I'm pretty sure the law as it stands is robust enough to deal with these issues on the basis of similarity vs substantive difference. A cover usually sounds quite different to an original, enough so that a fan would certainly not consider them the same thing.
OTOH, simply using some well recognised phrases (not necessarily a sample) can infringe on the mechanical rights, which are the copyright on the composition as distinct from the performance.
Also consider fake paintings and photos. Recent cases have shown that even dong things like re-staging an iconic photograph or transferring the image to another medium can constitute copyright infringement. As ever, it comes down to the duck test, generally in the opinion of a judge.
An automated re-encoding of a movie would almost certainly be at least a derivative work (if say, you applied a deep-dream filter to each frame) or at worst a straightforward lossy copy like any other encoding.
In order to be considered a new work, there would need to be some substantial reinterpretation of the original. It shouldn't matter whether that reinterpretation is done dy a human or AI, but current AI just isn't capable of doing that yet.
Disclaimer: IANAL, so treat my understanding of copyright law with the usual level of scepticism applied to Internet comments.
So then the algorithm for creating a cover should include a way to detect whether the song is still within the sphere of similarity. This could be used, for example, to iteratively come to a point where the song is no longer considered similar.
The AI can get as close to the similarity line as possible without infringing on copyright and make the final output even better. This could be applicable for everything from music to patented product designs.
Lyrics excluded, there are plenty of human cases where the cover of a song ends up better and more popular than the original. Hell, many of the most well known singers aren't even very good but just a lot better at marketing than say a classically trained opera singer.
Rather than having a conversational AI that can answer complex question the most immediate and low hanging commercial fruit for AI based companies may very well be along the lines of sucking up intellectual property and spitting out stuff that is as good or better. This might sound like theft but it is exactly what every human content producer is doing.
OTOH, simply using some well recognised phrases (not necessarily a sample) can infringe on the mechanical rights, which are the copyright on the composition as distinct from the performance.
Also consider fake paintings and photos. Recent cases have shown that even dong things like re-staging an iconic photograph or transferring the image to another medium can constitute copyright infringement. As ever, it comes down to the duck test, generally in the opinion of a judge.
An automated re-encoding of a movie would almost certainly be at least a derivative work (if say, you applied a deep-dream filter to each frame) or at worst a straightforward lossy copy like any other encoding.
In order to be considered a new work, there would need to be some substantial reinterpretation of the original. It shouldn't matter whether that reinterpretation is done dy a human or AI, but current AI just isn't capable of doing that yet.
Disclaimer: IANAL, so treat my understanding of copyright law with the usual level of scepticism applied to Internet comments.