10 min · up to 50 XP

IP and copyright basics

Who owns AI output? The practical answers.

The launch campaign is nearly out the door, and the strapline everyone loves ("Growth you can see coming") came out of an AI session Priya drove. Then the new designer asks, quietly: "Are we actually allowed to use that? Doesn't the AI own it? Or… whoever it learned it from?"

Four people at the table, four confident, contradictory answers. Before anyone rings a lawyer, Priya does the obvious thing: she asks the tool. Predict what comes back.

Predict the response

Priya puts the designer's question straight to the assistant that wrote the line.

You wrote this strapline for us. Who owns it, and can we use it in a paid campaign?

What do you think the AI will do?

Now, the twist most people miss. In everyday business use, the frightening question (did the AI copy this from someone?) is rarely where trouble arrives. Word-for-word reproduction of protected text is not the normal failure mode of working output.

The realistic risk sits closer to home: unreviewed output shipping under your name. A strapline nobody checked against the market. Copy that sounds like everyone else's. A "fact" that isn't. The AI cannot be embarrassed by any of this. You can.

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