US Copyright Office Softens its Stance Toward Registering AI-Generated Artworks

The United States Copyright Office has issued a new report clarifying its stance on AI-generated artwork. Creatives using AI tools will now enjoy greater flexibility when seeking to register their works.

The Copyright Office maintains that protection will only be afforded to works that have meaningful human authorship: purely AI-generated content will not be eligible. However, AI-generated content that contains evidence of a human’s creative choices can still qualify for protection.

AI image generators work by receiving inputs or prompts: the Copyright Office says that these commands nor the outputs meet the threshold for authorship. However, if the human author adds or changes specific elements to the pictures using AI tools — commonly known as inpainting or remixing — then “such modifications rise to the minimum standard of originality required.”

“Where that creativity is expressed through the use of AI systems, it continues to enjoy protection,” says the director of the office, Shira Perlmutter, in a statement.

The Copyright Office, which sits in the Library of Congress and is not part of the executive branch, receives roughly half a million copyright applications per year. It takes candidates on a case-by-case basis and this report will assuage some fears.

For example, photographers who add or subtract elements from a photo using the AI-powered Generative Fill tool should still be afforded protection since they have made creative choices.

Similarly in Hollywood, filmmakers using AI tools — such as Oscar-nominated The Brutalist which received criticism for using AI to fill in language gaps — can rest a bit easier.

The 41-page report follows an open consultation in which the office took opinions from thousands of people connected to AI in someway — including photographers.

The Office stresses that it will continue to consider applications on a case-by-case basis while monitoring technological and legal developments.

It has so far avoided weighing into the other contentious copyright issue surrounding AI: whether it’s fair use to take copyrighted content without permission and use it to train AI systems. ABC News notes that the Copyright Office is working on another report that “will turn to the training of AI models on copyrighted works, licensing considerations, and allocation of any liability.”

Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.