Is AI Generated Writing Copyrightable?

​AI holds great promise in revolutionizing business.  However, before you think about using AI to generate press releases and other PR writing, you need to consider the copyright.

Copyright laws regarding AI generated writing vary from country to country.  In the U.S. the general guidelines refer to AI assisted versus AI generated.  For example, if you use AI to research your document or even create an outline, but do the writing yourself, that is AI assisted writing and is protected by copyright law.  However, if you use AI to write; i.e. generate, the document, typically it is not protected by copyright law.  So that press release, website text, blog or article that is AI written, versus AI assisted, probably can’t be copyrighted.  Because it isn’t protected by copyright law, anyone - including your competition - can copy and use it as if it were their own.

Before using AI to generate your business documents, think about how it is going to be used.  AI can be of great benefit in routine internal documents as an example.  But if it is going out to the media or published on your website, you probably want to have an expert create it for you.  After all, you don’t want to see your blog, press release or website published by your competitor as if it is their own.