As generative AI reshapes how we create music, art, and code, a legal grey area is growing. Who owns work made by algorithms? And what happens when these systems are trained on human creativity without consent? Inside the legal chaos of AI, copyright, and the concerns of real artists.

The cornerstone of copyright law in the UK and Europe still relies on an old-world idea: that creative works must bear the imprint of a human author’s personality, shaped by free and creative choices. But in the age of AI, where a single word can summon complex images, that test is suddenly on shaky ground, and it threatens the livelihoods of real artists.

As solicitor Toby Bond of Bird and Bird International Law Firm explains, “I can just put in the word cat to an AI image generation, and I get a picture of a cat. At the other end, you have the use of generative AI as an assistive editing feature for artists or creative people just using it to adjust slight elements of creative works,  Exactly where on that spectrum the test to determine whether copyrights exists is the same one but how that applies in the world of AI hasn’t yet been fully addressed by the courts in the UK or Europe”

In other words, whether you’re just doodling with AI or giving it full control of the paintbrush, the law is still figuring out if any of this counts as real art—or just high-tech finger-painting.

But not everywhere is tuck in this legal mollases, as Toby explained, other countries aren’t so late to the party when it comes to thinking about AI, copyright and the legal spaghetti that comes along with it. In the US, they have a copyright registration system where if you want to enforce your copyright, you have to register it with the US Copyright Office, and the US Copyright Office will assess whether the work is original or at least you have to assert that it is to register it. 

And in the US, there have been a series of cases, decisions by the US copyright office and consequential disputes in court about whether an AI-generated artwork, code, or some other content is protectable by copyright. 

 “Generally, the US has taken the approach that if you put in a simple text prompt into a generative AI system, the resulting output will not be protected by copyright.  But maybe if you take the outputs from generative AI and you add some further creativity, so you edit them or you combine them in a creative way, that could be the subject of protection. So the US has done quite a lot of thinking already on that in Europe, the issue only gets tested when there’s litigation around the copyright, and we haven’t yet had any litigation which has really, really addressed that issue.” Bond says.

The second issue concerns whether copyright exists, and who owns the copyright to AI-produced content. 

Toby said: “That will generally be addressed by the terms of use for the system. Typically in my experience, pretty much all generative AI providers will say to the extent there are any rights the user will own them…because the generative AI developer isn’t interested in owning rights in stuff you create but that still presupposes an answer to the first question, which is, are there any rights?” 

The UK, however, lacks such clear precedents. “We haven’t yet had litigation that really addresses whether AI-generated work meets that originality threshold,” Bond adds.

These platforms have been trained on vast datasets, including millions of artworks, often without the consent of the original artists. This practice has sparked legal challenges, with companies like Getty Images suing AI developers for alleged copyright infringement. and In 2023, a group including Sarah Anderson and Kelly McKernan launched a lawsuit against AI companies, arguing that their images were used without permission to train these systems.

One reason for such growth is social media trends. Using specific AI for, insert current trendy IP-style images of oneself. At first glance, this may seem innocent, a fun trend and an easy TikTok or Instagram post. But by participating in these trends without mentioning the manipulation of people’s intellectual property are we normalising or accepting it?

“I would just say there is a debate about the protectability of artist styles beyond just because it will attach to individual copyright works and… there is a debate and that  The answer may be different in different countries to the extent to which a style which extends across many copyright works is protectable itself as a copyright work.” Bond said.

So, can you copyright a “vibe”? The courts haven’t decided, but it’s probably only a matter of time before someone tries.

Sara Prinsloo is an artist based in Sheffield who has produced an eclectic collection of vibrant, humorous and punchy artwork.

She said: “Music the same, you can’t copyright chords I guess it’s this new challenge that everyone is really wary about.”

“Maybe people that are higher up in the art world, who have got massive careers, I could see how that  could be potentially damaging .”

This technology is moving at a rapid pace, but can legislation keep up?

“The usual answer people give is,that technology moves too fast and the law can never keep up. That is true in some circumstances, but generally, good law should be technology-neutral. Good law should identify potential societal harms and should introduce rules which stop those from happening. And I mean a good example would be rules around the generation of deep fakes.” Toby Said.

“My personal view again is that you should legislate against that technology in a neutral way rather than just introducing legislation specifically focused on AI technology”