The analogy

Imagine a bench built by the city and placed in the square. You can sit on it, photograph it, even use it for your market stall: no one forbids you. But it isn't yours. If tomorrow someone else sets their stall on it, you can't send them away saying "this bench is mine."

An AI-generated image resembles that bench. There are two separate questions that people constantly confuse. The first is can I use it? — the answer depends on who put it in the square, that is, on the tool's terms of service. The second is is it mine? — and here copyright comes into play, the authorship right that lets you stop others from copying a work of yours. Permission to use and ownership are two different tiles. Having the first doesn't give you the second.

How it really works

Permission to use comes from the tool's terms

When you generate an image with a service, you accept a contract: its terms of service. They're what tell you whether you can sell what you produce.

Free tools often limit commercial use. Microsoft's free generator (the one behind Designer and Bing) lets you produce images without paying, but for advertising or sales uses it's best to check the current terms. OpenAI, by contrast, in its terms grants whoever uses its generator ownership of the outputs and use for any purpose, including commercial, on all plans. On the artistic side, those who pay for a Midjourney subscription get a broad commercial license (selling prints, merchandise, work for clients), while those on the free trial can't sell anything: those images remain the service's.

The practical rule: before publishing, read the "commercial use" entry in the terms of the tool you used. It changes from service to service and changes between the free plan and the paid plan.

Ownership is another story

In the United States, copyright protects works created by a person. An image produced entirely by AI, without a significant human creative contribution, can't be registered as a protected work. Translated: it has no owner. Anyone who finds it can copy it, and you have no legal basis to stop them.

The dividing line is your creative contribution. If you select, retouch, compose and modify the output substantially — not a mechanical touch-up, but real choices — that human part can become protectable. The raw image, no; your reworking, yes.

The two levels together

Putting the two tiles side by side: with the right paid service you have the permission to use the image even for work; but the exclusive ownership of that image, in the United States, you don't have until you put something of your own into it. They're compatible: you can use an image you don't own. You just have to know you won't be able to stop others from using the same one.

What you can do in practice

  • Check the terms beforehand, not after. Search for "commercial use" in the tool's terms. If you're on the free plan, check that the free tier covers your case: often it doesn't.
  • If you need maximum legal safety, choose a tool trained on licensed material. Adobe Firefly was built on stock images and public-domain content: it's the most defensible option for high-value commercial projects.
  • Add your own work. Crop, recompose, combine multiple images, modify with your own choices. The more creative contribution you put in, the more solid the protectable part is.
  • In Europe, declare AI use. For commercial content distributed in the European Union it's required to flag that the image is AI-generated. It's not a ban: it's transparency. One line in the caption is enough.
  • Keep track of what you used. Save the prompt (the instructions you wrote) and the tool. If one day you have to prove authorship of your reworking, that record is worth gold.

A common misconception

"I paid for the subscription, so the image is mine and no one can copy it." This is the point where almost everyone falls. The subscription buys you the permission to use, not exclusive ownership. They're two things. You pay to be able to sell the work to the client; you don't pay for the right to drag to court whoever uses a similar image. Defensible ownership comes from your creative contribution to the output, not from the payment receipt.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use an AI image for my company's logo?

Technically yes, if the tool's terms allow it. But a logo should be protectable, and a purely generated image isn't. Use the output as a draft and have it substantially reworked by a designer: it's the human part that makes it defensible. For a registered trademark, the filing procedure applies, which is yet another matter.

If I modify an AI image a lot, does it become mine?

Your creative reworking can be protectable, the AI base can't. What counts is how much and how you intervene: choices of composition, editing, significant corrections weigh; an automatic filter doesn't. Document what you changed.

Could the AI have given me an image that copies someone else's protected work?

It can happen, and it's the real risk not to underestimate. If the output resembles an existing work too closely, using it exposes you, regardless of the tool's terms. Before publishing something recognizable (a character, a marked style, a brand), do a reverse image search and verify you're not tracing someone else's work.