# US Copyright Office AI Guidance

The US Copyright Office, a Library of Congress unit, administers copyright law and advises Congress. Its AI guidance clarifies that purely AI-generated works lack human authorship, while human-authored works using AI may be copyrightable.

The United States Copyright Office (USCO), a department of the Library of Congress, is the federal body responsible for registering copyright claims, recording copyright ownership documents, and advising Congress on copyright policy. In the era of generative AI, the Office has issued guidance addressing the copyrightability of works created with or by artificial intelligence systems, clarifying the role of human authorship in an age of machine-generated content.

The Office's AI guidance, first articulated in a March 2023 policy statement and refined through subsequent registration decisions, holds that copyright protection is available only for works that involve human creativity. Works generated entirely by an AI system, with no human intervention, are not copyrightable because they lack the human authorship required by the Copyright Act. However, works that combine human authorship with AI assistance - such as a human selecting, arranging, or modifying AI-generated output - may be eligible for protection, but only for the human-authored elements.

## Legal Basis for AI Guidance

The Copyright Office's position on AI-generated works rests on the human authorship requirement established in U.S. copyright law. The Copyright Act of 1976 protects "original works of authorship" fixed in a tangible medium, and courts have long interpreted authorship to require human creativity. The landmark 1884 Supreme Court case Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, which upheld copyright in a photograph, emphasized that the image reflected the photographer's "original intellectual conceptions." The Office has applied this principle to AI: if a machine generates a work without human creative input, there is no author to protect.

In its March 2023 statement, the Office explicitly addressed the question of AI-generated works, stating that "when an AI technology receives solely a prompt from a human and produces complex written, visual, or musical works in response," the traditional elements of authorship are determined and executed by the technology, not the human user. Such works are not copyrightable. The statement also noted that the Office would consider whether AI contributions are the result of "mechanical reproduction" or "the author's own original mental conception."

## The Human Authorship Requirement

The Office's guidance distinguishes between works where AI is a tool and works where AI is the creator. If a human writes a novel using a word processor, the human is the author. If a human uses an AI system to generate a poem from a text prompt, the AI is the author of the poem's expression, and the human's prompt is not enough to claim authorship. The Office has said that "the act of prompting an AI system is not the same as creating a work" because the user does not control the final output in a way that constitutes authorship.

However, the Office has recognized that human creativity can be present in AI-assisted works. For example, if a human selects, arranges, or modifies AI-generated content in a sufficiently creative way, the resulting work may be copyrightable. The Office's 2023 decision in the case of "Zarya of the Dawn," a comic book with AI-generated images, granted copyright for the text and the selection and arrangement of images, but not for the individual AI-generated images themselves. This decision set a precedent for how the Office evaluates mixed human-AI works.

## Registration Decisions and Policy Statements

In February 2023, the Copyright Office made headlines when it determined that a comic book titled "Zarya of the Dawn" was copyrightable as a whole, but the AI-generated images within it were not. The Office's review, prompted by the applicant's disclosure that the images were created using the AI tool Midjourney, concluded that the images lacked human authorship. The text and the overall arrangement of the comic were protected, but the images were not.

In March 2023, the Office issued a formal policy statement titled "Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence." This statement clarified the Office's approach to applications that disclose AI-generated content. It required applicants to identify any AI-generated material and to describe the human author's contribution. The statement also noted that the Office would use its existing "de minimis" standard to determine whether AI contributions are too small to affect copyrightability.

In subsequent decisions, the Office refused to register a work titled "A Recent Entrance to Paradise," which was entirely AI-generated, and a visual work created using the AI system DALL-E, where the human's contribution was limited to prompts. These decisions reinforced the principle that AI-generated content, by itself, is not copyrightable.

## Impact on AI Developers and Users

The Copyright Office's AI guidance has significant implications for the [artificial-intelligence](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/artificial-intelligence) industry, including developers of [large-language-model](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/large-language-model)s and [generative-ai](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/generative-ai) systems. Companies like [openai](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/openai), [anthropic](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/anthropic), and [google-deepmind](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/google-deepmind) that create AI tools must consider how their products are used in creative works. If a user generates a novel or a song using an AI system, the user may not own the copyright, which could affect the commercial value of such works.

