Part 2 of the Copyright Office report on AI is out! Spoiler alert: Prompting alone ≠ copyrightable.

Today, the U.S. Copyright Office released the second of a three-part report around artificial intelligence. The first part focused on deepfakes, or digital replicas.

This second part is focused on the big question surrounding the extent to which, if at all, generative AI output or works can be eligible for copyright protections.

In a statement, Shira Perlmutter notes: “our conclusions turn on the centrality of human creativity to copyright. Where that creativity is expressed through the use of AI systems, it continues to enjoy protection. Extending protection to material whose expressive elements are determined by a machine, however, would undermine rather than further the constitutional goals of copyright.”

Here are 5 key takeaways from this latest report:

1. Human Authorship is Essential – The report reaffirms that copyright protection in the U.S. requires human authorship. Works created entirely by AI, without meaningful human involvement, are not eligible for copyright protection. Courts and the Copyright Office have consistently upheld this principle.
2. Case-by-Case Analysis of AI-Assisted Works – While purely AI-generated material is not copyrightable, human-authored contributions within AI-assisted works may be protected. Each case must be analyzed individually to determine if the human contribution is sufficient to establish copyrightable authorship.
3. Prompts Alone Are Insufficient for Copyright – The report finds that inputting prompts into an AI system does not, by itself, establish authorship over the resulting output. Since AI models interpret and generate content in unpredictable ways, a user’s control over the output is often too indirect to qualify as authorship.
4. AI as an Assistive Tool Does Not Impact Copyrightability – The use of AI as a tool in the creative process does not disqualify a work from copyright protection. If a human makes expressive modifications to AI-generated content—such as selecting, arranging, or significantly altering it—those elements may be eligible for copyright.
5. No Need for Legislative Change – The Copyright Office concludes that existing copyright law is adequate to address AI-related copyrightability issues. It sees no immediate need for new legislation or sui generis protection for AI-generated works but will continue monitoring legal and technological developments.

For those of us following in this space, the above highlights shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, and doesn’t deviate really at all from the guidance and public statements made by the USCO to date.

I think a point of continuing confusion on the issue will surround what the USCO notes as “works of authorship that are perceptible in AI-generated outputs.” But no doubt there is more to unpack on this point.