US Copyright Office Issues Landmark Ruling on AI-Generated Art

The US Copyright Office's new ruling on AI art is here - and it could change everything

Last week, the US Copyright Office released its detailed report and comprehensive guidelines on the issue of copyright protection and AI-generated work. For a government legal document, it is a fascinating exploration of the intersection of artificial intelligence and the very concept of authorship and creativity. The study's authors conduct a deep dive, taking in comments from the general public and experts alike, and producing an analysis of what it means to creatively author a work. Also: How to use Microsoft Image Creator to generate and edit stunning AI images for free They then explore the issue of whether an AI-generated work versus an AI-assisted work is subject to copyright protection, and what that means not only for individual authors but also for the encouragement of creativity and innovation in society as a whole. This is the second of what will be a three-part report from the Copyright Office. Part 1, published last year, explored digital replicas, using digital technology to "realistically replicate" someone's voice or appearance. Part 3 is expected to be released later this year. It will focus on the issues of training AIs using copyrighted works, aspects of licensing, and how liability might be allocated in cases where a spectacular AI failure can be attributed to training (which sometimes results in litigation). As it turns out, copyright -- or at least the protection of the rights of creators -- was considered so important by America's founding fathers that it was listed in the Enumerated Powers clause (Article 1, Section 8) of the US Constitution. To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries As a matter of priority, the powers to collect taxes and coin money were listed before the copyright clause, but declaring war, raising an army, and maintaining a navy were listed after the protection of creative rights clause. In the minds of the framers, copyright wasn't just about the ability to collect royalties and make some cash; it was about promoting the progress of science and (and I love this) the "useful" arts. Silly arts, they didn't care about. But useful arts, those need protection. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide whether to consider blogging like I'm doing here to be "useful" or not! Also: The best AI image generators Their point in protecting rights to creativity was to push progress forward, and they recognized that some creators needed incentive to do that -- basically, to be able to make a living or build a business based on their creative endeavors. I'd love to know what Thomas Jefferson and old Ben Franklin would have made of ChatGPT! Prior to issuing the report detailing the Copyright Office's determination about AI and copyrights, the agency issued a Notice of Inquiry, where they invited comments on AI-related policy issues. A Notice of Inquiry, when properly framed and processed, is a great way for a federal agency to involve the public and gain insights from a wide range of individuals and organizations. The agency asked five key questions that are reflected in their final determination. Those questions were: The Copyright Office received more than 10,000 comments, about half of which directly addressed the above questions. Throughout the agency's report, the authors refer to specific comments made by citizens in response to this Notice of Inquiry. Also: New mystery AI image generator bests Midjourney and DALL-E 3 - how to try it The full report answers all the questions above, and we'll cover those answers through the rest of this article. The Copyright Office determined, "Questions of copyrightability and AI can be resolved pursuant to existing law, without the need for legislative change." This is a fairly important and heavily emphasized element of the overall report. Basically, the question was whether new legislation would be required to incorporate the AI-related issues, or whether existing law could be applied to the new technology. The Copyright Office maintained that the existing law has been flexible enough to incorporate new technology, having added other media and methods of creativity over the years. Also: How to use AI to create a logo for free The Copyright Office also determined that, "The case has not been made for additional copyright or sui generis protection for AI-generated content." Sui generis, for those who don't have a Duolingo Latin subscription, means one of a kind or unique. Basically, the Copyright Office doesn't believe that AI-generated copyright issues need unique legislation or protection. The Copyright Office determined, "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." In other words, if you choose to use a computer keyboard to write an article instead of a pen and ink, you can still copyright your writing. The issue at hand is whether the technology sufficiently separates the author from their creation such that the creation isn't human-inspired or driven. Also: What to know about DeepSeek AI, from cost claims to data privacy We'll come back to this question for more comprehensive generative AI, but the Copyright Office was clear that a tool used to help creativity (like, for example, an automatic masking tool in a video editor) is not, itself, a disqualifying factor. The Copyright Office made two related determinations here: 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. At the core of their determination is existing copyright law, which the Office does not believe needs to be modified for the case of generative AI. Existing copyright law is for the benefit of humans. As a result, they believe that whatever work is copyrighted must have been substantially created by a human, not by another entity. Also: Are ChatGPT Plus or Pro worth it? Here's how they compare to the free version What this means is that the bulk of the creative process must have gone through the human thought process and human activity, as opposed to the bulk of the creative process being created or generated by artificial intelligence. The official title of the head of the US Copyright Office is Register of Copyrights. Way back in 1965, long before generative AI was anything more than an idea in an Isaac Asimov novel, then Register of Copyrights Abraham Kaminstein did a bit of a deep dive into considering the relationship between human authorship and machine generation. He said: The crucial question appears to be whether the "work" is basically one of human authorship, with the computer merely being an assisting instrument, or whether the traditional elements of authorship in the work (literary, artistic, or musical expression or elements of selection, arrangement, etc.) were actually conceived and executed not by man but by a machine Using this as precedent, the Copyright Office determined that prompts, just on their own, do not show enough human workings to be protected by copyright. The