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Exploring Generative AI’s Impact on Intellectual Property

By Jazmyn Ferguson and Matt Minder
January 01, 2025

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly reaching into nearly all areas of everyday life, quickly becoming some of the most exciting new tools for creativity. These tools, known as Generative AI (GenAI), advance innovation and efficiency by producing images, text, video, audio, and other forms of content. For some, GenAI is the latest and greatest innovation, while for others, it is an existential threat. In this emerging technological landscape, there are many implications and unanswered questions regarding the protection of intellectual property rights. This article highlights some of the challenges GenAI presents, and recent developments in copyright law and trademark law in this quickly evolving space.

Copyright Law Implications for GenAI


Copyright law protects an author’s exclusive right to exploit their original works through reproduction, preparation of derivative works, distribution, public performance and public display. See, 17 U.S.C. §106. As can be seen from recent headlines, copyright law is implicated by GenAI in at least three ways: 1) the use of copyrighted works to train AI models; 2) the risk that a specific AI-generated work infringes a prior copyrighted work; and 3) the protection of AI-generated works under copyright law.

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