U.S. Copyright Office Issues Report On Copyrightability Of Generative-AI Outputs

Background

On January 29, 2025, the U.S. Copyright Office (the Copyright Office) published Part 2 of a three-part report on artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright issues in connection with AI's usage. Part 2 of the report (the Copyrightability Report) centers on the Copyright Office's overall skepticism toward the copyrightability of outputs of generative-AI products (Generative AI) for lack of sufficient human expressive control.

For works to be "copyrightable," i.e., eligible for copyright law protection, they must be "original works of authorship." 17 U.S.C. § 102. Courts have interpreted the concept of "authorship" to have certain requirements, including that an author must be human¹ (i.e., AI itself cannot be an author) and that the author must be involved to a sufficient degree in the execution of a work's expressive elements (providing ideas alone cannot qualify as authorship²).