If you sell AI images, publish AI-drafted ebooks, or license AI music, one question eventually arrives.
“Is this actually mine?”
This post answers it from primary sources only. It is not legal advice. It records what two governments put in writing, and what that changes when you go to sell.
The United States — a prompt is an order, not authorship
The Copyright Office set out its position in a statement of policy effective March 16, 2023.
U.S. Copyright Office — Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence (88 FR 16190, effective 2023-03-16 · checked 2026-08-28)The core sentence:
the term "author," which is used in both the Constitution and the Copyright Act, excludes non-humans
— 88 FR 16190, II. The Human Authorship Requirement
On prompts specifically — this is the part that matters commercially:
when an AI technology receives solely a prompt from a human and produces complex written, visual, or musical works in response, the "traditional elements of authorship" are determined and executed by the technology—not the human user
The Office offers an analogy. A prompt is closer to a commission:
these prompts function more like instructions to a commissioned artist—they identify what the prompter wishes to have depicted, but the machine determines how those instructions are implemented in its output
Writing a good brief does not make you the painter. And a footnote closes the obvious escape route:
While some prompts may be sufficiently creative to be protected by copyright, that does not mean that material generated from a copyrightable prompt is itself copyrightable.
— 88 FR 16190, footnote 27
Korea — the statute itself asks for a human
Korea gets there through its statute. Copyright law defines a work as “a creative production expressing human thoughts or emotions.” Output generated without human involvement does not meet that definition.
The Ministry of Culture and the Korea Copyright Commission published a 108-page guide on this; chapter 5 covers registration of AI output.
Korea Copyright Commission — Generative AI Copyright Guide (published 2023-12 · 108 pages · checked 2026-08-28)Two different statutes, one destination. Do not plan around a jurisdiction where the answer is friendlier.
So what is protected?
The Office named two routes.
- 1
A human selected and arranged it
Arrange AI output creatively enough that the result as a whole is an original work, and that arrangement is protected. The individual AI pieces inside it still are not.
- 2
A human modified it enough
Modify AI output to the degree that the modifications meet the standard for protection, and those modifications are protected. The underlying output is unchanged.
- 3
Either way, only the human part
Your rights attach to what you added — not to what the model produced.
There is a decided case. In February 2023 the Office examined a graphic novel with Midjourney images. The claim split: the human-written text and arrangement were registrable, the individual images were not.
the Office concluded that a graphic novel comprised of human-authored text combined with images generated by the AI service Midjourney constituted a copyrightable work, but that the individual images themselves could not be protected by copyright
Using tools is not the problem. The Office states plainly that an artist editing an image in Photoshop remains the author. The test is not whether a machine was involved — it is who decided the expression.
What actually changes when you sell
✓ Still fine
- Selling AI-made images, text or music at all
- Claiming rights in the part you selected, arranged and edited
- Setting terms of use by contract — contract, not copyright, does that work
- Disclosing AI use where the marketplace's terms require it
✕ Not fine
- Using copyright to stop someone reusing your prompt-only output
- Selling an “exclusive licence” and backing that exclusivity with copyright you do not have
- Registering a work without disclosing the AI material — the registration can be cancelled
- Saying “AI made it, but it is my copyrighted work” without qualification
That third item has teeth. Applicants have a duty to disclose AI-generated content, and the guidance spells out the consequence of not doing so:
Applicants who fail to update the public record after obtaining a registration for material generated by AI risk losing the benefits of the registration.
The Office can cancel the registration (37 CFR 201.7(c)(4)), and a court can disregard it in an infringement action under §411(b). Concealing it costs more than disclosing it.
What to keep
Both governments point at the same practical habit: keep evidence of what the human did. If it is ever questioned, the seller is the one who has to show it.
Words you may not know
- Human authorship requirement
- A work needs a human deciding the expression. US: “author … excludes non-humans.” Korea: “human thoughts or emotions.”
- de minimis
- Too small to matter. Below that threshold the Office does not require you to disclaim AI material. Above it, you must.
- Limitation of the Claim
- The field on the US application where you exclude material you are not claiming. AI output goes here.
- Supplementary registration
- The correction procedure for a registration already issued — the fix if you omitted AI use.
Today
- 1
Count what is prompt-only
How many of your listings are model output posted as-is? That count is your list of things copyright will not protect.
- 2
Start keeping the record today
Prompts, rejected candidates, edits, the order you arranged things in. One folder is enough. You cannot reconstruct it later.
- 3
Re-read your own listing for the word “exclusive”
If you promise exclusivity, check what backs it. If it is not copyright, it has to be in the contract.
Limits of this post
Not legal advice. I am not a lawyer. This is a reading of two published government documents. Take real disputes and contracts to a professional.
Jurisdiction matters. US rules govern if you sell through US platforms — Etsy, Gumroad, Amazon KDP. If you sell only inside another country, its own statute comes first.
This is moving. The Copyright Office published a separate report, “Part 2: Copyrightability,” on January 29, 2025, and says it may issue further guidance. Everything here was checked on 2026-08-28.