Copyright in AI-Assisted Content: What Businesses Operating in Poland Need to Know
Nearly 20% of EU enterprises use AI tools, and almost 9.5% use them to generate images, video, or audio, according to Eurostat. In Poland, the share of companies using AI is lower—8.36%—but is growing. So is the volume of marketing, product, and brand material created with generative AI.
A significant share of those assets may have no copyright protection in Poland, the EU, or the US.
A widely shared headline claimed that the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) had registered an AI-generated image. That is not what happened. The distinction matters if your business operates in Poland, commissions creative work there, or needs to demonstrate the value of its IP portfolio to an investor or buyer.
This article explains what the USCO decided in the “American Cheese” matter, what Polish copyright law requires, and how to assess and document your company’s rights in AI-assisted content before an IP audit or due diligence review.
Key terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| USCO | The U.S. Copyright Office, which handles copyright registration applications and refusals. |
| Work under Polish copyright law | Under Article 1(1) of Poland’s Copyright and Related Rights Act, a manifestation of creative activity of an individual nature, established in any form. |
| Human authorship requirement | The principle applied by the USCO that copyright protection extends to a person’s creative contribution, not to material generated solely by AI. |
| Inpainting | Modifying selected parts of an image—for example, painting over, retouching, or replacing elements. In an AI-assisted workflow, it can help show where human intervention occurred. |
| Selection and arrangement | Under US copyright law, a person’s creative choice and organization of elements may be protected even when the elements themselves are not. |
| AI Act | EU Regulation 2024/1689, which regulates AI systems and their use but does not create copyright protection for AI outputs. |
| IP due diligence | A review of intellectual property rights, often conducted before an investment, funding round, or M&A transaction. |
What the USCO decided in the “American Cheese” matter
The USCO did not register an AI-generated image as such.
In the “A Single Piece of American Cheese” matter, the applicant assembled a collage using AI-generated elements and inpainting. He modified parts of the image, chose its composition, and determined how the elements were arranged. The USCO registered only his selection and arrangement. It expressly excluded the AI-generated elements from the registration.
That distinction is consistent with the USCO’s earlier approach. In Kristina Kashtanova’s comic Zarya of the Dawn, the text and the selection and arrangement of images received protection; the images generated using Midjourney did not. Kashtanova’s disclosure on social media that AI had been used prompted the USCO to review the registration.
In Thaler v. Perlmutter (No. 22-cv-01564, D.D.C., August 18, 2023), a court upheld a refusal to register and stated that “human authorship is a bedrock requirement of copyright.” The district court decision is available through the USCO.
The practical point is that entering a prompt and clicking “generate” does not, by itself, make the user the author of the resulting material. Protection may arise from a genuine human creative contribution—but its scope is limited to that contribution.
What Polish copyright law requires
Poland’s Act of February 4, 1994 on Copyright and Related Rights defines a work as “any manifestation of creative activity of an individual nature, established in any form” (Article 1(1); Polish Copyright Act, ISAP).
The requirements operate together: creative activity, individual character, and establishment in a form. On the interpretive position described in materials published by Poland’s National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR), material created exclusively by AI does not meet the first requirement because it is not a manifestation of human creative activity.
For a business, the distinction may look like this:
| Asset or workflow | Likely position under the approach described above |
|---|---|
| An image produced from a prompt with no further intervention | Probably not protected: no human creative activity is apparent. |
| A collage of AI-generated elements independently selected, arranged, and modified by a person | Potentially protected to the extent of the person’s creative selection, composition, or retouching. |
| AI-generated text creatively edited and restructured by a person | Potentially protected to the extent of that creative editing. |
| A company logo generated entirely by AI | Probably not protected by copyright—a particularly significant risk for a core brand asset. |
There is no binding Polish judgment establishing the minimum human contribution needed for copyright protection in an AI-assisted work. That uncertainty should not be mistaken for an absence of risk. It makes both the creative process and the evidence of that process important.
USCO decisions do not bind Polish courts. They are useful examples of how one authority distinguishes a human contribution from generated material, not a substitute for assessing the asset under Polish law.
The EU AI Act does not create copyright in AI outputs
The EU’s AI Act does not decide who authored an AI-generated asset or grant that asset copyright protection. The approved source identifies Article 2(5) and Recital 107 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 as preserving the operation and enforcement of EU copyright rules.
