Artificial Intelligence Tools for Teaching, Writing & Research

We've gotten questions about how artificial intelligence tools may impact copyright. The following are some common questions and answers.

• Can I put a copyrighted work into a GenAI tool?
  • This is a question that has been working out in the courts. As of the end of 2025, courts have ruled that putting copyrighted material into LLMs or using copyrighted material for training LLMs is considered a transformative use and therefore is exempt under fair use. See in particular the ruling of Bartz v. Anthropic. There are many lawsuits being actively litigated so it is important to know that this is an evolving area of the law. In short, as of now, putting copyrighted material into LLMs has been considered a fair use. 
• Can I copyright something that I made using a GenAI tool?
  • According to the U.S. Copyright Office's report on the copyrightability of outputs created using generative AI, "the outputs of generative AI can be protected by copyright only where a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements." You can find the report linked below for further information.
• Can a Creative Commons License help me to prevent people from putting my work into a GenAI tool?
  • Creative Commons Licenses only can grant permission for uses in situations that require permission under copyright. Because using copyrighted works in LLMs is considered a fair use, you cannot use a Creative Commons License to restrict that activity. You can read more about Creative Commons and AI on the Creative Common's Understanding CC Licenses and Generative AI, linked below.

Some vendors and publishers have begun to put language about AI in their terms and conditions to prohibit users from putting licensed content (e.g. journal articles) into AI tools.

Before you put licensed content into an AI tool, make sure to check the terms and conditions for the database or the publisher. Linked below is a spreadsheet of RFU's electronic resources with links to their terms and conditions. It also highlights which vendors have language about AI tools in their terms and conditions. Note that this is an evolving landscape and language may have changed since the last time the spreadsheet was updated.