Artists can now copyright works created with the assistance of artificial intelligence, as per a recent report by the U.S. Copyright Office. This development is expected to pave the way for the increased utilization of AI tools in various creative industries such as Hollywood and the music sector.
The U.S. Copyright Office, housed within the Library of Congress, receives approximately 500,000 copyright applications annually, covering millions of individual works. With the rising trend of AI-generated works, the office has been increasingly tasked with registering such creations.
The report, released recently, emphasizes the importance of human creativity in the authorship of works eligible for copyright protection. Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter highlighted that works involving AI systems can still be protected under copyright law if they exhibit perceptible human creativity.
An AI-assisted work may be eligible for copyright if it reflects the artist's creative input. Additionally, if a human artist makes creative adaptations or modifications to an AI-generated output, it could also qualify for copyright protection.
While the report clarifies the copyright office's stance on AI-generated works, it maintains that fully machine-generated content will not be eligible for copyright protection. Simply instructing a chatbot or AI image generator to produce a work does not grant copyright ownership to the individual.
Notably, the report does not address the ongoing debate surrounding the use of copyrighted human works to train AI systems without proper authorization or compensation. Various entities, including visual artists and news organizations, have filed lawsuits against AI companies for copyright infringement.
Although the copyright office refrains from commenting on ongoing legal disputes, it has indicated that a forthcoming report will delve into the training of AI models on copyrighted works, licensing considerations, and the allocation of liability in such cases.
