Prompting Creativity: Tiered Approach to Copyright Protection for AI-Generated Content in the Digital Age

The rapid advancement of AI has fundamentally transformed the creative landscape, challenging traditional notions of authorship and copyright. As AI systems become increasingly capable of generating original content across diverse domains—including art, music, and literature—the legal frameworks gov...

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Main Author: WooJung Jon
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Cogitatio 2025-05-01
Series:Media and Communication
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/9420
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author WooJung Jon
author_facet WooJung Jon
author_sort WooJung Jon
collection DOAJ
description The rapid advancement of AI has fundamentally transformed the creative landscape, challenging traditional notions of authorship and copyright. As AI systems become increasingly capable of generating original content across diverse domains—including art, music, and literature—the legal frameworks governing intellectual property rights are struggling to keep pace. This article proposes a novel, unified, and tiered approach to copyright protection for AI prompts and AI-generated content, based on the level of human creative input required. By conducting a comprehensive analysis of legal, technical, and ethical considerations, this article explores the complex interplay among human creativity, AI technology, and intellectual property rights in the digital age. Its contributions are threefold: it conceptualizes AI prompts as potentially copyrightable works, recognizing the significant creative effort involved in their design; it develops a multifaceted framework for assessing creativity in AI prompts, addressing a critical gap in current copyright paradigms; and it proposes a tiered protection system correlating copyright scope with the degree of human creative input, offering a nuanced approach to safeguarding intellectual property in AI-generated content. This article further examines the economic and societal implications of protecting AI prompts, anticipating the emergence of new markets and professions while addressing potential abuses such as “prompt trolling.” It emphasizes the delicate balance between protecting intellectual property and fostering innovation, highlighting the importance of maintaining a robust public domain to encourage experimentation and advancement in AI technologies. The findings provide a foundation for future policy development and offer practical recommendations for implementing prompt protection and registration systems.
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spelling doaj-art-dabb416f4c8b44bb876ff45a35fcc20d2025-08-20T03:56:10ZengCogitatioMedia and Communication2183-24392025-05-0113010.17645/mac.94204158Prompting Creativity: Tiered Approach to Copyright Protection for AI-Generated Content in the Digital AgeWooJung Jon0Graduate School of Future Strategy, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Republic of KoreaThe rapid advancement of AI has fundamentally transformed the creative landscape, challenging traditional notions of authorship and copyright. As AI systems become increasingly capable of generating original content across diverse domains—including art, music, and literature—the legal frameworks governing intellectual property rights are struggling to keep pace. This article proposes a novel, unified, and tiered approach to copyright protection for AI prompts and AI-generated content, based on the level of human creative input required. By conducting a comprehensive analysis of legal, technical, and ethical considerations, this article explores the complex interplay among human creativity, AI technology, and intellectual property rights in the digital age. Its contributions are threefold: it conceptualizes AI prompts as potentially copyrightable works, recognizing the significant creative effort involved in their design; it develops a multifaceted framework for assessing creativity in AI prompts, addressing a critical gap in current copyright paradigms; and it proposes a tiered protection system correlating copyright scope with the degree of human creative input, offering a nuanced approach to safeguarding intellectual property in AI-generated content. This article further examines the economic and societal implications of protecting AI prompts, anticipating the emergence of new markets and professions while addressing potential abuses such as “prompt trolling.” It emphasizes the delicate balance between protecting intellectual property and fostering innovation, highlighting the importance of maintaining a robust public domain to encourage experimentation and advancement in AI technologies. The findings provide a foundation for future policy development and offer practical recommendations for implementing prompt protection and registration systems.https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/9420aiai-generated contentai promptcopyrightcreative industriesintellectual propertylegal frameworkprompt engineering
spellingShingle WooJung Jon
Prompting Creativity: Tiered Approach to Copyright Protection for AI-Generated Content in the Digital Age
Media and Communication
ai
ai-generated content
ai prompt
copyright
creative industries
intellectual property
legal framework
prompt engineering
title Prompting Creativity: Tiered Approach to Copyright Protection for AI-Generated Content in the Digital Age
title_full Prompting Creativity: Tiered Approach to Copyright Protection for AI-Generated Content in the Digital Age
title_fullStr Prompting Creativity: Tiered Approach to Copyright Protection for AI-Generated Content in the Digital Age
title_full_unstemmed Prompting Creativity: Tiered Approach to Copyright Protection for AI-Generated Content in the Digital Age
title_short Prompting Creativity: Tiered Approach to Copyright Protection for AI-Generated Content in the Digital Age
title_sort prompting creativity tiered approach to copyright protection for ai generated content in the digital age
topic ai
ai-generated content
ai prompt
copyright
creative industries
intellectual property
legal framework
prompt engineering
url https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/9420
work_keys_str_mv AT woojungjon promptingcreativitytieredapproachtocopyrightprotectionforaigeneratedcontentinthedigitalage