The Act does, however, impose transparency obligations on providers and deployers of AI systems. The Article 50 obligations discussed here apply from August 2, 2026:
| Obligation | Who it concerns | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Marking synthetic AI outputs in a machine-readable format | Providers of AI systems that generate synthetic content | August 2, 2026 |
| Disclosing deepfake content | Deployers of AI systems | August 2, 2026 |
| Providing information about interaction with AI | Providers of AI systems intended to interact directly with individuals | August 2, 2026 |
Manually adding “generated by AI” is not specified as sufficient for the machine-readable marking obligation. The requirement concerns technical measures such as watermarks, metadata, and cryptographic methods.
The source also notes an exception to the disclosure obligation for AI-generated text where the content has undergone human review or editorial control and a natural or legal person holds editorial responsibility for its publication. That is a separate rule from copyright: editorial review for an AI Act disclosure exception does not, by itself, establish copyright protection.
The source identifies no confirmed Court of Justice of the European Union judgment from 2024–2026 resolving authorship or protection of an AI-generated work. To assess whether the AI Act’s obligations apply to a particular tool or workflow, it is also necessary to understand what qualifies as an AI system under the Act.
Tool terms govern use; they do not create copyright
A provider’s statement that a user “owns” an output is not the same as a finding that the output is a copyright-protected work under Polish law.
- OpenAI: Under its European terms, the user owns the output and OpenAI assigns any rights it may have in that output. The terms do not promise exclusivity: another user may receive similar or identical output. Contractual and liability arrangements can become more complex in enterprise settings, as discussed in this article on Azure OpenAI liability.
- Adobe Firefly: Adobe says outputs from features not marked “Beta” may be used commercially. Its Firefly FAQ does not confirm an assignment of economic copyright in every output; it addresses commercial use.
- Midjourney: The approved source does not establish a confirmed, current version of its terms on output ownership and license scope, so it draws no conclusion about users’ rights under those terms.
Tool terms regulate your contractual relationship with the provider. They cannot turn an output into a protected work under Article 1(1) of the Polish Copyright Act or guarantee that a competitor will not generate an identical result. A business therefore needs to ask two separate questions: may we use this output under the provider’s terms, and do we hold enforceable rights in the asset?
Where the business risks arise
For companies whose value depends on software, design, content, or a brand, uncertainty about AI-assisted assets can affect negotiations, client commitments, and IP valuation.
| Situation | Business risk | Indicative severity |
|---|---|---|
| A competitor copies product imagery generated solely by AI | The company may lack a copyright basis for a claim because the material is not protected. | High |
| An agency promises to assign rights in an AI-assisted campaign | It may be representing that it holds rights it does not have, creating contractual exposure. | High |
| An investor reviews the IP portfolio | Missing records of the creative process may reduce confidence in—and the valuation of—intangible assets. | Medium |
| A freelancer supplies illustrations described as original | Even if a human creative contribution occurred, the company may be unable to demonstrate it. | High |
| A team relies on a headline claiming the USCO registered an AI image | It may skip an asset audit based on an inaccurate account of the decision. | Medium |
SaaS companies, software developers, creative agencies, and e-commerce businesses with their own brands should establish which assets are protected, which are not, and what evidence supports that assessment before an investor, client, or competitor asks.
A practical action plan for AI-assisted assets
Copyright protection is not supplied by the AI tool. Where protection is possible, the human creative process matters—and the company should be able to show it.
Take these steps now
- Inventory assets created with AI assistance during the last 24 months. Include images, video, illustrations, code, and text. Flag assets for which you lack evidence of human creative work.
- Retain the creation history. Archive prompts, successive versions, source files, screenshots of editing stages, and descriptions of human interventions such as inpainting, retouching, composition, and the selection and arrangement of elements.
- Build a substantive human stage into production. Treat AI output as an input, not automatically as the final deliverable. Ensure published assets undergo genuine, identifiable human creative work.
- Update supplier contracts. Require agencies, freelancers, and software developers to disclose AI use, provide records of the creative process, and state the extent of the rights they actually hold.
Plan the next changes
- Review customer-facing sales and services agreements. Remove or qualify unconditional promises to assign all copyright in materials created with AI assistance where those promises may exceed the rights available.
- Adopt an AI use policy. Specify approved tools, documentation practices, and assets that must not be produced solely through generative methods—such as logos, marks, and other core brand assets.
