How Copyright Office Guidance Applies to Music That Includes AI-generated Material

The Copyright Office (here after the “Office”) published its Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 1: Digital Replicas, on July 31, 2024, and Part 2: Copyrightability, on January 29, 2025, that focuses on the copyrightability of outputs created using generative AI.

In Part 2 of the report, the Office affirmed that copyright does not extend to purely AI-generated music productions or songs that do not include sufficient human control over the expressive elements. Part 2 of the Report also provides additional guidance on the type and level of sufficient human contribution needed for music that’s created using AI generated material to be eligible for copyright protection, at least in the United States.

More specifically, Part 2 provides: a) an overview of the various AI technologies; b) discusses existing U.S. copyright laws; c) the policy implications of copyrighting AI-generated works; and d) affirms that existing principles of copyright law are flexible enough to apply to this new technology, as they have applied to technological innovations in the past. Therefore, additional legislation or legislative changes are not needed to provide additional protection for AI-generated outputs.

The fact is artists have used technology for decades to enhance, modify, and add to their music creations. Likewise, the requirement for meaningful human authorship to secure copyright protection of creative works isn’t new.

According to the report, the Office has registered more than a thousand works where applicants followed its guidance to disclose and disclaim AI-generated material.  In the copyrightability analysis, the Office makes clear that distinguishing between using AI as a tool to assist in the creation of works and using AI to stand in for human creativity is what is important.

Here’s the bottom line: Registration is still not mandatory, but it does provide significant benefits that are unavailable without registration. And the use of AI to assist in the process of creating a song or the inclusion of AI-generated material in a larger human-generated musical work does not bar copyrightability. But, if an artist uploads a fully AI-generated song to a streaming platform, they cannot prevent anyone from copying, remixing, or distributing that song, because without meaningful human involvement that creation enters the public domain and anyone can use it without legal restriction.

In my next article, I will describe how other countries are approaching the copyrightability of AI-generated outputs, and provide more detail about the types of human involvement that can lead to copyright registration in the U.S.

This summary is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended to constitute legal advice nor does it create an attorney-client relationship with Rimon, P.C. or its affiliates.

Celeste Moy is a Partner in Rimon’s Entertainment Sports & Media practice group.  Ms. Moy has extensive music and entertainment law experience primarily representing songwriters, and their successors-in-interest, in disputes over royalty payments and royalty monetization transactions, copyright assignment terminations and recaptures, as well as negotiating and drafting various types of entertainment contracts for recording and performing artists and music producers.  She also helps her clients to obtain trademark registrations and trademark license agreements for use of their logos, and creative works in connection with advertising, marketing materials and merchandise. Read more here.