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I understand the work of an AI model cannot be copyrighted because there is no live author and it's just following an algorithm, but what about the work of many AI projects?

To be more specific, with generative AI, a person prompts the model to create different parts of a scene. Then after all parts are created the person assembles everything from what the AI created to make an entirely new work which was put together by an actual person with non-copyrighted parts. That finished product assembled by the person should be able to be copyrighted, right?

I understand I may have a lot of holes or have overlooked something and with the overwhelming speed artificial intelligence has come a lot of these things may just not be sorted out, but hopefully somebody sticks with my "overly worded" question and can shed some light on this subject.

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    Commented Feb 22 at 23:16

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the copyright office denies copyright in AI made parts

You can only gain copyright in your creative choices and expression, never in any AI product, unless the AI part is small.

If you assemble AI-generated artwork into a comic page with text, you gain copyright in the layout and text, not in the artwork. (in re: Zarya of the Dawn) In this case the registration granted was cut down to not include any of the panel images, as those were AI generated.

Analogous, if you take the AI-generated artwork and combine them into an image by cutting and pasting them one over the other, you gain copyright in the layout and positioning, but not in the depictions you have used.

BTW, you'd have to declare which parts were AI-generated, and refusal means you might have no chance to enforce your copyright at all as you can not register it without declaring, and you need to register to enforce. (in re: Théatre D’opéra Spatial) In this case, the author of an image had his registration denied because they failed to disclose the AI-generated base and the extent to which all other additions had human authorship - which are the only protectable elements, so the copyright office.

This matches with the latest news from the copyright office:

The Office affirms that existing principles of copyright law are flexible enough to apply to this new technology, as they have applied to technological innovations in the past. It concludes that the outputs of generative AI can be protected by copyright only where a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements. This can include situations where a human-authored work is perceptible in an AI output, or a human makes creative arrangements or modifications of the output, but not the mere provision of prompts. The Office confirms that the use of AI to assist in the process of creation or the inclusion of AI-generated material in a larger human-generated work does not bar copyrightability. It also finds that the case has not been made for changes to existing law to provide additional protection for AI-generated outputs.

“After considering the extensive public comments and the current state of technological development, our conclusions turn on the centrality of human creativity to copyright,” said Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office. “Where that creativity is expressed through the use of AI systems, it continues to enjoy protection. Extending protection to material whose expressive elements are determined by a machine, however, would undermine rather than further the constitutional goals of copyright.”

See also: This answer

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    The most you can say is that the federal executive (or the copyright office) has taken this position. That absolutely does not "settle" the legal issue. Even more surely not, given there is no longer Chevron deference. Courts will not defer to the copyright office's interpretation of its enabling statute.
    – Jen
    Commented Feb 24 at 22:46
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    @jen An interesting quirk: The Copyright Office isn't actually part of the executive branch, and its AI guidance hasn't gone through the formal rulemaking process. So it wouldn't have had any real legal weight, even under Chevron.
    – bdb484
    Commented Feb 24 at 23:33

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