determination is, "Based on the functioning of current generally available technology, prompts do not alone provide sufficient control." Here, the issue becomes a bit of a challenge. The Copyright Office, in the report, stated: Where AI merely assists an author in the creative process, its use does not change the copyrightability of the output. At the other extreme, if content is entirely generated by AI, it cannot be protected by copyright. Between these boundaries, various forms and combinations of human contributions can be involved in producing AI outputs. Copyright is something of a you'll-know-it-when-you-see-it sort of protection. This is why copyright disputes end up in court on a regular basis. There are specific factors, though. For example, in Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 US 340 (1991), the US Supreme Court ruled that ideas or facts, of themselves, are not protectable by copyright law. Additionally, the mere act of doing hard work to create something does not justify copyright. The court determined that "sweat of the brow" wasn't enough to qualify. But almost any creative effort on the part of a human does open the door to protection. The court stated, "The requisite level of creativity is extremely low; even a slight amount will suffice. The vast majority of works make the grade quite easily, as they possess some creative spark, 'no matter how crude, humble or obvious' it might be." Also: OpenAI launches new o3-mini model - here's how free ChatGPT users can try it In this context, the Copyright Office ruled that current law allows for determinations on whether there's a humble or crude spark of human creativity. The report stated, "Whether human contributions to AI-generated outputs are sufficient to constitute authorship must be analyzed on a case-by-case basis." This issue was debated over a century ago, in 1884. In Burrow-Giles Lithographic Company v. Sarony, 111 US 53 (1884), the US Supreme Court examined whether a machine-produced image, like a photograph, could be considered the result of human creativity. Keep in mind that a photograph is not created by human hands. If anything, it is created by light, and electronics or chemicals. There are some optics involved as well. The image created is the result of light during a very small fraction of a second, processed by what is essentially a machine. Unlike in 1884, our images are usually stored by computer. The only participation of a human in a photograph is choosing where to point the camera, perhaps what lens to put on the camera, which image to present to the public, and when to take the picture. In the case of smartphone pictures, as well as many point-and-shoot standalone cameras, the human involvement is rarely more than a millimeter's flex of an index finger. The Court ruled, however, that there were creative actions undertaken by the photographer, including posing a subject, costuming, set design, and other aspects of portraiture. For a nature photographer, control involves choosing the direction of the photograph and the time of day. For a photojournalist, it's getting to the location of the action and finding the one evocative microsecond that tells a story. Also: This new Google AI tool lets you easily generate images from other photos - no prompt required The Copyright Office reflected this in its determination of authorship and creativity. The Office stated, "Human authors are entitled to copyright 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." So, a prompt on its own isn't worthy of protection. Prompting mixed with creativity might be, but will be adjudicated on a case-by-case basis. OK, fine. Let's put that to the test with a little thought experiment. The above artwork, called Oblivious, was a project I did using Midjourney and Adobe Photoshop, which I documented in this article. Midjourney and Photoshop were, essentially, my creative medium, but the vision was my own. I wanted to create a work evocative of Hopper's Nighthawks, but that could stand on its own. I called it Oblivious because the man quite possibly doesn't even notice that there's a giant white rabbit just a few feet to his right. It's an allegory for the idea that we're so engrossed in our phones that we miss even the most obvious things around us. You also sense that the man would rather just tap on his phone than go in and get a nice piece of pie or a hot beverage, putting off creature comforts in favor of whatever fascinates him so much on that screen. I also love how the rabbit represents change and newness but conveys a deep sense of longing, because he can never be inside and part of the diner milieu. This was an image that was created based on my wanting to tell a story. It combined the AI's ability to create the graphic and my ability to guide it to what I envisioned. Is this something where the AI did all the work and all I did was paste in some words? Or do I deserve any credit for the mood, the commentary, and the message the art shares with the observer? Why would my creativity using the medium of Midjourney count for any less than my creativity using my favorite Sony camera? Also: How to use Gemini to generate higher-quality AI images now - for free One of the Copyright Office's concerns is that choosing from a variety of sources or choosing from a variety of generated pictures is not creating. I would argue that a photographer does that as part of his or her craft. For example, a photographer might take 100 pictures and choose just one to submit to a magazine or for a contest. Choosing, the act of deciding between representations, has long been part of the creative process, as I showed through the choices I documented in the article about Oblivious. Why should choosing a photo out of hundreds or thousands of other images shot during a photoshoot be any more the act of human creativity than using Midjourney with a carefully written text prompt, getting back four variations, and choosing the best variation? Personally, I consider Oblivious to be my work of art because it is the result of a vision that I started with and refined as I was executing the creative process. The only difference was that instead of my medium being a brush and paint, or camera and lens, my medium was articulating to an AI what I wanted to see and how I wanted it to place things. It's still my work of art. I think we're going to see a number of issues (and a ton of litigation) where this gray area comes into effect, where there is some question of whether a work was mostly human-authored, mostly AI-authored, or a collaboration of both human and AI. I expect the camera analogy and all the established case law on copyrighting photographs to strongly influence future determinations of AI copyright litigation. Also: Midjourney's AI-image generator website is now officially open to everyone - for free What do you think? Do you think the Copyright Office made the right determination? Do you think the result of prompting should be copyrighted? Let us know in the comments below.

