The US Copyright Office determined that images generated by Midjourney in the graphic novel "Zarya of the Dawn" do not qualify for copyright protection, holding that AI-generated output lacks the required element of human authorship. The ruling applies selectively: the author retained copyright for text and compositional arrangement, but not for AI-produced images. The decision establishes an early federal baseline for copyright eligibility in generative AI outputs and creates structural ambiguity around ownership and enforcement of derivative works using AI systems. For financial institutions, this constrains the defensibility of intellectual property claims built on AI-generated content and may affect licensing economics and liability exposure in media and publishing verticals.
307 other tracked developments touching the same claims.