U.S. Copyright law as it relates to the use of AI tools is still evolving. On August 30, 2023, the U.S. Copyright Office issued a Notice of Inquiry on copyright and artificial intelligence to assess how it will advise Congress on the matter, and if any legislative or regulatory measures need to be taken.
This is still being determined. There are currently several court cases directly relating to the unauthorized use of copyrighted material as training data for Generative AI tools. Individual authors, artists, and companies are suing OpenAI, GitHub, and other companies for using their work when training their AI products.
A note about copyright vs plagiarism:
Copyright violation is an issue that is separate from plagiarism. While plagiarism can be considered fraud if funding is involved, it is largely considered an issue of research integrity and ethics rather than a legal matter. The question of whether generative AI tools are engaging in plagiarism when they scrape data to generate content is also currently being debated.
Copyright law currently has a human authorship requirement, and according to recent guidance, when an AI technology "determines the expressive elements of its output, the generated material is not the product of human authorship." What this means is that AI-generated art and text is not copyrightable on its own. The issue of AI and authorship is also considered in the editorial policies of Nature and Science.
This depends on the extent to which the AI tool is part of the creative process. The more human creativity involved, the more likely it is that you will be able to register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office. While you own the copyright to anything you create (or had a large part in the creation of), copyright registration is important as a public record of your copyright claim, which will be helpful to you if you are interested in licensing your work.
Selected Readings
Many of the issues surrounding Generative AI are still evolving, including if and how GAI tools can be used in scholarly publishing. In December 2023, STM, an industry group for academic publishing, issued a set of guidelines for the use of Generative AI in the publishing process that emphasizes the following points, among others:
Several publishers and journals have issued policies and statements regarding the use of GAI tools, including APA, Nature, Taylor & Francis, and Elsevier. A group statement from the editors of bioethics and humanities journals emphasizes disclosure and the importance of having human reviewers. As GAI tools continue to develop, more guidelines for their ethical and practical use in scholarly publishing will likely emerge.