AI and copyright — how to check your rights

AI helps with ideas, but you still need to check the rights

AI can help you draft, edit and develop ideas. However, it does not remove your responsibility to respect other people’s works, your own agreements or the service’s terms of use. The more significant the publication, client work or commercial use, the more important it is to check before using the result.

Try your first creative exercise with your own idea

1. 1

   Start with your own idea or a general idea

   Use your own topic, such as an imaginary event, hobby or general mood, and describe it in your own words instead of pasting in an existing text or image created by someone else.

2. 2

   Ask for a draft, not an imitation

   Describe the goal, target audience and mood in your own words, and ask the AI to suggest something new and original — not a copy of a particular creator, work or style.

3. 3

   Edit the result yourself

   Check the facts, originality, names and possible references. Add your own creative contribution before using the content in a publication.

4. 4

   Check the rights before publishing

   Check the service terms, your own usage rights, the client agreement and any restrictions relating to images, music, trademarks or personal data.

Write three original ideas for the title and a short introduction to an imaginary local library event, using invented names and themes of your own. Describe the atmosphere and target audience for each idea.

Choose one of those three ideas and develop it with three concrete, original details that make it feel specific to this imaginary library.

Improve your request to respect other people’s work

Design an advertising poster for an imaginary local library event: an outdoor atmosphere, rounded shapes and a cheerful colour palette. Invent a distinctive illustration style of your own instead of borrowing the visual identity of a particular studio or artist.

I am using AI to create text and an image to market an imaginary library event, and I plan to publish them soon. I have not checked the rights for this kind of publication before. Ask me one question at a time about what I should still find out before publishing, then compile the questions into a short checklist. Keep it general: explain what I should find out and whom to ask for more information.

Four things to check

1. Do you have the right to use the material, image, text or data you give the AI?
2. Does the agreement for the service you use allow your intended use, such as commercial publication or delivery to a client?
3. Does the result contain recognisable parts of someone else’s work, a person’s likeness, a trademark or confidential information? Finnish copyright law broadly protects literary and artistic works, so a familiar structure or wording may still be someone’s protected work.
4. Is this a significant publication, agreement, dispute or business decision that requires an assessment by a copyright or contract expert?

Once you know the basics

You can build a content process for your own work: record the source material, permissions, your own edits and the pre-publication check. Within an organisation, also agree on which tools to use for AI and under what terms.