For AI developers, the guidance clarifies that the output of their systems is not copyrightable unless a human adds sufficient creative input. This has led some companies to design tools that encourage human involvement, such as allowing users to edit or refine AI-generated content. It also affects the training of AI models: if AI-generated works are not copyrightable, they may not be eligible for protection as training data, though the Office has not directly addressed this issue.

The guidance also affects the [machine-learning](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/machine-learning) community, as researchers and practitioners must understand the legal status of AI outputs. The distinction between AI as a tool and AI as a creator is central to the Office's approach, and it may evolve as AI technology advances.

## Public Comments and Ongoing Debate

The Copyright Office has sought public input on AI and copyright issues. In August 2023, it launched an initiative to examine the copyright law and policy issues raised by generative AI, including questions about copyrightability, training data, and liability. The Office held listening sessions and requested written comments from stakeholders, including artists, tech companies, and legal scholars.

The debate over AI-generated works is part of a broader conversation about the role of [neural-network](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/neural-network)s and [deep-learning](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/deep-learning) in creative fields. Some argue that AI-generated works should be copyrightable to encourage innovation, while others contend that copyright should remain a human-centered right. The Office's guidance has been praised for providing clarity, but criticized by some who believe it is too restrictive or too permissive.

As of 2025, the Office has not issued a final rule on AI-generated works, but its policy statements and registration decisions provide practical guidance. The Office continues to evaluate new cases as AI technology evolves, and its approach may change in response to court decisions or new legislation.

## Relationship with Other Copyright Office Functions

The AI guidance is part of the Copyright Office's broader mission to administer the copyright system. The Office's core functions include examining registration applications, recording documents, and advising Congress. The AI guidance affects the examination process, as applicants must now disclose AI-generated content and explain the human contribution.

The Office also maintains the copyright catalog, which contains records of registrations. The AI guidance has led to new practices in cataloging, such as noting when a work contains AI-generated material. The Office's Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices has been updated to reflect the AI guidance, providing detailed instructions for examiners and applicants.

The Copyright Office's role in advising Congress is also relevant. In 2023, the Office testified before Congress about the copyright implications of AI, and it has been asked to provide recommendations for potential legislation. The Office's AI guidance may serve as a foundation for future copyright reform.

## International Perspectives and Comparisons

The Copyright Office's AI guidance is not the only approach to AI-generated works. Other countries have taken different positions. For example, the United Kingdom's Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988 provides copyright protection for computer-generated works "where there is no human author," with the author being the person who made the arrangements for the creation of the work. This contrasts with the U.S. approach, which requires human authorship.

The European Union has not adopted a uniform policy, but the European Court of Justice has emphasized that copyright requires "the author's own intellectual creation," which suggests a human-centered approach. Japan has also considered the issue, with some proposals to protect AI-generated works under neighboring rights.

The U.S. Copyright Office's guidance is influential internationally, as many countries look to U.S. copyright law for guidance. However, the lack of international consensus means that AI-generated works may have different copyright status in different jurisdictions, creating challenges for global distribution and licensing.

## Future Directions

The Copyright Office's AI guidance is likely to evolve as AI technology and case law develop. The Office has indicated that it will continue to monitor AI developments and may issue additional guidance. Potential areas of future guidance include the copyrightability of AI-generated music, the use of AI in the creative process, and the liability of AI developers for infringing outputs.

As of 2025, the Office has not addressed all aspects of AI and copyright, such as the use of copyrighted works to train AI models. This issue is the subject of ongoing litigation, including lawsuits against AI companies by authors and artists. The Office may need to provide guidance on whether training AI models constitutes fair use or infringement.

The AI guidance also intersects with other legal areas, such as the right of publicity and moral rights. The Office's approach may need to adapt to new technologies, such as [transformer](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/transformer)-based models and [diffusion models](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/diffusion-models), which are capable of generating increasingly realistic and complex works.

In the meantime, the Copyright Office's AI guidance provides a clear framework for creators and users of AI-generated content. By requiring human authorship, the Office aims to preserve the incentive structure of copyright while recognizing the growing role of AI in creative expression. The guidance is a significant step in adapting copyright law to the age of artificial intelligence.

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Source: https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/us-copyright-office-ai-guidance
License: CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)
Last updated: 2026-09-12T16:24:02.374546+00:00