Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a inventive tool but there are pros and cons. Succinctly, there are right and wrong ways to use AI when branding / content creation. It is important to consider personal and commercial use.
What's commercial use?
Commonly, we see personal use on social media. However, when growing a following / subscribers and making money - that's commercial use. Think of it in this way, if there's a profit or financial gain, it is commercial use. Commercial use is a legal term that defines the use of certain tools or intellectual property for financial gain.
Main points to consider when using AI
AI generated eBooks for example cannot be registered as intellectual property or specially a copyright.
Therefore, for the most part, as an aspiring author or content creator (one does not own rights) to AI generated material. Commercial use is strictly prohibited (unless there's ownership over digital assets).
IP infringement is perpetrated intentionally or mistakenly with the use of AI generated material | content.
An aspiring entrepreneur who uses AI may have to rebrand in order to claim ownership over digital assets.
What are digital assets?
Multimedia: Images, videos, and audios. Furthermore, digital art, eBooks, music, websites, social media accounts, and more. All of the following can constitute a copyright or trademark protection (common law rights).
Are there rules or exceptions?
There are exceptions because if an artist disclaims ownership over the AI-generated portions of his or her work, ostensibly, they can register copyright protection for the human created portions. Applicants are required to specify human authorship and should disclose or explain which portions were produced by an algorithm.
It is important to note, there are human creations (with the use of certain tools). However, AI uses a library or pool of material to work off of when prompted to-do-so (without consent from the owner/s). AI models are often trained on pre-existing work. Therefore, some individuals would define this as derivative work - derivative work must add a sufficient amount of change to the original work. This distinction varies based on the type of work. In branding, however, either way, there's a likelihood of confusion which can result in costly litigation and re-branding.
The Copyright Office pointed to several cases in which the courts have rejected non-human authors, including one involving a book purportedly authored by “non-human spiritual beings.”