- Train marketing, design, and product teams. Make clear that a prompt alone is not authorship, and show teams how to preserve evidence of their creative decisions.
Consider other protection for core brand assets
- Assess alternatives where copyright may be unavailable. Depending on the asset, options include a Polish trademark under Article 120(1) of the Industrial Property Law, an industrial design under Article 105(1), or an EU trademark under Regulation (EU) 2017/1001. AI generation does not, by itself, exclude these routes; each has its own requirements (Polish Industrial Property Law, ISAP).
Keep evidence of the human contribution
A useful record follows the asset from prompt → model output → human selection → human changes → successive versions → final file. Version history is particularly valuable because it can show what the person actually did, rather than merely what they asked the model to produce.
There is no general statutory duty to retain prompts when creating with AI. Retaining them—and, more importantly, the subsequent working files—can nevertheless be critical if you later need to demonstrate the scope of a human contribution. A missing record does not itself determine whether copyright exists, but it can make protection difficult to establish in practice.
How we can help
We combine IP and IT law advice with experience supporting technology businesses. Our work can include:
- Auditing AI-assisted assets: inventorying materials, assessing potential protection, and identifying gaps.
- Reviewing supplier contracts: addressing AI disclosure, creation records, and representations about rights.
- Setting a documentation standard: establishing workable rules for archiving, versioning, and recording human creative input.
- Developing an AI use policy: identifying approved tools, workflows, and exclusions for important brand assets.
- Preparing for IP due diligence: organizing the IP portfolio before a financing round or transaction.
The aim is to put controls where assets are created and commercialized, rather than produce documents that do not reflect how the business works. If you need an asset audit, contract review, or documentation process, contact us.
Key takeaways for 2026
The USCO’s “American Cheese” decision did not establish that an AI-generated image, as such, is copyright-protected. It protected the applicant’s human selection and arrangement while excluding the AI-generated elements.
For businesses dealing with Poland, the central question remains whether an asset contains the creative, individual human contribution required by Polish copyright law—and, if so, what part of the asset that contribution covers. The EU AI Act does not create copyright in the output, and AI provider terms do not replace copyright law.
Review your assets, preserve evidence of how they were made, and align supplier and customer contracts with the rights that can actually be supported. Those steps are easier to take before an audit, transaction, or dispute than during one.
Frequently asked questions
Does my company own material its team generated with AI?
If a material was produced solely from a prompt, without further human creative intervention, it is probably not a protected work under the Polish copyright approach described above. A tool’s terms may permit commercial use, but they do not create copyright protection against third parties or give you exclusivity over an unprotected output.
How much human work is enough?
There is no binding Polish judgment setting a minimum level of human contribution for AI-assisted material. USCO decisions illustrate that creative selection, composition, retouching, and restructuring may support protection of a person’s contribution. They do not mean the underlying AI-generated elements become protected. Preserve each stage of work so the contribution can be assessed and, if necessary, demonstrated.
Do USCO decisions matter if my business operates in Poland or the EU?
They do not bind Polish courts. They can provide a practical point of reference, but the Polish statutory definition of a work governs the Polish assessment. The EU AI Act does not displace copyright rules or resolve authorship of AI outputs.
Can I assign rights in AI-assisted creative work to a client?
You can assign rights you hold in elements that qualify for copyright protection. An unconditional promise to assign all copyright in AI-generated material is risky if some elements are not protected or the supplier does not own the rights claimed. Address AI use openly, document the process, identify protected contributions, and distinguish them from elements for which rights cannot be assigned.
Does the AI Act require AI-generated content to be labeled?
From August 2, 2026, the obligations discussed above include machine-readable marking by providers of systems generating synthetic content and disclosure of deepfakes by deployers. The source also identifies an exception for certain AI-generated text subject to human review or editorial control and editorial responsibility. The applicable duty depends on the system, the content, and the business’s role. None of these rules creates copyright in the content.
What if copyright does not protect our logo or other brand assets?
Consider whether the asset meets the requirements for trademark or industrial design protection, in Poland or—where relevant—at EU level. Protection as a trade secret may also be worth assessing where its requirements can be met. Because the consequences of weak protection are especially serious for logos and visual identity, avoid relying on an entirely AI-generated result for a core brand asset without reviewing the alternatives.