US Copyright Office on copyrighting AI generated art

Disclaimer: This content generated by AI & may have errors or hallucinations. Edit before use. Read our Terms of use The United States Copyright Office has determined that Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated outputs that reflect "sufficient human contribution" warrant copyright protection, in a report on copyright and AI released this month. However the agency also clarified that prompts alone don't satisfy those requirements. The US Copyright Office noted that the use of technology in production of creative works was not new and that AI was simply the latest technology on the block. It stated that the use of AI as an assistive tool or the incorporation of AI generated works could not be grounds to preclude a work of art from copyright. However, the capabilities of advanced generative AI models merited a discussion on the nature of human authorship, especially as AI models could create artworks that closely resembled existing copyrighted work. Should these be copyrighted too? The report took a historical perspective on the issue, going back to similar debates in the 1960s that deliberated on whether material created using technology is "'written' by computers" or authored by human creators. The office took the position then that a work's copyrightable status would depend on whether the computer was only an "assisting instrument" or if it had "conceived and executed" the "traditional elements of authorship" in the work. Since the answer depended on the circumstances surrounding the creation of the work, the office decided not to deny copyright merely because a computer was present in the creation of the work. The same logic applies to AI generated creative work. "Where AI merely assists an author in the creative process, its use does not change the copyrightability of the output. At the other extreme, if content is entirely generated by AI, it cannot be protected by copyright," said the report. According to the Copyright Office, prompts essentially function as instructions that convey unprotectable ideas. This applies to highly detailed prompts as well, as at present they do not control how the AI system processes them in generating the output. The logic present is the same that courts applied to cases of join ownership. As an example, if you hire somebody to create a work of art and provide them with instructions, you do not automatically own the work's copyright just because you do it. "The evidence as to the operation of today's AI systems indicates that this is not currently the case. Prompts do not appear to adequately determine the expressive elements produced, or control how the system translates them into an output," said the report. The Office further observed that while prompts may reflect a user's mental conception or idea, they do not control the actual expression of the idea. The fact that identical prompts can produce different results on multiple attempts is proof of the above. The report also deliberated on what happens when a human user creates a copyrightable work on their own and then provides it to the AI as part of their prompt. Many AI applications allow users to add documents or images to their prompts for the AI to use as reference material. The Copyright Office declared that in such situations, where a human inputs their own copyrightable work and that work is perceptible in the output, their copyright claim would apply only to their own work. Just like copyright protection for derivative art, limited to the material added by the later author, copyright protection for AI art would include only the user's copyrightable inputs. The report noted that the Office had received many copyright applications for works that involved editing AI generated content or arranging them into larger works of art. An example of this would be a comic book that combined human authored text with AI generated images. The Office accepted this application, arguing that the selection of the images, alongside the human-authored text and their arrangement demonstrated creative choice. Many AI tools allow users to edit or combine AI generated images. Whether these modifications would sufficiently qualify for copyright protection would vary case to case. Further, the report also noted that works which include AI generated material as part of a larger whole are still copyrightable. An example would be a movie which includes AI generated special effects. The movie as a whole is copyrightable, even though the AI generated images specifically may not be.

