AI Is Still Copyrightable
ASCAP recognizes both the exciting new possibilities and challenges that generative AI technology raises for creators. The new guidance supports ASCAP's first AI principle: Human Creators First. Among the key findings:
- Questions of copyrightability and AI can be resolved pursuant to existing copyright 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. Based on the functioning of current generally available technology, user prompts to generate AI materials do not alone provide sufficient control.
- Whether human contributions to AI-generated outputs are sufficient to constitute authorship must be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.
- Human authors are entitled to copyright protection 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 beyond the rights currently provided in the Copyright Act.