Who Owns the Copyright for Work Created by AI?

As more people turn to AI programmes and all the various free platforms to write summaries, design letters, shape reports, tidy up a set of minutes etc, we have to then ask who owns the work it creates? This may not seem that important in ECEC because copyright is often seen as the province of writers, artists and musicians but when AI is used to help design policies and letters and training material, you have to ask who owns the copyright? Yes, who owns your words!

Copyright has always been tied to human authorship. But what happens when a piece of work has no human author?

The US has taken a hard stance. In 2023, the Copyright Office agreed that a graphic novel, Zaria of the Dawn, could be protected but only the human-written text. The AI-generated images were excluded. A later federal court case confirmed the principle: works must be authored by a human being to be protected. Meaning, that however clever your AI prompts may be, they’re not enough to count as authorship.

(Image created using AI assistance – Copilot)

China, however, has gone in the opposite direction. A Beijing court ruled that AI images can be protected because the human’s role in selecting prompts and refining outputs still counts as creativity. Meanwhile, the UK and Ireland sit somewhere in the middle, currently allowing copyright for computer-generated works, though both governments are questioning whether that should continue. This lack of global alignment is messy and creates big risks and can leave you uncertain as to who owns what!

AI is already creeping into the world of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC).  For example:

• Curriculum planning and training materials: Some settings are experimenting with AI to draft learning plans, staff handbooks, or CPD materials. But if these resources are AI-generated, the copyright may be shaky. Can we really claim ownership of them? Can others freely reuse them?
• Marketing and communications: Many nurseries use AI to write website copy, newsletters, or even social media posts. In some countries, these outputs may not be protected, meaning your carefully crafted AI-assisted campaign could be reused by anyone.
• Children’s creative play: Digital tools that allow children to generate stories, poems, or pictures with AI are becoming more common. But who owns those creations? The child? The AI company? No one? This matters when we think about showcasing children’s work or using it in portfolios.

The sector needs to be alert. Too many places lack policies to start the debate on using AI. We need to think about who owns what because the rules are shifting and AI is reshaping the very idea of what it means to be an author.  The debate should also be driving some deeper conversations about whether the speed of AI and its ability to pull together a coherent summary in seconds outweighs the originality, empathy, or storytelling that comes from people. For children, that means their authorship, their drawings, their stories, and their block towers are more valuable than ever, because in a world where ownership of machine-made work is so uncertain, the value of authentic human creativity only grows stronger.