Is AI-generated content copyrighted?

Can AI-generated content be copyrighted?

If users of GenAI platforms don't know what content the tools were trained on, then they might hesitate to adopt these platforms in case their AI-generated content is already copyrighted and doesn't fall within fair use.

The U.S. Copyright Office has now provided more detailed guidance on this topic. In a January 2025 report, the office said AI-generated outputs can be protected by copyright only where a human author contributes sufficient expressive elements, such as through creative arrangements or meaningful modifications. A prompt by itself is generally not enough.

Thus far, the Copyright Office, in line with existing case law, has explained that for a work to be afforded copyright protection in the U.S., it must have a human author. Yet, Siegel said he is not sure what that means in the world of AI.

"If the only human involvement is the input of a chat prompt into ChatGPT, for example, one cannot obtain copyright protection for the raw result of that prompt," he said.

On the other hand, if a user inputs a prompt into an AI tool, gets a response and then modifies the result in creative ways, that can potentially result in content afforded copyright protection. However, only human-authored parts of the work can be copyrighted.

In other words, AI can be a tool authors use to generate materials and create copyrighted works. "But that is a far cry from what most people think about when considering whether AI-generated content can be copyrighted, which is traditionally focused on copyrighting raw outputs," Siegel said.

If the only human involvement is the input of a chat prompt into ChatGPT, for example, one cannot obtain copyright protection for the raw result of that prompt.

What is considered copyright infringement for AI-generated content?

Users might wonder whether AI-generated content trained on protected intellectual property constitutes copyright infringement. That question remains unsettled, even as courts have started issuing major rulings in cases involving books, images and music. For example, in early 2023, TikTok, Spotify and YouTube removed an AI-generated song that mimicked the voices of rapper Drake and R&B artist The Weeknd. However, the implications for AI-generated content less similar than this example are unclear.

A copyright infringement inquiry begins with the long-established test of access and substantial similarity, according to William Scott Goldman, managing attorney and founder at Goldman Law Group. Overall, this means the case would have to prove that the AI or a human read the content and that it's similar enough to convince a jury it was copied.

"Although there is no established case law for generative AI just yet, I believe without clear-cut proof of access, such infringement claims will fail unless the copying in question is deemed identical to the original," Goldman said.

However, Goldman also said he believes copyright owners and plaintiffs could assert unauthorized use, especially if this use is not considered de minimis -- too small to be considered meaningful -- and the resulting work is substantially similar to the original.

Once both issues have been demonstrated, the case would turn on a fair use defense. GenAI could be considered a derivative work under existing copyright law if it contains sufficient original authorship, Goldman said.

Courts now grapple with whether AI-generated content differs enough from the originals under existing fair use precedents.

In June 2025, federal judges ruled for Anthropic and Meta in separate lawsuits over using books to train AI models. Those rulings were important, but both were narrow and fact-specific. The Anthropic decision found fair use for training on lawfully acquired books while leaving piracy-related questions for trial, and the Meta ruling emphasized that unauthorized AI training could still be unlawful in many circumstances.

Lawsuits over AI-generated content

Various lawsuits regarding AI-generated content and GenAI tools have started to make their way through the courts -- both related and unrelated to copyright.

In November 2022, programmers filed a class-action lawsuit against GitHub, Microsoft and OpenAI focusing on breach of contract and privacy claims. In January 2023, the same law firm also filed a class-action lawsuit related to AI-generated image services, such as Stability AI's Stable Diffusion, Midjourney and DreamUp, which raises copyright infringement issues.

A few days later, Getty Images also filed a lawsuit relating to Stable Diffusion, arguing the service had "copied more than 12 million photographs from Getty Images' collection, along with the associated captions and metadata, without permission from or compensation to Getty Images," according to the lawsuit. In July 2023, Sarah Silverman and other authors sued OpenAI and Meta, claiming the GenAI training process infringed on the copyright protection of their works.

These lawsuits differ in important ways, according to Siegel. Stability AI allegedly uses images from the web to train its models. As a result, Getty's customers arguably have less need to license more images from Getty. This gets at the heart of copyright law, which is to incentivize people to develop creative works. Photographers and artists might be less willing to spend time and resources developing photos and images if those are used to train AI to replace them.

"If you are a photographer, would you be willing to spend your time and resources creating photos if those photos were going to be used to train an AI model, without compensation or permission, and potential licensees of your images could simply go to the AI model instead? Doubtful," Siegel said.

The Silverman case against OpenAI and Meta centers around the ability to provide summaries of books without permission to create derivative works from the authors. Siegel said this case differs from the Getty Images one because its use is similar to CliffsNotes, which is considered fine because people can still buy the book to get the full story.

How will AI change copyright laws?

In the near term, AI copyright disputes will likely continue to be shaped by a combination of court rulings and Copyright Office guidance on authorship, fair use and AI training. Most AI companies still rely on fair use to justify how they train their models, but that remains a contested and highly fact-specific area.

"To the extent the U.S. wants to foster the development of AI businesses, the laws around the use of copyrighted works in training AI models need to be sufficiently clear that even an early-stage startup can predictably determine whether their business model will run afoul of copyright laws. We are not even close to that point," Siegel said.

Overall, AI is changing copyright law. It is causing the legal system to define what constitutes authorship and how to protect human-generated content even if it contains AI-generated content, said Robert Scott, managing partner and Scott & Scott LLP.

In the U.S., the Copyright Office guidance states that works containing AI-generated content are not copyrightable without evidence that a human author contributed creatively. Future guidance and court rulings may further clarify the level of human contribution needed to protect works containing AI-generated content.

Editor's note: This article was updated in March 2026 to reflect current U.S. Copyright Office guidance and recent court rulings on AI-generated content and copyright questions.

George Lawton is a journalist based in London. Over the last 30 years, he has written more than 3,000 stories about computers, communications, knowledge management, business, health and other areas that interest him.