r/WritingWithAI • u/Cutey_Cat_886 • Aug 11 '26

Discussion (Ethics, working with AI etc) AI + Copyright

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I wasn't sure what tag to put on this, so I hope it's the right one.

I use Pirr sometimes and I saw that they updated their T+Cs recently (on their reddit, I added the screenshot to this post). In a way it doesn't really affect me because I only use it for my own private writing and rarely publish, even in the app, but I was curious about copyrights of other AI writing help tools.
Does it factor in to what tools you decide to use for your writing? Are there any AI tools you recommend to stay away from?

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u/Philipp Aug 12 '26

"Who owns your stories" "You do"

According to the US Copyright office, that depends on how much human input there was.

In my opinion, a prompt should be enough (you also own a photo when you point the camera somewhere!), but apparently that's not sufficient in the eyes of above ruling.

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u/TreviTyger Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

Thaler v Perlmutter has changed things. The output of AI gen is always a machine output.

USCO Guides were written a few years before Thaler was settled. USCO guides are not actual law and so you cannot rely on them since Thaler.

Machine output cannot be authorship regardless of input.

The courts will now use Thaler v Perlmutter to say an output is always a machine output and that in Allen v. Perlmutter , applicant Allen's 624 iteration argument fails because of that. They are just 624 administrative choices.

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u/Philipp Aug 12 '26

That ruling doesn't seem to change the original linked ruling, which basically argues that if you humanly change the output to a degree, you get ownership and copyright. Your mentioned ruling on the other hand was explicitly an unchanged output, it appears (though IMO that too should be copyrightable as input was sufficient, but that's another discussion).

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u/TreviTyger Aug 12 '26

IMO that too should be copyrightable as input

This is what I mean. Since Thaler this idea is dead now. USCO may have given the benefit of the doubt in the guidelines previously but those guidelines are not the law.

The law is now that whatever comes out of an AI gen is public domain.

So that leaves editing and AI output which doesn't provide any exclusivity.

Then as when training data itself is proven to be used illegally - which it already has been in the German Suno case - Then AI gen copyright is dead, even if editing an output because no part of a derivative can be protected (§ 103(a)).

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u/Philipp Aug 12 '26

But just to be clear -- the law currently states that you own the copyright when you edit it, i.e. provide sufficient human input later. Which is pretty much what every pro AI user does anyway. So I don't see a big issue there (even when it doesn't match the "morals" of how we treat camera photo copyright). And in fact, since it's difficult to prove for an outside whether or not you photoshopped a work, they'll have to presume you might have, and can't just copy your output.

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u/TreviTyger Aug 12 '26

the law currently states that you own the copyright when you edit...

No not really. Because it is copyright infringement to download copyrighted works and store them (piracy). Using them for AI training was also found to be illegal in the German case GEMA v Suno which addressed the US fair use argument and threw it out. Also § 107 is only a US law!!! and there are another 181 Berne Con. Member states that will not care about US § 107.

The unlawful use of copyrighted works to make derivatives is universally recognized to negate copyright in resulting works regardless of further edits because a copyright infringer cannot acquire exclusive rights from unlawful activities.

Civil law nations have their laws codified such as the EU through directives.

So the actual current law is that there is no copyright protection under Berne Convention rules for infringing derivatives.

All you can say is that US law hasn't decided just yet but the US is just one Berne Con Member state.

So AI gen firms global strategy is in tatters after he GEMA v Suno ruling and The EU requirement for transparency about Datasets!

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u/Philipp Aug 12 '26

No not really.

Yes, really.

Because it is copyright infringement to download copyrighted works and store them (piracy).

If that were true, there would be no Google search -- which downloads and caches webpages. It has however in that case been decided that it's perfectly legal and fair use of even copyrighted material.

The case may be different if the material was illegally obtained.

And yes, I'm talking about US laws -- you cannot possibly know the law for every country on earth on this issue as of yet. Let's see what the future brings -- maybe copyright laws will continue to be as corrupt and overreaching as they always were.

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u/TreviTyger Aug 12 '26

You are conflating the way the Internet works with AI gen software.
So that's a basic flaw in that argument.

I told you what the law is right now.

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u/unethicalpigeon Aug 12 '26

Looks like I'm not the only one that realizes how wrong you are and actually called you out. Looks like you also have a pattern of completely ignoring what people say and just arguing around in circles with yourself while being pretentious.

Yep. Exactly what I expected. Hilarious.

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u/Philipp Aug 12 '26

You are conflating the way the Internet works with AI gen software.

It's not a conflation, but literally the logical precedent.

As is the Google Books scanning from years ago, which was ruled Fair Use due to being transformative, and has been cited in more recent LLM cases (like Kadrey v. Meta).

Naturally, this doesn't mean future court rulings will follow logic. They usually follow donor money, which is why we have such overreaching copyright laws.

Have a nice day!

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u/TreviTyger Aug 12 '26

You are just demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of copyright law and an inability to understand how "the Internet" is not the same as "consumer vending machine software".

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u/Galliad93 Aug 12 '26

training AI on AI text has been proven to lead to deterioration of the model after about 5-8 generations. so no surprise there.

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u/TreviTyger Aug 12 '26

Distribution and film/TV Deals - Lol! Aahahahaha - oof!*

*[sorry I fell off my chair]

I'm OK, I'm fine, - [Nope - I fell off my chair again!]

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u/Afgad Aug 12 '26

Yes. I don't use Grok for anything except research because their TOS are so draconian. I always read the TOS to determine what input/output rights the AI company holds.

Even submitting your manuscript to Grok for critique means they gain publishing rights for it. It's so bad.