Ep. 8 – AI Generated Content and Copyright

[00:00:00] Mariam Tsaturyan:

Today's episode is going to be an important one, but a short one. We're going to talk about something that has become a hot topic in the current marketplace within entrepreneur community, in the online business space, community. I'm talking about artificial intelligence or. Better known as ai. AI generated content right now is incredibly popular.

[00:00:27] Mariam Tsaturyan:

There are so many AI tools out there that do all kinds of things from creating content, creating images creating images from text or simply Creating an entire sales page or a newsletter or a letter based on a little prompt that you give it to. For example, I'm talking about a tool like chat, G t P, I'm talking about a tool like Jasper.

[00:00:51] Mariam Tsaturyan:

Even the AI in Canva, I think it's called Magic Canva Magic almost every single software that is coming out with an update right now is [00:01:00] including some sort of AI component to that. Now, whether it will be. An AI generated content for a particular section of the tool. For example, something like LinkedIn has a headline generator where it will take your headline and then it will keep regenerating it in many different ways until you settle on something that you love.

[00:01:22] Mariam Tsaturyan:

So AI is very useful nowadays. It definitely helps with productivity. It lessens the number of minutes or hours that you're going to spend on a particular task, but it does come with certain questions when it comes to copyright protection. As generally speaking, we've covered this many times before.

[00:01:44] Mariam Tsaturyan:

Whenever you create content, you as the author, you own that copyright protection applies automatically because you've created it. It's your original work. Of course unless you copied someone else, then this doesn't count. But if you've created the. [00:02:00] You didn't copy anyone else. Then you have that automatic copyright protection, and this means if somebody infringes your copyright, there are things that you can do about that.

[00:02:11] Mariam Tsaturyan:

There are. Letters that you can send, like cease and desist letters. There is money that you can ask for if they generated income based on your content or ideas and so on. And of course there's the whole court process. If somebody does not listen to you, they does not abide by the rules when you ask them to stop.

[00:02:29] Mariam Tsaturyan:

To cease. To cease. And your. Option remaining is to file a court case. You can do that if you have a registered copyright to get some kind of a court order to asking them to stop from using that particular thing or whatever the court order may be. Now, the question that arises when it comes to AI content, who owns the copyright to that content because it gets generated by this artificial intelligence [00:03:00] software.

[00:03:00] Mariam Tsaturyan:

And you take ownership of that, but the generation part is done by the ai. So can you actually own the copyright rights to the AI generate content? Can you register a copyright for that content? Nowadays, I know several course creators who have created an entire online. Based on AI generated content.

[00:03:27] Mariam Tsaturyan:

They gave it some prompts, they gave it some formatting guidelines, and the AI listened to them and produced or generated content based on what they wanted. There are people out there who create entire newsletters. Sales pages based on AI generated content. There are programs such as AI programs out there that generate images based on the particular text that you're giving it to.

[00:03:54] Mariam Tsaturyan:

For example, you can tell it to. Create an image of a girl at [00:04:00] the beach drinking a mimosa, and it'll generate something like that. So who owns the copyright to that generated image? Is it you can you own a copyright to something that wasn't actually created by you? It was created by an artificial intelligence.

[00:04:18] Mariam Tsaturyan:

This is one of the many questions that the copyright office, the US Copyright Office is trying to answer these days. Now they are taking into notice the fact that times are changing, the fact that software is advancing. There's all kinds of new advancements and new what's the word I'm looking for?

[00:04:39] Mariam Tsaturyan:

Like new softwares, new tools that come into play that do all kinds of different things so the times aren't stagnant. We're not still writing the same way we wrote 200 years ago. So obviously we need to walk with the time. We need to keep up with the changes, but that raises questions for the copyright.

[00:04:59] Mariam Tsaturyan:

[00:05:00] Do they allow registration for copyright on a content that was generated by ai or do they tell you No. So here is what we know right now, and this might change in the very near future because the US Copyright Office told us that they're actually holding hearings, meetings, and research for the duration of the entire spring quarter for them to determine what needs to be the new guideline, the new process, the new procedure, how they should evaluate AI generated cases.

[00:05:37] Mariam Tsaturyan:

But right now, in order to appease content creators out there and authors out there, here is what the copyright office tells us that they're doing. If you decide to register a copyright for a work that was created with the help of ai, if your AI generated work or if your work was [00:06:00] completely.

[00:06:01] Mariam Tsaturyan:

Created by ai. You as the person, as the human author, didn't have any input. The nudge, you just gave it some prompts, and it actually generated an entire, let's say, book on a particular topic. Then that will not be registerable for copyright purposes. Reason being is because under the copyright law and under the US Constitution as well, copyright requires input by a human author.

[00:06:35] Mariam Tsaturyan:

In fact, there are several cases where US Supreme Court held that non-human. Things, tools could not be considered authors for the purposes of copyright registration. So we still do need that human author component to a content in order for a copyright to be registrable, [00:07:00] hypothetically. Let's say you are writing a book and you wrote several portions of the book, several chapters, or you've given it a lot of content, outline, stylistic approaches, and all of that, but you need some help from the ai.

