Crisis averted - for now: AI-generated music has, once again, been deemed public domain and impossible to copyright

It’s official. Work (be it art or music or any kind of content, it seems) produced 100% by AI cannot be copyrighted. That is, if a machine made it, then no human can claim ownership and profit from it.

That’s the new ruling of the U.S. Federal Appeals Court on 18 March 2025, upholding a regulation imposed previously based on the Copyright Act of 1976, which established the rules on human authorship and such long-standing tenants in law as copyright lasting for 70 years beyond an author’s demise.

That ruling early this year was designed to update that law to cope with the upcoming influx of AI-generated content, and decided that: “Based on the fundamental principles of copyright, the current state of fast-evolving technology, and the information received… the Copyright Office concludes that existing legal doctrines are adequate and appropriate to resolve questions of copyrightability.

“Copyright law has long adapted to new technology and can enable case-by-case determinations as to whether AI-generated outputs reflect sufficient human contribution to warrant copyright protection.

That ruling effectively made it impossible for creators to make anything with AI and then claim ownership of it. And that’s the ruling that, in this latest decision, remains in place and is, broadly speaking, something that has been well received by human creators, but not so much by AI companies.

What’s this all about?

As well as being a kick in the teeth to amateur AI-based creators (perhaps using platforms such as Suno to magic music out of nothing) the worry had been that big tech could have used their AI creations to crank out limitless content for them and hoover up any profits (be it only fractions of cents) should subsequent copyright claims be successful.

It’s easy to speculate that if such a machine were then to produce tens of millions of examples of content, even with only a tiny fraction being successful in landing any kind of copyright claim, then at the end of the day, a significant sum could be earned.

But the real price of such a market-flooding tactic? The world of art, music, TV, movies and more could be swamped by ‘fake’ AI-generated content to the point where human artists in each field would simply not bother any more.

Ouch…

That’s the nightmare that this law – and the latest ruling to uphold the regulation – just held back. And with big tech unable to profit from it, they won’t bother pressing the big red button.

So can anyone make money from AI?

Under current law, content which is produced entirely by AI will always be deemed as being ‘public domain’, that is, it effectively has no owner and anybody can use it for whatever purpose they desire. I.e. With no human involved… There’s nobody to be paid.

However, if a work is produced through a human providing ‘meaningful input’, and the AI being used is ‘used as a tool’ rather than 100% creating the content, then that human can claim ownership.

Needless to say, it’s a situation already couched in a degree of confusion and rule-bending (when does the provision of a prompt constitute ‘meaningful input’ for example) and that situation seems only likely to get worse.

So how does this work in the world of music?

It’s exactly the same… i.e. Simple… But equally open to argument and confusion.

In short, any AI-generated music is, once again, public domain. Anybody can use it and create their own original works, but can never claim ownership of it. However, work which does have sufficient human interaction can be copywritten.

This concept covers the use of AI-powered audio tools such as digital effects used in mixing and mastering perfectly. I.e. A human is using a powerful tool to improve music (rather than creating music and passing off ownership as their own). But – again – expect lines to get blurred from here on in.

And that’s the main reason why this new ruling exists – it’s an attempt to hold up the existing (shakey) rules and, at least for now, keep a lid on what could be a pandora’s box of ‘who owns what’, ‘who pays who’ and ‘why even bother’ going forwards.

So, if you’re a musician making music the old-fashioned way, for now, at least, be grateful that this law – no matter how open to interpretation it may be – exists at all. And, for the sake of anyone aiming to make money from music in the future, let’s hope that it remains able to move fast enough to keep up.