The Copyright Office Draws a Line in Silicon: AI and the Soul of Creation
By-William J. Marshall-?
The U.S. Copyright Office has spoken, their report on AI and copyright is a stark map in a world of blurry lines. It’s not a question of machines taking over, but of where the soul and the human spark remain. This report, forged from public voices and the metal of law, marks the ground where creativity stands firm, even as algorithms swirl around it. And though it makes clear the rules of authorship it starkly outlines the lack of standing for Companies like SUNO and Midjourney who lease the usage of proprietary AI used by the public.
The Rules of the Game, Rendered Clear
This report declares in plain terms: to claim authorship you need a heart, a mind, a hand that shapes the work. Pure AI, a machine churning data, cannot own a copyright. Its outputs are shadows, not substance.
Here's what the map looks like:
The AI as a Tool, a Collaborator: You, the creator, can use AI to reach further. Like a writer with a good editor, the machine can sharpen your expression, but it cannot replace the expression. AI enhances, doesn’t dictate. It is autotune on the singer, but not the singing itself.
AI as a Ghost, with No Claim: Where the human has retreated, where the AI works on its own, there is no ownership. You cannot stake a claim with a simple prompt, a few words cast into the digital wind. A thousand iterations, fine tuning a prompt, does not produce something creative, because you, the author are not doing the creative work, the machine is.
The Human Touch, the Immutable Mark: If you take a piece of yourself, an image made by your hand, a melody from your throat and blend it with AI, you are the author of what you have mixed, not what was there before, not what the machine created for the sake of itself. AI cannot have intent and neither will you be credited for its creations. The creative hand must be part of the final work, even with alterations.
The Forge of AI, and What It Means For You
This shifts the ground under the feet of those who use AI in their craft:
The Artist and the Algorithm: If you are a creator using AI, this means you cannot hide behind the tech and expect to be seen as an author. You have to make something with it, and your creative input has to be clearly shown within the final piece. The technology has limits, they have to be overcome.
The Power of Human Choice: This report has placed the focus not on the machine, but the creative input. It is the human who judges, decides, what makes the work worthy, this goes beyond what text or instructions are fed to the AI.
What This Means for AI Companies
The Copyright Office's findings will greatly affect AI companies, and it will reshape how they create, license, and sell their technology:
Tools, Not Creators: Companies such as Suno (for music), Midjourney (for images) and Google's Gemini are being redefined. They are the purveyors of tools, not the creators of content. They can license their technology, but the ownership of the creations falls solely to the person that creates with it, not the company that designed the tools. It makes the user the creator of their own works with the technology. if the user has a creative input that is identifyable in the end result.
SO... If I were to use AI to write this article and I said, "Write me an article about something new."I would not hold a claim to it. But then again, who would know? If I were to use a LoRA in creating a "Cool image of a dog." I would be entering into the grey. More surely a claim could be made if I specifically made the Lora and went through the trouble of defining the word "Cool" but what if my input was an original work of poetry into someone else's adapter and model? With millions of possible outputs I surely can't own them all. What if someone else were to use my original poem to get an output or if I were to enter someones lyrics into SUNO and get a version of that song. Now who can claim the right to copy?
Beyond the Black Box: The report makes clear that the algorithms and training of these systems do not equate to authorship. This means AI companies will have to focus on providing more transparency, or at least more control over their processes. Users need to be able to see their influence, or where their input has made an impact, or there can be no claim of authorship. The AI is just a tool to make a vision real.
A Focus on Human-Centric Innovation: AI developers need to shift their focus toward tools that truly empower human creativity, rather than acting as a creative replacement. This means moving from simple text prompts, to features that allow more flexibility in output. It means more control, more creative freedom. More ability to fine-tune the final results.
The LoRA Shift: Recent developments such as Low Rank Adapters (LoRA), are a good starting point for this, but the responsibility of the output, the creative touch still has to belong to the human author. AI companies must strive to give artists the creative responsibility within their creations.
Chain-of-Thought & True Tool Use: AI will not be viewed as a creator with all of its features such as Chain-of-Thought reasoning or use of tools as these still lack substantive intent, creative expression and cannot be classified as a human author. this is where we are seeing a shift in the overall worldview yet the report stands firm on the robot's lack of rights but there is so much human input and as output becomes substantially more valuable, think about the cure for cancer.
Does their descision remove incentive for AI companies, or will it remove avenues of substantive input like SUNO's "Lyrics" section? As of today they seem to be blurriong the lines further with tools that write the song's "Custom" lines one at a time and overall(This looks like a move to give greater creative control but further blurrs the lines of penmanship.)
The Final Word
The Copyright Office is not shutting the door on AI completely, but holding it firmly open for humanity. The report is not meant to be a wall, but a clear point of reference, stating that the line, though blurred, is there. The future of creation is not one where we are replaced by machines, but where we use them to push ourselves. Where the balance between our intent and expression, and a tool to achieve this is key. If we give into the notion of giving authorship to machines, we give away something that is uniquely ours, something that cannot, and should not, be replaced. Will this ideal hold firm in the coming decade with Billions of dollars placed at replacing the originality and insight we see as uniquely human? Time will tell.
The office has made clear, in past cases that, a photo taken by a monkey of something is simply not copyrightable. Now you have the Monkey, it's food producer, the camera maker, the film company, the zookeeper and the owner of the item the monkey took a picture of ALL fighting over the rights... The future is going to be strange and the job of the Copyright office clerk just became exponentially more difficult.