AI Artworks and Legality
When machines paint, who really holds the rights?
The first time I used an AI image generator a couple of years ago, I felt like I’d unlocked a cheat code.
But the more I played with it, the more I started to wonder: Who owns this stuff? Is it even legal?
Copyright: Not as Simple as It Seems
The copyright of AI-generated artworks is complicated. In the U.S., only humans can be considered authors under copyright law.
That means if I generate an image entirely with AI (just typing a prompt and choosing from the results ) I can’t claim copyright on it.
This was confirmed by the U.S. Copyright Office in 2023 in updated guidance: “non-human authorship” doesn’t count.
But if I take that AI output and work on it like combining images, editing by hand, or guiding the process in a meaningful way, then there’s a chance I can claim copyright.
The Bigger Issue: What about the stuff AI is trained on?
This is where things get messy. Most AI art models are trained on massive datasets scraped from the internet.
That includes copyrighted images, many of which are from artists who never gave permission.
I didn’t think much about this at first, but then I saw that Getty Images is suing Stability AI, the company behind Stable Diffusion.
They claim that millions of their images (including watermarks) were used without their consent.
The trial is set to kick off in the UK this year.
Bigger case?
Disney and Universal recently filed lawsuits against Midjourney, arguing that the AI can create images of characters they own, including Elsa, Darth Vader, and Minions.
What’s their claim? Midjourney is letting users generate derivative work that’s way too close to the originals.
How I’m Approaching AI Art Today
After reading up on all this, I’ve changed how I use AI in my creative projects:
- I avoid using AI models that aren’t transparent about their training data.
- If I use AI-generated images, I treat them as raw material, not final products.
- I always edit, remix, or combine elements manually so there’s a clear human input.
- If I sell or share the work, I make sure I’m not copying a known artist’s style or character.
Until the legal landscape catches up with the technology, I will choose to stay informed, stay creative, and be mindful of how I use these tools.
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