Originally Posted by Roger Brown
It's my understanding that the U.S. copyright office has ruled that lyrics generated by AI are not eligible for copyright.

It was upheld in the District Court last August and SCOTUS ruled Dec. 20. 2023 that AI cannot hold a patent.

Without that ruling, the WGO (writers') strike probably would still be ongoing. Producers cannot raise money on works that they can't own.

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There are a number of committees currently looking at AI as it pertains to intellectual property (I'm on one of them) and at this point it's a moving target. I suspect that some sort of compromise will be reached but personally I'd be cautious about using it at this point in time if you're planning on using your works commercially.

Don't hold your breath. Congress is trying to figure out how to regulate AI without running afoul of the "major questions doctrine". We're going to hear a lot about that when the decision in the Chevron case comes down which should be very soon.

In any case, AI generated lyrics cannot rise above mediocrity since it "averages" everything. Mediocre would be a vast improvement over the longwinded AI generated blather that everyone is posting online.

There is good news, however. You can use AI to generate song and story ideas and it's great for that—get pointed in directions that you would never consider otherwise. I've used it to shorten the research time on three projects that I've been putting off for decades (fact checking still must be done since AI doesn't know what it gets wrong). Since one has never been able to copyright an idea, this is not only ok but encouraged. I took a great course on this recently and learned quite a lot.

The actual copyrightable Work Product requires that an Author roll up his/her sleeves and get busy.

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