Copyright protection legally ensures that an individual's creative work can only be controlled, distributed, and monetized by the author. From songs and movies to logos and stories, copyrights offer a unique, profitable legal tool for authors, and provide protection against misuse. While copyright protection has historically only protected human authors, with the recent rise of AI, arguments have arisen for the inclusion of AI-generated works. However, if the purpose of copyrights is to protect a human’s creativity or design, an AI-generated work would go against that very purpose statement. This essay explores the reasons why fully AI-generated works should not be eligible for copyright protection.
If AI-generated works were eligible for copyright protection, simple prompts, based not on creativity, but instead on monetization and ease, would be put in the registration process, causing costs and approval wait times to skyrocket for the average author. These AI-generated works would likely not be registered because of its creativity and innovation, but more realistically submitted as a means to sue others for similarities. This would discourage and delay the registration process, causing actual human authors to suffer and potentially get ripped off by the influx of AI submissions. As argued by The U.S. Office of Copyrights, ““[o]ur popular culture will be overtaken by low quality, AI-generated works because the cost of human creation would be deemed too burdensome in comparison to using AI” (United States Copyright Office, 2025, pg. 35). While many argue that their creativity and innovation is limited by the illegibility of AI-generated works, which may hold true for some, the masses would potentially take advantage of that inclusion.
In addition, AI-generated work often takes preexisting information from the internet when forming ideas and works off of prompts, and without prior consent can copy works without the human prompter’s knowledge or knowledge of the original author. This would take away from the actual author’s ownership of their creativity and designs and would give protections to those who didn’t actually author the work. Essentially, with the ability to include AI-generated works under copyright protection, it would give some people and companies potential rights to claim ownership over someone else's work, or the majority of their work. This would potentially take away or make it far more difficult to protect real work from authors.
As stated previously, because of the ease that AI-generated works provides, it would potentially cause much longer delays for real, human copyright claims to go through the legal system if misuse was occurring. Many corporations would likely abuse AI-generated work and try to profit through the courts and legal system through many money-grabbing lawsuits. This would not only cause courts to be filled with these cases but would also undermine real authors seeking protection for their work. This again, goes against the very purpose of copyright protection.
In addition to the legal ramifications, with reliance on AI, the motivation and drive to be creative would potentially diminish significantly in society. In a time where efficiency rules, people would likely choose to save their time through using AI, rather than actually coming up with ideas themselves. If AI-generated works were eligible for copyright protection, we would likely see creative fields value machinery and efficiency over human ideas and authenticity over time. Singer, Billie Eilish, along with 200 other artists signed a letter expressing dissatisfaction and disgust over AI in the music field which has been used to take advantage of artists and nonconsensually replicate their voices. They agreed that AI using artists as a mode to train itself is "an assault on human creativity", and warned it was being used to "violate creators' rights, and destroy the music ecosystem" (McMahon, 2024). There are artists already that are struggling with the manipulation of AI, and giving a machine even more protection takes away from the inherent creativity and safety of individuals' work.
Thus, increased costs and longer approval wait times for registered copyrights, illegitimate claims of ownership, delays in the legal system that would harm real authors, and the likely decline in human creativity in society are all major concerns when it comes to authorizing copyright protection for AI-generated works. Copyright protection specifically is for protecting human authors, and furthering means of creativity and innovation. Adding AI to this protection would, in effect, take away many of the benefits for real authors and bring about the opposite of the original purpose, by making the protection process far more difficult to defend.
McMahon, L. (2024, April 2). Billie Eilish and Nicki Minaj want stop to 'predatory' music AI. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-68717863
United States Copyright Office. (2025, January). Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2 Copyrightability Report. https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intelligence-Part-2-Copyrightability-Report.pdf
Emily Sloan
Advertising major
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