---
title: "Who Owns AI-Generated Images? Copyright Basics"
url: https://www.imagequarry.com/faq/who-owns-ai-generated-images/
last_updated: 2026-10-20
---

# Who owns AI-generated images?

The tool's terms decide who holds the rights in an output. In the US, copyright protects only human authorship, so a purely AI image may have no owner.

Ownership has two layers. The contract layer is the tool's terms of service, which say what the provider claims and what it grants you. The law layer is copyright, which decides whether there is anything to own.

On the law layer, the D.C. Circuit held in Thaler v. Perlmutter (2025) that the Copyright Act requires a human author, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal on March 2, 2026. The Copyright Office says prompts alone are unlikely to make you the author of the output.

Your own contributions can still be protected. The Office says that where you put your own copyrightable work into a tool and it is perceptible in the output, you are the author of at least that portion, and creative selection, arrangement or modification can also be protected.

This is general information, not legal advice, and the rules differ by country.

_Source: Thaler v. Perlmutter (D.C. Cir. 2025; certiorari denied March 2, 2026) and the U.S. Copyright Office Part 2 report, checked October 20, 2026._

Next step: [Can AI images be copyrighted?](https://www.imagequarry.com/faq/can-ai-images-be-copyrighted/)

## Related questions

- [Can AI images be copyrighted?](https://www.imagequarry.com/faq/can-ai-images-be-copyrighted/): Only the human-authored parts, under current US guidance.
- [Does editing a photo with AI change who owns it?](https://www.imagequarry.com/faq/does-editing-a-photo-with-ai-change-who-owns-it/): No. The original photo's rights stay with their owner.
- [Can I use AI images commercially?](https://www.imagequarry.com/faq/can-i-use-ai-images-commercially/): Usually, if the tool's terms allow it and the image infringes no rights.
- [Can I use someone else's image as a reference?](https://www.imagequarry.com/faq/can-i-use-someone-elses-image-as-a-reference/): Be careful: copying protected expression can infringe.

Last reviewed 2026-10-20 by ImageQuarry.

## Make an image from a description

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