Generative AI and library skills

Copyright is a type of intellectual property that applies to a range of creative works, including articles and books, blogs and websites, images and film, music, software and datasets. To reproduce any materials protected by copyright it is normally necessary to have the permission of the copyright owner.

Copyright laws determine who owns copyright, what is protected by copyright and for how long, and what a user of a work may or may not do with a copyrighted work. Copyright laws vary across countries. For example, a work that is protected in one country may not be protected in another, and a specific use of a work, e.g. using for education or research purposes, could be permitted in one country but not another.

This has implications for GenAI.

• GenAI models are trained on very large amounts of materials that are most likely protected by copyright, e.g. websites, articles, images, song lyrics, music.
• Input / prompts provided by users of GenAI tools may also be protected by copyright, e.g. an article submitted for summarising or translating, an essay submitted for editing, information to be included in a research proposal, or a series of questions/prompts provided to generate an image.
• The output, e.g. a generated image or document, may or may not be protected by copyright. It may also contain extracts from materials that the model was trained on.

Copyright considerations arise if you use GenAI tools, if you develop your own GenAI for research, or if your work is available for use by GenAI models, such as:

• Are GenAI models infringing copyright?
• What do you need to consider when using GenAI tools to generate new material?
• What can you do with AI-generated materials?
• Are you the author and copyright owner of these materials?

This guidance addresses copyright considerations when using GenAI tools and issues to consider if your research is used to train GenAI models. 

Much of this copyright guidance is being shaped by changes in the law, new regulations, emerging court decisions and new approaches adopted by publishers, rights owners and research institutions.  It will be reviewed regularly to reflect this.

If you have a question not covered on these pages, please contact copyright@ucl.ac.uk.