US copyright ruling finally provides clarity on AI art - kind of

AI art has exploded in the last few years, invading social media feeds and even auction houses. But AI image generators emerged so fast that there are lots of unanswered questions. Aside from the debate on the ethics of using AI tools, many want to know, can AI art be copyrighted? Until now, it has appeared not, although people have launched appeals after their AI art was rejected for copyright. The US Copyright Office (USCO) has now published a report in a bid to shed some light on where it stands. It offers some clarification, but it's not going to make anyone happy. The headline conclusion in the Copyright Office's report is that output generated simply by using a text prompt in an AI image generator cannot be copyrighted. In line with previous decisions, it concludes: "Prompts alone do not provide sufficient human control to make users of an AI system the authors of the output." The USCO dismisses the argument that using AI is similar to a human-to-human artistic commission (e.g., an artist directing assistants) because it considers that, at least with today's technology, AI does not provide a comparable level of control. It cites an example of how Google Gemini, when asked to generate an image of a cat smoking a pipe, ignored part of the prompt and added unwanted elements. The report acknowledges that, in theory, we could see the development of AI systems that do give artists more control. That could potentially make them more comparable to an artists' mechanical tools. But that this is "not currently the case." But the USCO also recognises that "generating content with AI is often an initial or intermediate step" and that "human authorship may be added in the final product". It takes the opinion that if a human may select or "arrange AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way", the result could be considered an original work. It also says that when "AI merely assists an author in the creative process, its use does not change the copyrightability of the output." That would suggest that if you use minor generative AI, for example to remove a distraction in a photo, the image could still be fully copyrighted in its entirety. But the authorities recognise that there's a very big grey area in between the two extremes of 100% AI and AI-assisted. It says each work will have to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. "Between these boundaries, various forms and combinations of human contributions can be involved in producing AI outputs," it says. Some human-AI work may not be copyrightable in its entirety, but could partially qualify for copyright. The USCO cites examples of where human-created work is modified by an AI model and vice versa. Interestingly, while the Copyright Office determined that the results of prompts can't be copyrighted, it says the prompts themselves possibly could, providing that they're creative enough. That would probably rule out simple prompts, but leaves open the possibility that prompting can be considered an act of human creativity. Perhaps surprisingly, the Copyright Office concluded that no new laws are needed to specifically address AI copyright: existing laws can do the job. "Even if Congress were to consider addressing this issue through legislation, greater clarity would be difficult to achieve. Because the copyrightability inquiry requires analysis of each work and the context of its creation, statutory language would be limited in its ability to provide brighter lines," the report concludes. While the report doesn't immediately change anything, it provides important clarification that could encourage some users of AI tools. The clarification that hybrid human-AI-generated content could at least partially qualify for copyright could make more creatives (and brands) more confident about using it for professional use with their own intellectual property. It also sends a message to those waiting for some kind of specific legislation on AI copyright: don't hold your breath. What is still needed, though, is clarification of where artists stand when an AI (or AI-assisted) image copies their artistic style, or where anyone stands if AI uses their own physical image. That could require some kind of federal anti-impersonation legislation in the US and similar changes in other countries where such protections don't already exist.

