Humans Are Central To Copyright: Highlights From The U.S. Copyrightability Report And Its Potential Implications For Canada

The U.S. Copyright Office released a comprehensive report titled "Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Part 2: Copyrightability" ("U.S. Copyrightability Report") in January 2025, which delves into the complex issue of copyright protection for AI-generated material..

This U.S. Copyrightability Report reaffirms the necessity of human authorship for copyright protection, a principle deeply rooted in U.S. copyright law. It clarifies that while AI can assist in the creative process, purely AI-generated content cannot be copyrighted. This distinction underscores the importance of human creativity and control in the creation of copyrightable works.

One of the key takeaways from the U.S. Copyrightability Report is the role of prompts and human contribution. The report concludes that prompts alone, no matter how detailed, do not provide sufficient human control to make users of an AI system the authors of the output. Prompts are essentially instructions that