AI-Generated Scripts and the Meaning of “Authorship” Under Copyright Law

Writer: Leah Cohn

Article Editor: William Purser

Associate Editors: Molly Stinson & Kelsie Fernandez

I. Introduction

In recent years, AI has become more prevalent within the media industry. While its implementation opens the door for more possibilities—such as brainstorming, assisting with scriptwriting, and faster production—it also creates issues with regard to ownership and authorship. When AI is used in the process of screenwriting, questions arise about whether the writing belongs to the screenwriter or the companies that own the AI models. With the rise of AI in various industries, including the film industry, the integration of AI in screenwriting creates tension with the current United States copyright law. Since authorship is formally limited to humans, control over creative works using AI shifts away from writers towards the companies that own the technology, revealing gaps in the current legal definition of authorship.

II. Human Authorship in United States Copyright Law

Before the prevalence of AI, authorship under copyright law was strictly limited to human authorship. Rather than creating new laws, the current laws are being adapted to fit AI-generated content. The Human Authorship Requirement of the U.S. Copyright Office states that an original work of authorship can be registered as long as it is created by a human being.¹ The Originality Requirement states that, to qualify for copyright protection, a work must be original to its author and independently created.² The rules for something to be considered an independent creation mean that the parts of the work are completely original to the author, and similarities to other works are by chance, not copying.³ However, these rules governing authorship under copyright law date from 2021, before the extreme presence of AI in society, and have not been updated since. Since work generated by AI is technically not generated by another author, it raises questions about the ownership of the work.

III. Use of Artificial Intelligence in Screenwriting and Its Impact on Writers

The process of writing a script has certain regulations that must be met in order for a script to be considered. A script must have scene numbers, page numbers, designations, setting descriptions, character names, dialogue, and stage directions.⁴ Each of these sections is extremely detailed, which can take writers a very long time to create. This is where AI becomes appealing: it can speed up the process and make it easier for new writers to enter the field. The use of AI is appealing due to its rapid content generation, allowing beginners to produce professionally-styled scripts and for the writer to focus their efforts on storytelling. However, the concern that AI will replace writers has caused a significant concern among the Writers Guild of America (WGA).⁵ The WGA is pushing for bans on studios that are using AI to write stories and screenplays.⁶ Additionally, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said that the use of AI raises legal questions for AI-generated material, as it would not be eligible for writing credits.⁷ Since AI is not included under the current regulations of copyright law, there is no clear legal framework governing the rights associated with AI-generated work.

IV. Adjusting Current Copyright Law for AI

As AI becomes more present in the screenwriting industry, it is increasingly important that the government adjusts the law to include clauses regarding AI-generated work. If a piece of work is entirely generated by an AI model and does not have any human authorship, it is likely that there will be no copyright protection of the work, and nobody can own the rights to the work.⁸ However, most screenwriters who use AI currently are not using it to generate entire scripts; they say they are using it as a brainstorming tool and research aide.⁹ The Copyright Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy organization that focuses on copyright law, argues that if a work contains both AI-generated content and human-created content, it can be protected by copyright law.¹⁰ That principle can be applied to cases when there is human-authored text or arrangement across the work, and says that the copyright would cover those elements. The complexity of ownership of AI-generated material arises from the interaction between human and machine contributions. While an AI model generates a response to a prompt, an individual is responsible for creating the prompt. Additionally, AI models are programmed by humans, and the content a model draws from is originally created by humans. AI models are trained on existing works of media in order to generate “new” work, a method that at times results in copyright infringement. While AI has access to information in the public domain, sometimes it is information that comes directly from another writer’s protected work instead of gathering information from various public sources and generating something ‘new’ as it is trained to do.

V. Conclusion

In 2023, the U.S. Copyright Office announced that it would begin the initiative to explore copyright and AI.¹¹ Since then, the office has reaffirmed that copyright protection, human authorship, and the extent of human contributions in the work are what will qualify as authorship. The laws that address authorship when AI is used are constantly changing, and opinions on what should or should not be included vary. Some companies, like the Universal Music Group, believe that the prompt lacks enough human creativity to even qualify for copyright protection.¹² Others say that a sophisticated prompt is enough to meet the human authorship requirement.¹³ This divide in opinions shows the uncertainty around the authorship of AI-generated works and the need for clearer legal regulations. As AI continues to appear more in creative industries like screenwriting, it is crucial that copyright law expands to regulate AI.

1. U.S. Copyright Office, Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices § 306 (3d ed. 2021). ↩︎
2. U.S. Copyright Office, Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices § 308 (3d ed. 2021).
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3. Id. § 308.1. ↩︎
4. Michael Muszynski, Scriptwriting Format (San José State Univ. Writing Ctr., 2022), https://www.sjsu.edu/writingcenter/docs/handouts/Scriptwriting%20Format.pdf. ↩︎
5. Michael Ashley, AI & Screenwriting: Cinematic Dream or Celluloid Nightmare?, Forbes (June 2024), https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelashley/2024/06/11/ai–screenwriting-cinematic-dream-or-celluloid-nightmare/ (on file with the Undergraduate Law Review at FSU).
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6. Mandalit del Barco, Striking Hollywood Scribes Ponder AI in the Writer’s Room, NPR (May 2023), https://www.npr.org/2023/05/18/1176876301/striking-hollywood-writers-contemplate-ai (on file with the Undergraduate Law Review at FSU).
   ↩︎
7. Id. ↩︎
8. Copyright Alliance, Who Owns the Copyright to AI-Generated Works?, https://copyrightalliance.org/faqs/artificial-intelligence-copyright-ownership/ (on file with the Undergraduate Law Review at FSU).
   ↩︎
9. del Barco, supra note 6. ↩︎
10. Who Owns the Copyright to AI-Generated Works?, supra note 8. ↩︎
11. U.S. Copyright Office, Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence (Mar. 2023). ↩︎
12. U.S. Copyright Office, Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability pref at 4 (Jan. 2025). ↩︎
13. Id. at. § II.D.1. ↩︎