The U.S. finally puts its foot down on AI image copyright

AI generated works of art may be eligible to win awards at state fairs, but they are not protected under American copyright law, according to new guidance issued by the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) on Wednesday. The report details ways in which AI-generated video, images, and text may, and may not, be copyright protected. It finds that while generative AI is a new technology, its outputs largely fall under existing copyright rules meaning that no new laws will need to be enacted to address the issue. Unfortunately for AI content creators, the protections that are available are thin. Recommended Videos The courts have already ruled that AI systems themselves cannot hold copyright. The Supreme Court specified in the 1989 case, Cmty. for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid ("CCNV"), that "the author [of a copyrighted work] is . . . the person [emphasis added] who translates an idea into a fixed, tangible expression entitled to copyright protection." Pointing to the inherent unpredictability of an AI's output to a given query, the USCO's guidance argues that AI prompts don't offer the user a sufficient degree of control over the generative process to "make users of an AI system the authors of the output." That's regardless of how complex and expansive the prompt is. "No matter how many times a prompt is revised and resubmitted, the final output reflects the user's acceptance of the AI system's interpretation, rather than authorship of the expression it contains," the report reads. In short, "the issue is the degree of human control, rather than the predictability of the outcome." That denial of protection does have its limits however. For example, the 2024 Robert Zemekis film "Here," which featured digitally de-aged Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, has been copyrighted, despite its use of generative technologies to do the de-aging. This is because the AI is wielded as a tool rather than treated like a producer. Similarly, the USCO argues that "a film that includes AI-generated special effects or background artwork is copyrightable, even if the AI effects and artwork separately are not." Artists are also covered, to a degree, if they're using an AI system to further modify their existing human-made creative works. The AI-generated elements in the resulting content wouldn't be copyrightable (since they were generated by the AI) but the overall artistic piece, and its "perceptible human expression," would be. This issue is not a new one. As far back as 1965 with the advent of computers, the USCO has been wrestling with the question of authorship as to whether content produced on digital platforms is the work of human authors or simply "written" by the computers. "The crucial question appears to be whether the "work" is basically one of human authorship, with the computer merely being an assisting instrument," Then-Register of Copyrights Abraham Kaminstein noted at the time, "or whether the traditional elements of authorship in the work (literary, artistic, or musical expression or elements of selection, arrangement, etc.) were actually conceived and executed not by man but by a machine." The USCO notes that its guidance on the issue could evolve in the coming years as the technology further matures. "In theory, AI systems could someday allow users to exert so much control over how their expression is reflected in an output that the system's contribution would become rote or mechanical," the report reads. However, the USCO has found that modern AI prompts simply do not yet rise to that level.

US Copyright Office rules out copyright for AI-created content without human input

Forward-looking: The US Copyright Agency is publishing a series of reports about the relationship between copyright and AI. Despite the complexity of the issue, the organization has already said that AI-based works with no human intervention cannot enjoy copyright protection at all. Movies and other complex works created through AI means cannot be copyrighted, except when these AI tools are used to further develop pre-existing content. The US Copyright Office (USCO) recently published its second report on copyright and artificial intelligence, dealing with the "copyrightability" of outputs generated by large language models and other AI systems. The report focuses on the level of human contribution to AI-made works, which is a crucial point in deciding if copyright can be applied to those works. The USCO received more than 10,000 comments about the issue, the vast majority of which said that existing copyright laws were adequate to be applied purely to AI outputs. However, participants had different opinions about generative AI outputs involving "some form" of human contribution. Copyrightability must be determined on a case-by-case basis, the report states, but new legal principles are needed to deal with AI-made content. If said content was generated by simply entering prompt texts into an AI service, authorship and copyright cannot be applied, USCO said. The agency set a different rule for the "assistive" use of AI tools, with different tasks benefiting from artificial intelligence algorithms throughout the entire creative process. The USCO cited several comments submitted by the Motion Picture Association and other trade organizations on AI systems used to age or "de-age" actors, remove objects from a scene, and more. The US agency said that there's an important distinction between AI tools used to assist in the creation process, and "generative" services exploited as a stand-in for human creativity. The assistive use of AI models does not limit copyright protection, while AI systems making "expressive" choices require further analysis. For now, images generated through Midjourney or other AI services cannot be copyrighted, no matter the prompt's complexity. Further prompt iteration has no value because "creators" are essentially 're-rolling' the dice of the black-box AI system without having any degree of control over the generative process. The new report is part of a series of (human-written) analysis works about copyright in the wild world of generative AI. The first report was released in July and asked for new legislation designed to properly fight audio and visual deepfakes. The upcoming third part in the series will deal with the crucial issue of AI model training, and whether AI companies should be allowed to build their for-profit AI services on top of copyrighted works without paying a single dime to anyone.

How Many Humans Do You Need to Make An AI Movie Script Copyrightable?

