Are AI creations protected by copyright?
The copyright protection of work created using or by AI creations is still the subject of much debate. In the U.S. recently, the Copyright Office initially granted permission to register a work created using an AI tool. However, this registration with the Copyright Office was later revoked after considerable protest.
The same discussion is taking place in the EU. The consensus at the moment seems to be that AI systems may be able to create copyrighted output. They themselves cannot be copyright owners: Artificial Intelligence is not yet developed to the point where it can itself be a carrier of rights. The developer of the AI system in most cases will also not be the copyright owner of the output, but may be the copyright owner of the operating system or code behind the AI. In some cases, the user of an AI system, the person who commissions the system to develop something, can obtain copyright protection over its creations. This may be the case when enough creative choices are made, for example, in choosing the training data or the instruction given to the system. A situation in which a person develops a concept and enters a very original "prompt" for it may possibly involve sufficient creative choices to qualify. In such cases, the AI system is actually used as a kind of "tool," just as you use a brush or Photoshop, for example. But if an AI creation was created without relevant human creative input, copyright cannot be claimed for this output.