedtechnologies.
Open Access
Development of Children and Punishments; A Review on the Legal Framework Pertaining to the Imposition of Corporeal Punishments in Schools
(Faculty of Humanities and Sciences, SLIIT, 2022) Widanapathirana, S. H.
Corporeal punishments can be identified as an act of coercion that is utilized to ensure compliance and discipline, which can be traced a long way back in history. It is quite well known that the same is used in various degrees to discipline children at schools and even within the unit of family. However, research suggest that such punishments may lead to devastating negative effects on the well-being of children. Thus, the claims made suggesting the fact that punishments are imposed in the best interests of the children and thereby contribute to the effective development of children may be considered to be ineffective due to lack of evidence and due the severity of the consequences of imposing corporeal punishments. Thus, the purpose of this research was to conduct a dialogue on the capability of the branch of criminal law to ensure protection for children against acts of violence within the school system. To achieve the said objective, the application of Sections 308A (1995 Amendment) and 341 of the Penal Code, among various other legal instruments within the Sri Lanka jurisdiction, were considered through utilizing the epistemological approach and the black letter approach of qualitative research. The research findings exemplified the fact that the relevant Sections which were considered within the purview of the present research has potential in terms of ensuring protection for children from acts of cruelty within educational institutions, especially schools, yet, with room for improvement.