Near the height of animosity in the writers' strike in 2023, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers outlined an offer that captured its members' anxieties in the adoption of AI tools in the production pipeline. In what it hoped would be perceived as a concession, it proposed that scribes' compensation and rights wouldn't be undercut if any part of a script is based on AI-generated material. The Writers Guild of America balked at the offer. It knew it had some leverage as far as negotiating points involving AI. That's because works solely created by the tech aren't copyrightable. To be granted protection, a human needs to rewrite any AI-produced script. And by keeping AI on the table, the guild figured that the studios were looking to capitalize on the intellectual property rights around works created by the tools. "If a human touches material created by generative AI, then the typical copyright protections will kick in," a source close to the AMPTP told The Hollywood Reporter at the time. Almost two years later, that proposal continues to reflect the tenuous nature of copyrightability for movies and TV shows in which AI is utilized. Under the U.S. Copyright Office's current guidelines, refined in a report issued on Wednesday, there's copyright protection if the author "selects and arranges" AI-generated elements in a manner that's sufficiently creative. AI proponents and naysayers were both quick to declare the findings a win for their respective sides. But missing from the report is clarity on what rises to an adequate level of creativity. "Where that creativity is expressed through the use of AI systems, it continues to enjoy protection," said Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office, in a statement. Consider the use of AI in Brady Corbet's Academy Award-nominated The Brutalist. In that film, AI tools were used to tweak the dialogue of the movie's leads, Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, and as inspiration for a series of buildings supposedly designed by Brody's character, the fictional architect László Tóth (the final images depicted in the movie were hand-drawn). Corbet, in an interview with THR on Monday, defended the decision, saying that the tech was only utilized to "refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy." Ethics aside, do those scenes in the movie enjoy copyright protection (they likely do)? The question boils down to whether AI, as the copyright office's report characterized it, was used to "assist rather than stand in for human creativity." The uncertainty has forced studios, production entities and distributors to navigate what they consider an overly rigid intellectual property scheme that doesn't take into account the entertainment industry's longtime use of AI tools in the production pipeline. Under the current copyright registration process, any AI use must be disclaimed for an examination of how the tech was incorporated into the final work and whether it should enjoy protection. This includes utilization of AI as a production and postproduction tool in the hands of human creators, including rotoscoping, color correcting, detail sharpening, deblurring and removing unwanted objects. Amid a downturn in production that's left many in Hollywood without jobs, AI has prompted fierce backlash for further eroding available work in the industry, but few would push back against the use of tools in the production pipeline that automate and speed up certain monotonous tasks. A major studio production involves dozens of individuals working on writing, art, sound, costume, editing and special effects, among other jobs. Many of them contribute to the creativity of the finished project. And some use AI, complicating the assurance of copyrightability for a movie or TV show. The Motion Picture Association has said that the fact some creators produced parts of a movie with the help of AI shouldn't render those portions uncopyrightable. Take a hypothetical example of a superhero movie. The movie may be copyrighted, but what about scenes involving AI-assisted visual effects depicting a space battle? At the forefront of studios' concerns: the protection of their rights if the underlying characters and scripts are protectable but not certain portions that incorporate material generated by AI. A copyright carveout for certain scenes, the MPA has said, isn't tenable. It's argued in favor of not having to comply with the copyright office's registration requirements since applying them would have "significant, negative real-world consequences." Provisions in U.S. intellectual property law barring the copyrightability of AI-generated material severely hampers the commercial viability of productions that utilize the technology since they would enter the public domain. Several studios forbid the use of AI in writers' room and have some scribes sign certificates of authenticity attesting that they wrote scripts themselves. "Contracts say you need to ask permission of studios, and a lot of studios' policies is that it's simply not allowed," said showrunner and writer Mark Goffman (Bull, Limitless, The West Wing) at AI on the Lot, a conference AI in the entertainment industry last year. This is in line with some distributors having production entities for projects they buy attest that generative AI wasn't used in the moviemaking process. It remains to be seen whether regulators move toward a copyright scheme that's more receptive to protection for works in which AI was utilized. Complicating the conversation is the possibility of courts ruling that the training of AI systems on copyrighted works constitute infringement, though most visual effects workers that have adopted the technology use open source models that don't pose that risk. Consistent with earlier guidance, the copyright office clarified that current technology doesn't afford users enough control of the ultimate output for the use to be considered sufficiently creative. "In theory, AI systems could someday allow users to exert so much control over how their expression is reflected in an output that the system's contribution would become rote or mechanical," the report states. "The evidence as to the operation of today's AI systems indicates that this is not currently the case."