Copyright in Images Created by AI
The question sounds simple, yet no major jurisdiction has an unambiguous answer. What exists is settled practice, and it differs noticeably from place to place.
The governing principle
Copyright traditionally protects the product of human creative labour. An image obtained by pressing a button with no creative contribution receives no protection in many countries — it belongs to no one and may be used freely.
Where the line runs
The argument is over what counts as a creative contribution. Phrasing a request? Selecting one option from a hundred? Subsequent reworking? Practice is settling on the view that substantial manual rework creates a protectable result, while a single text prompt does not.
What is reliably protected
- Your original photograph — protected as an ordinary work
- The composition you built while shooting
- A substantially reworked result where the authorial contribution is visible
- A body of work as a compilation — even if individual elements are unprotected
Other people's images in training
A separate tangle: whether it is lawful to train a model on protected work without rightsholders' permission. Litigation is under way in several countries, and the outcome will set the rules for years. For now it is safer to assume that training on your own material raises no questions, and training on someone else's does.
The practical conclusion
Keep your originals and intermediate versions. They prove your contribution both in a dispute over authorship and in a dispute over provenance. Without them any position is unprovable.
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