Copyright

This guide provides legal information but does not constitute legal advice.

What is Copyright?

Copyright is a set of protections afforded to the author of an original work.  In the United States, copyright arises from Article I, §8 of the United States Constitution, which allows Congress "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."  The specific laws governing copyright are found primarily in 17 U.S.C. §101ff., as well as court rulings that interpret this legislation.

NOVA Copyright Policy 234 has been subsumed into Intellectual Property Policy 235 

On the question of copyrightability of AI outputs from the U.S. Copyright Office’s report, Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability (published January 2025). This excerpt is from the Executive Summary, page iii.

Based on an analysis of copyright law and policy, informed by the many thoughtful comments in response to our NOI, the Office makes the following conclusions and recommendations:

The Office will continue to monitor technological and legal developments to determine whether any of these conclusions should be revisited. It will also provide ongoing assistance to the public, including through additional registration guidance and an update to the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices.

• Questions of copyrightability and AI can be resolved pursuant to existing law, without the need for legislative change.
• The use of AI tools to assist rather than stand in for human creativity does not affect the availability of copyright protection for the output.
• Copyright protects the original expression in a work created by a human author, even if the work also includes AI-generated material.
• Copyright does not extend to purely AI-generated material, or material where there is insufficient human control over the expressive elements.
• Whether human contributions to AI-generated outputs are sufficient to constitute authorship must be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.
• Based on the functioning of current generally available technology, prompts do not alone provide sufficient control.
• Human authors are entitled to copyright in their works of authorship that are perceptible in AI-generated outputs, as well as the creative selection, coordination, or arrangement of material in the outputs, or creative modifications of the outputs.
• The case has not been made for additional copyright or sui generis protection for AI-generated content.