Who Owns an AI-Generated Image? A Simple Guide to Copyright

Artificial intelligence image generators are one of the most exciting new tools for marketers and business owners. With a simple text prompt, you can use an AI image generator to create a unique, custom visual for your blog post, social media update, or advertisement. This technology offers a powerful alternative to generic stock photography. But as you start integrating these images into your brand, a critical legal question arises: Who actually owns this image?

If you use an AI-generated image as your company's new logo or as the cover of a book you're selling, do you have exclusive rights to it? Can you stop a competitor from using the same image? Can you register it with the copyright office? The answer to these questions is surprisingly complex and is at the heart of one of the most active and important legal debates in the world today.

Using AI-generated content without understanding the basics of the current copyright landscape is a significant business risk. This guide will provide a clear, plain-English explanation of the current state of AI and copyright in the United States, what it means for your business, and the practical steps you need to take to use these powerful tools safely.

Disclaimer: This article provides general information about a developing area of law and is not a substitute for professional legal advice. You should consult with a qualified intellectual property attorney for guidance on your specific situation.

The Core Principle: The Human Authorship Requirement

To understand the issue, we need to start with the foundational principle of copyright law in the United States. For a work to be copyrightable, it must be the product of human authorship. The U.S. Copyright Office has been very clear and consistent on this point for over a century. They have denied copyright to a work of art created by a monkey and to a song that was claimed to have been dictated by a spirit from the afterlife. The core idea is that copyright protection is designed to incentivize and protect human creativity.

This principle is the central pillar in the debate over AI-generated works. When you type a simple prompt like "a photorealistic portrait of a queen" into an AI tool and it produces an image, the U.S. Copyright Office's position is that the AI, not the user, was the primary 'author' of the work. And since the AI is not a human, the resulting image is not eligible for copyright protection. It immediately falls into the public domain.

The U.S. Copyright Office's Stance

The Copyright Office has issued specific guidance on this matter. They have stated that they will refuse to register works that are "produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically without any creative input or intervention from a human author."

They argue that a user who simply types a text prompt into an AI generator is not the 'author'. The AI is not a tool in the same way a camera is a tool. With a camera, the photographer makes a series of creative choices—lighting, framing, aperture, shutter speed—that are reflected in the final image. With a simple prompt, the AI is making almost all of the creative choices itself, interpreting the prompt and generating the image based on its training data.

So, as a general rule, if an image is generated entirely by an AI from a simple text prompt, no one owns the copyright. Not you, not the AI company. The image is free for anyone to use, copy, and modify.

The Exception: The 'Sufficient Human Authorship' Test

This is where things get more nuanced. The Copyright Office has left the door open for a work that incorporates AI-generated content to be copyrightable, but only if there is sufficient human authorship involved in the final product. The key is whether a human has taken the AI's output and transformed it into something new through their own creative efforts.

What counts as 'sufficient human authorship'?

• Probably Not Sufficient: Simply typing a very detailed prompt, or running the same prompt a few times and picking the best result.
• Might Be Sufficient: Taking an AI-generated image and making significant modifications in a program like Adobe Photoshop—changing colors, combining it with other images, adding your own illustrated elements.
• Probably Sufficient: Creating a graphic novel where you used an AI to generate the individual character images, but you, the human, wrote the story, arranged the panels, added the text, and designed the overall layout of each page.

In this last example, you wouldn't be able to copyright the individual AI-generated images themselves, but you could register a copyright for the completed graphic novel as a whole, protecting your unique arrangement, story, and compilation of the elements. The key concept is transformative use. Did you use the AI's output as a raw material that you then substantially transformed through your own creative labor?

What This Means for Your Business: Practical Guidelines

Given this legal landscape, here are the practical dos and don'ts for using AI-generated images in your business.

DO:

• Use AI for marketing materials. It is generally safe to use AI-generated images for blog headers, social media posts, and ad creatives. Since these images fall into the public domain, you are free to use them for commercial purposes.
• Check the AI tool's Terms of Service. This is crucial. While the copyright law is one piece of the puzzle, your relationship with the AI company is governed by the terms you agree to when you sign up. Most major tools (like those from OpenAI and Midjourney) grant you broad rights to use the images you create, including for commercial purposes. This is a vital part of understanding AI tool data security.
• Assume others can use your images. The flip side of you not owning the copyright is that no one else does either. It is theoretically possible, though unlikely, that a competitor could find and use the same image you generated. For this reason, it's risky to use a raw AI image for a core, long-term piece of your brand identity, like a logo.

DON'T:

• Don't use an AI-generated image as your primary company logo. A logo is a key piece of intellectual property that you need to be able to protect and have exclusive rights to. Since a raw AI image is likely not copyrightable, and you can't guarantee its uniqueness, it's a poor choice for a logo. Use AI for logo inspiration, but have a human designer create the final, unique mark.
• Don't assume you have exclusive rights. Never build a business strategy that relies on you having an exclusive copyright over an AI-generated image.
• Don't try to register a raw AI image with the U.S. Copyright Office. You are required to disclose the use of AI in your application, and if the work lacks sufficient human authorship, your application will be rejected.

The Bottom Line

AI image generators are powerful and safe to use for the vast majority of day-to-day marketing tasks. They are a fantastic way to create unique, custom visuals without the cost of a photographer or the limitations of stock photo sites. However, you must operate with the understanding that you are using content from the public domain.

For your most critical, long-term brand assets, like your company logo, the creative input of a human designer is still the best and only way to ensure you have a unique and legally protectable piece of intellectual property. Use AI as a tool to enhance creativity, not as a replacement for the human authorship that lies at the very heart of copyright law.