[00:07:17] Mariam Tsaturyan:

Maybe you need some filler pages here and there. Maybe you have a particular idea, but you don't know how to express it. You don't know how to put it into words to make sense better. So you use something like, let's say, chat, G B T to generate this idea, and you include that in the book. Now, when you go to register your book, what you're going to tell the copyright office is that.

[00:07:42] Mariam Tsaturyan:

AI has been used to generate some portion of the book or a few pages of the book, whatever the case may be, and what the copyright office will do is they will grant you copyright [00:08:00] registration, protection in the portions of the book that you yourself. The human author, but the sections that were generated by AI will not be part of that.

[00:08:13] Mariam Tsaturyan:

The entire book will be protected, but the particular sections generated by AI will not be protected. This notice is required when you're filling out your copyright registration application online. There is a portion there that you will need to disclose that. Now whether you need to disclose if you are the sole author.

[00:08:36] Mariam Tsaturyan:

Or a co-author along with AI depends on how much of the book has been written by you and how much has been written by ai. If you've used AI to generate only a few pages or paragraphs and the. The content that was generated is not a significant portion of the book, [00:09:00] both volume wise and meaning wise, the content wise.

[00:09:04] Mariam Tsaturyan:

Then you don't have to disclose that AI was a co-author. You just need to say that portions have been generated or portions have been written with the help of an AI software, however, If you co-wrote the book with the help of an ai, if the AI has been a major player in your journey to write this book and most of the content has been generated by this software, then you do need to disclose that AI was a co-author.

[00:09:38] Mariam Tsaturyan:

In this circumstance, trademark copyright office is not going to grant you copyright protection. They will grant you copyright protection for your section only, and you will need to address the sections that were written by AI completely, and those would be excluded. So as you see copyright. [00:10:00] Is doing something to move forward with the time to keep up with the changes.

[00:10:07] Mariam Tsaturyan:

But as of right now, they are not completely convinced that AI work should be protected. In fact, I'm still not convinced as an attorney intellectual property attorney that AI work should be protected under copyrights just because there is a lot that goes into creating content. That you as the human author, decide it's not just writing about something, it's how you write about that thing, your stylistic approach, your formatting, your language that you use your tone.

[00:10:40] Mariam Tsaturyan:

Everything is decided by the author, by the human author. When you use something like AI software, even if you give it a detailed. Prompt to follow. It's still going to write content or generate content based on whatever kind of [00:11:00] language it dims fit at the moment. There's still a lot of creativity that is left up to the AI tool that you're using that.

[00:11:08] Mariam Tsaturyan:

Technically shouldn't get copyright protection because it is not created by a human. It is not a human work. It is not a work of authorship. And as we said, authors are described or defined as humans. As of right now, non-humans are excluded from the list of author. That's basically what I wanted to tell you about content when it comes to AI generated content and copyright protection.

[00:11:39] Mariam Tsaturyan:

And I want you to be very careful with this. AI is an amazing tool to use in your business. I use it a lot. In fact, I use it to come up with topics. I use it to help me come up with prompts for social media specific LinkedIn. I use it a lot on there. But how I use it is [00:12:00] it'll come up with the prompt.

[00:12:01] Mariam Tsaturyan:

Then I will paraphrase it. I will change it around to the point where it's my work. It's my words, it's my tone, it's my stylistic approach to the content. So if you do this azu if you take AI generated content and treat it as a building block, a foundation to. Build your content on top of, and you take that AI generated content and change it around, make it yours.

[00:12:32] Mariam Tsaturyan:

It has your tone, it has your vocabulary, it has your stylistic approach. Then if you change it enough, then. That can be protected under copyright protection. But if you just take whatever AI generates straight up without changing it, without any customization, and you use it in your online courses, in your newsletters, in your books or eBooks or whatever it is [00:13:00] that creating, then that will.

[00:13:02] Mariam Tsaturyan:

Get copyright protection as of right now. Again, we don't know what will happen in a few months. I doubt it's going to change to the point where they will say, AI gets protection just like human authorship, but we never know Things are changing and law needs to keep up with that as well. But this is basically the gist of copyright protection, ai.

[00:13:24] Mariam Tsaturyan:

Be careful how you use it. If your goal is to be able to protect the content from infringement, right now is not the best time to use. AI in that kind of a work. The way it gives you, the way it generates that content, if you wanna use it as an idea, use it as an inspiration. Take whatever it gives you and then start paraphrasing it.

[00:13:46] Mariam Tsaturyan:

Start changing it around, adding your own unique twist to it in order for that creation to be protected. Let me know in the comment section. If you have any questions on [00:14:00] this topic, share your ideas. How are you using AI today? Do you find it useful for your business or not? You can leave me a comment on my website, podcast section, or your welcome to send me an email at [email protected].

[00:14:18] Mariam Tsaturyan:

I can't wait to read all of your questions and responses. Have a great one. Talk to you soon.