Comment by graemep
2 hours ago
Yes, provided you can separate the two (e.g. a book and illustrations in one case). AFAIK the courts have still not ruled on what happens when AI and human contributions cannot be separated etc.
It varies a lot in other countries, but in most (if not all) an AI cannot hold a copyright.
AI isn't a legal entity that can do anything, let alone hold a copyright. It is an inanimate box of numbers.
The only two things that can transact with any legal system in any way are humans and groups of humans.
But a human can hold the copyright on the output of an AI - but the requirements for that are not clear in the US yet. They are clear in the UK but the government is thinking of changing the law.
A human can hold the copyright for anything for which they've contributed the requisite level of authorship and creativity. There are no tooling requirements or prohibitions.
That should be obvious but unfortunately lots of people believe (or have a vested interest in pretending to believe) LLMs are living, thinking, sentient entities and that belief is going to influence the politics and legislation around AI to some unknown degree.
Hearing otherwise intelligent people anthropomorphize AI in legal arguments makes me realize why lawyers advise everyone just to shut their mouths and ask a lawyer.