Protecting Your Creations: Understanding Copyright in the Age of AI

The copyright law has always protected the works of human authors. Accordingly, AI art is a bit of a grey area. In most places, a completely non-human (like AI) created work cannot be copyrighted, including the United States. The U.S. Copyright Office has confirmed that the author of the work has to be a human for it to be eligible for protection.

Thus, a completely unaltered image generated directly from a text prompt (for example, "a cat in a hat") is often regarded as being in the public domain. It means that you can use it but also that you will not be able to prevent others from doing so.

However, when humans contribute a good deal, the scenario changes. The U.S. Copyright Office has suggested that a work produced by AI is copyrightable if a person has carried out creative movements to a large extent on the AI's output.

• Substantial Modification

  So if you make an AI picture and then proceed to do a lot of editing in Photoshop or use it as a small part of a bigger collage that you created, the final output might be copyrightable. The copyright would cover the creative parts you added but not the original AI picture.

• The Role of the Prompt

  At present, writing a text prompt is typically not seen as a measure of the creator’s input in a copyright sense that would justify the protection of the output. Nonetheless, this is an area of law that is changing very fast.

Here, the licensing of the AI model comes into play as a decisive factor. The AI generator available on TimelapsePhoto.art employs the services of Stable Diffusion, a model licensed under very generous terms.

• Stable Diffusion and Commercial Use

  The rationale behind the license for Stable Diffusion (Creative ML OpenRAIL-M) literally allows you to use commercially the images that you generate. Consequently, you typically may utilize the pictures you form on our platform for your business, advertising, or even for incorporation in retail products.

• Important Considerations

  It is true that you even with a very liberal license are still liable for the content that you create. If you produce images that violate current trademarks or show recognizable persons in a harmful manner, the license will not provide you protection.

1. Consider AI Images as Public Domain: If you have not done major changes to them, just like any one else, treat your AI-made pictures lying around. Do not create a trademark around a raw AI image that your rival could also utilize.
2. Make AI Your Starting Point: The best way to acquire a work that is non-infringing is to treat AI as your tool in a broader creative process. Use it for concept, textures, or base elements' generation, and then impose a significant creative input of your own.
3. Model Licenses Check: Be always conscious of the specific AI model's terms you are using. Our software runs on Stable Diffusion which has a liberal license, but other service providers might choose to apply stricter terms.
4. Keep Yourself Updated: This is a new area of law and it is still developing. Watch for news from copyright offices and lawyers who are experts as the rules become more defined.