All AI rules
Copyright
Do you own an image AI creates?
Two separate questions, and the answers differ:
- Copyright: in the US, protection needs human authorship. The Copyright Office says output from a prompt alone is not registrable, while human-authored parts of a work can be.
- Permission: what you may do with the file is set by the tool’s own terms, whether or not anyone holds a copyright in it.
What this means for marketers
Ownership under a tool’s terms is settled by the terms; copyright is the open part. Worth considering before a logo or campaign identity: have a designer meaningfully change the output and keep the working files, because a tool license will not stop a copycat.
Primary source US Copyright Office: copyright and artificial intelligence (Living agency page)
- Copyright Office report, Part 2: copyrightability (Part 2 report, January 2025)
Links checked September 25, 2026
More on Copyright
How we check this. *Beep Boop Bop 🤖 Never ever, ever legal advice.