© and AI

AI Inputs: Data Ingestion 1

Many AI platforms require users to warrant that they have the rights to the material that they submit for AI prompt inputs, and may even require users to license this material to the AI platform. Copying or uploading third party material without appropriate clearance may infringe copyright and breach the applicable terms of use.

As such, copyright clearance should be conducted on each item before it is used with an AI tool, whether copying text, uploading a document, scraping datasets for a systematic review, or building an AI learning tool.

Copyright clearance may involve one of the following methods.

  • Determine that copyright doesn’t apply or has expired
  • Use openly licensed materials, such open education resources (OERs) published under a Creative Commons license
  • Use commercially licensed materials that allow text and data mining 2
  • Obtain permission from the rightsholder

1 Source: Copyright & AI, Florida Gulf Coast University Library. Used by permission.

2 NOTE: Many library licensed resources are not permitted—email the Copyright Consultant to ask at copyright@ecu.edu.

AI Outputs: General Terms 3

Your ability to use material generated by AI tools in projects, presentations, and publications is affected by a number of factors, including these:

  • The terms and conditions of the generative AI tool—be sure to check these!
  • The policies that govern your project, presentation, or publication (ex., university policy, conference policy, publisher policy)
  • Applicable laws, including copyright law

Material created solely by generative AI tools does not currently receive copyright protections in the United States. The U.S. Copyright Office has issued guidance that explains the requirement for human authorship to be granted copyright protection and provides information to creators working in tandem with AI tools on how to effectively and correctly registered their works. Projects that incorporate both material generated by AI and material originally created by the author can receive copyright protection.

View the US Copyright Office’s Copyright and Artificial Intelligence website and see the Copyright Registration Guidance document for Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence (PDF).

However, generative AI tools can create material that infringes on existing copyrights.  Using this material in a project, presentation, or publication would have to abide by copyright law.

Some policies, conferences, and publishers require full attribution for images and text that have been generated with AI.

3 Adapted from “AI Tools and Resources: Copyright and Generative AI,” University of South Florida Libraries. Used by permission.

AI Outputs: Scholarly Publishing

When considering how Generative AI tools impact future publications, authors should be prepared to document what tools they used and how they used them. In general, publishers require disclosure of the use of AI, prohibit listing an AI as an author, prohibit using AI to conduct peer review, and require human oversight of all AI-manipulated or generated content.

Authors should also check for policies and/or guidelines by individual publishers, including these:

Please note: some individual journals have their own stricter AI guidelines in addition to the general publisher’s guidelines. They are not always in the same spot; here are some places to look for additional AI guidelines:

  • Author guidelines
  • Submission guidelines
  • Publication ethics statement
  • Journal ethics and policies
  • Editorial policies

Publishers may also be influenced by associations such as STM, the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers, or affinity groups such as COPE, the Committee on Publication Ethics.