Pure AI output is usually nobody’s work
In the EU, copyright protects works with a human creative contribution. An image or text produced only by a prompt is generally not protected — anyone may be able to use it. The more you select, combine, draw over and rewrite, the more of the result is your work. Keep drafts as evidence of your contribution.
Inputs must be yours to use
Uploading photos, illustrations, fonts or texts you have no rights to — a paid stock image, a client’s confidential material, a colleague’s photo — can be an infringement or a breach of contract, even if only the AI sees it.
Style, characters and brands
A general style is usually not protected, but specific works, recognisable characters and trademarks are. Prompts like “in the style of [living artist]” or “with [famous character]” invite outputs that copy protected elements — and damage your reputation even when they are legal.
May AI learn from your work?
In the EU, training on publicly available works is allowed as text and data mining unless the rightholder has reserved it in a machine-readable way. If you don’t want your portfolio or website used for training, add an opt-out in robots.txt and your terms of use. Providers of general-purpose models must respect such opt-outs.
Practical checklist
- Read the licence of the tool — some free plans limit commercial use
- Don’t promise a client exclusive rights to pure AI output
- Register logos as trademarks; have a designer finish AI drafts
- Run a reverse image search on outputs before publishing
- Keep prompts and drafts as a record of your creative input