AI? Still not Copyrightable in 2025

The landscape of publishing is changing—as it does every year—but one thing has not changed. Using AI art and trying to write with it will never work.

All AI does is skim over information and take copyrighted material from artists who work hard. Sure, you can generate original concepts, but you do so at the expense of others who have worked hard on the art.

Can AI art look good? Sure, with some work, if it’s not hollow.

I don’t see myself ever doing that, so my manga panels will have to remain what they are. If I used AI art to make my panels, they might look more in line with some AAA anime studio, or something from Viz Media, but again, that would do it at the loss of real artistry.

I get it. Sometimes you must use the resources you have, but as AI does not come up with anything original, you’re better off trusting your writerly or artistry instincts.

A sterling effort from the depths of your mind will always trump a half-baked counterfeit. You don’t want the counterfeit; you want the real, pure thing. That’s the one —the one you’re meant for, that comes from you, not someone else.

Stay as original as possible on matters of copyright.

Using AI is like living in a wicked purgatory where you’re constantly caught between heaven and hell. The accessibility is there, sure, and I’m not doubting AI can help the disabled, but stealing from artists is not the way to go.

The courts have ruled that something must be 100% created by a human being to be copyrightable.

Meaning using AI art or text is not copyrightable. No copyright means no intellectual right to earn money from your work.

Think of musicians over the course of the last fifty years. They’ve evolved their DAW programs to include MIDI instruments and the like, to far more complex virtual instruments. But that will never replace or not require human input and creativity.

As AI stands now, using it for text is taking regurgitated information or fiction and mixing it into something somewhat coherent.

Not the best idea, and your right to copyright will remain in the tundra of an eternal snow that won’t let up and clear the way for your payment and credit.

If you want to see the sunny vistas of paradise, you work at the things you make yourself without using algorithms to replace the gift you have.

Will this change in ten years? Maybe.

But it’s not likely.

Stick to making things yourself or commissioning artists (who make amazing works for us creators).

Artificial intelligence will never understand what it means to touch another person’s hand, what the glint of an eye can do for the soul, or the love you have for your amazing pets—let alone the people in your life you cherish or will cherish.

Keep things real and tangible.

Don’t take the easy way out.

When things are made with passion and drive, the results are so much better.

Leave the AI slop to those without the ability to see their own talents.

I’m not saying AI isn’t interesting to mess around with, though that and professional creation are two different things.

Be an artisan author (not my term), musician, or artist.