If all you did was enter a prompt to generate the work, then the answer is “No”.
In January 2025, the U.S. Copyright Office (“Office”) issued an important report concerning the copyrightability of outputs generated by artificial intelligence (“AI”). The Office’s report is entitled “Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Part 2: Copyrightability “Report”). In sum, according to the Office, works generated from prompts alone are not subject to copyright protection. There must be a human contribution to the work for an applicant to receive a copyright registration, i.e. some original expression in the work created by a human.
So, what does this mean? Well, if you use an AI model to generate a work, and if all you did was enter a prompt or prompts, then you will not be able to secure a copyright registration for this work with the U.S. Copyright Office. If, however, you use AI as a tool and then make creative decisions concerning the outputs (e.g. modifying an AI generated work or arranging AI generated works in a specific way), then the work can be registered.
In its Report, the Office takes the position that current U.S. copyright law’s existing legal framework is sufficient to address the copyrightability of outputs generated by AI models. U.S. copyright law protects works of human authorship. Material created by a non-human is not afforded copyright protection.