The short answer is yes, with some nuance worth understanding. In this article we\u2019ll dig into the legal questions clients ask about AI-assisted video. While I am not a lawyer and none of this should be interpreted as legal advice, I have sought the input of Sharon Toerek of Toerek Law,<\/a> an IP attorney who advises agencies and marketers on exactly these questions.<\/p>\n If you type into your LLM\u2019s prompt box \u201cMake me a funny video of a chipmunk playing the banjo\u201d and receive a vertical clip that you share on your Reels, that is not something you have rights to. The Copyright Office<\/a> makes a distinction between AI-generated work and AI-assisted work. The former is not copyrightable; the human-created parts of the latter are.<\/p>\n When you hire a studio like IdeaRocket to make an AI-assisted video, we are not just pulling something out of an AI generator. We are doing a lot of human work that is copyrightable. That might include:<\/p>\n Because the human-created parts are protected, someone who filches the video wholesale is still infringing.<\/p>\n However, the elements that did not involve human participation are still not protected. You do not own them. This isn\u2019t something novel; video producers have always included material in their work they did not originate. For instance, a commercial video might include library music or stock footage that is licensed for use, or perhaps material that is in the public domain, or that can be used under fair use doctrine<\/a>.<\/p>\n There is a narrow strip of instances where the use of AI-generated material might leave you exposed. For instance, if you want to use AI to create a character or mascot that you plan to invest a lot of brand equity in, you should be careful to document the process carefully to prove the salience of human intervention.<\/p>\n Apparently, yes. This is not that strange because copyright law<\/a> has only ever protected the work itself, not its ideas, facts, styles, or techniques.<\/p>\n\n\n However, the AI companies have gotten dinged for not paying for access to the source material they used. In Bartz v. Anthropic<\/em>, the defendants agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle claims covering more than 480,000 works \u2014 the largest copyright settlement in US history. Note, though, that the judge considered the training itself permissible under fair use; the breach was in how the material was obtained.<\/p>\n\n\n However, when AIs regurgitate copyrighted content with no modification that is considered a breach of copyright. This is a central claim in the New York Times case<\/a> against OpenAI and Microsoft, and it was also what GEMA, the music collecting society, claimed in a suit against OpenAI. A German court ruled that not only were AI companies not allowed to reproduce the material, they also couldn\u2019t maintain it in memory, something that isn\u2019t strictly necessary for training purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n It\u2019s worthwhile to note that while these cases went badly for the AI companies, the liability did not flow downstream to the users.<\/p>\n\n\n On the risk side of the equation, it should also be noted that the legal landscape is fast-changing and ruled by many different jurisdictions, so it\u2019s impossible to say what legal regime your video will one day enter. \u201cThe law is always going to be reactive rather than proactive, so it\u2019s always going to be fluid,\u201d says Toerek.<\/p>\n\n\n But such risks aren\u2019t the whole picture. \u201cPeople tend to focus on ownability and infringement of third-party rights,\u201d she says. Toerek points out that other issues also deserve attention.<\/p>\n\n
Can AI companies use material for training without infringing on copyright?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
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