AI Content without the Human Touch Cannot be Copyrighted

 

The U.S. Copyright Office has published a new report titled Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Part 2: Copyrightability. The report states:

“In the Office’s view, the case has not been made for additional protection for AI-generated material beyond that provided by existing law. As an initial matter, because copyright requires human authorship, copyright law cannot be the basis of protection for works that do not satisfy that requirement.”

Key conclusions from the report include:

  • Questions of copyrightability and AI can be resolved under existing law, without legislative change
  • AI tools that assist human creativity do not affect copyright eligibility
  • Copyright protects original human expression, even if AI-generated material is included
  • Purely AI-generated content, or content lacking sufficient human control, is not copyrightable
  • Human contributions must be evaluated case-by-case to determine authorship
  • Prompts alone do not provide sufficient control for copyright
  • Human authors may claim copyright in perceptible contributions to AI outputs, including creative arrangement or modification
  • No case has been made for additional copyright or sui generis protection for AI-generated content

According to a news article, the Copyright Office received over 10,000 public comments, with the majority supporting the view that existing laws are sufficient for addressing AI-generated works.

If you’d like to review the Part 1 Report on Digital Replicas, click here.

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