AI-generated images can be used commercially in most cases, and two separate questions decide how safe that use is. The first is what the tool's terms let you do with the output. The second is whether anyone owns a copyright in the picture, which in the US depends on how much of it a person made. In practice, you can usually sell or advertise with an AI image, but you usually can't stop someone else from copying it. This is general information about US law, not legal advice.
Can AI-generated images be used commercially?
Yes, when three things line up: the tool's terms give you the output, the picture doesn't reproduce someone else's protected work, and it doesn't use a real person or a brand in a misleading way. The terms come first because they differ by tool. As of September 2026:
| Tool | Who owns the output | Condition to know |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT (OpenAI) | You own it, to the extent the law allows, and OpenAI assigns you any rights it has | Output may not be unique; other users can get similar images |
| Gemini (Google) | Google says it won't claim ownership of content you generate | Google's Prohibited Use Policy and others' copyright and privacy rights still apply |
| Midjourney | You own what you create, to the fullest extent the law allows | A company earning over $1,000,000 a year, and its employees, must subscribe to Pro or Mega to own what they make; images are publicly viewable and remixable by default |
| Toybox AI | The Terms say you own the rights to the outputs you generate (images, text, video and code), subject to the Terms | You're solely responsible for how you use, distribute or monetize what you make |
Ownership in a company's terms means the company isn't claiming the picture. It doesn't create a copyright the law won't recognize, and it doesn't clear the rights to anything the picture copies. Those two gaps are the rest of this page.
Two rules also cover how you present the picture. OpenAI's Terms of Use forbid representing output as human-generated when it wasn't, and Google's policy bars claiming generated content was made solely by a person in order to deceive. When a client asks how an image was made, tell them.
Can AI-generated images be copyrighted?
Not when the AI made the picture on its own. In Thaler v. Perlmutter, decided March 18, 2025, the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that the Copyright Act requires "all eligible work to be authored in the first instance by a human being." The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal on March 2, 2026. The appeals court added that the rule doesn't bar copyright in work made with the help of AI.
The Copyright Office's report on copyrightability, published January 29, 2025, draws the line in more detail:
- Purely AI-generated material isn't protected, and neither is material where a person lacked enough control over the expressive elements.
- Prompts alone aren't enough with current technology. Revising and resubmitting a prompt many times doesn't change that, because each round accepts the system's interpretation instead of fixing the expression yourself.
- Picking one output from several isn't authorship. The report treats choosing among AI results as selection, not a creative act.
- Your own expression is protected where it's perceptible in the output: a drawing you supplied, creative changes you made, or the creative selection and arrangement of material in a larger work.
- Every case is decided on its facts. The Office reviews each application to see how much a human contributed.
Do AI-generated images have copyright? Three real decisions
Three Copyright Office decisions show where the line falls in practice:
- Zarya of the Dawn (February 21, 2023). A comic book made with Midjourney images. The Office registered the author's text and the way she selected and arranged the text and images, but not the Midjourney images themselves.
- Théâtre D'opéra Spatial (September 5, 2023). The artist said he entered prompts and revisions at least 624 times in Midjourney, then edited the result in Photoshop. The Review Board refused the claim because he wouldn't exclude the AI-generated parts, and it left open whether his Photoshop edits alone could be registered.
- SURYAST (December 11, 2023). The applicant gave an AI painting app his own photograph as the content and Van Gogh's The Starry Night as the style. The Review Board upheld the refusal to register the resulting image.
Is AI art copyright protected? A quick guide
Whether a piece of AI art is copyrighted depends on what a person added to it:
| What you did | Likely protected | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Typed a prompt, however long, and kept the result | No | Part 2 report: prompts by themselves don't control the expression |
| Generated many versions and picked the best one | No | Part 2 report: selecting a single output isn't a creative act |
| Uploaded your own drawing and it stays visible in the result | Your drawing's expression, where you can see it | Part 2 report on expressive inputs |
| Painted over or redrew parts of the AI image by hand | Your edits, if they're creative enough | Part 2 report on creative modifications |
| Used a tool that lets you pick and regenerate one region of the image | Possibly, case by case | Part 2 report on modification tools |
| Combined AI images with your own text in a book or layout | The text and the arrangement, not the images | Zarya of the Dawn decision |
How to register a work that includes AI images
The Copyright Office's 2023 registration guidance says applicants must disclose AI-generated content and briefly explain what the human contributed. Following it:
- File with the Standard Application.
- Name the human author or authors. Don't name an AI tool, or the company that makes it, as an author.
- In the "Author Created" field, describe what you made. For a mixed work, the guidance's own model is "Selection, coordination, and arrangement of [describe human-authored content] created by the author and [describe AI content] generated by artificial intelligence."
- List AI-generated material that's more than de minimis as excluded. It goes under "Limitation of the Claim", in the "Other" field under "Material Excluded", for example "cover illustration generated by artificial intelligence".
- Use the "Note to CO" field for any extra context. If you're unsure how to fill it in, you can give a general statement that the work contains AI-generated material, and the Office will contact you when it reviews the claim.
- If you already registered a work without disclosing AI material, correct the record with a supplementary registration.
Keep your working files: sketches, drafts, layered edit files and the prompts you used. They show what you contributed if the Office asks.
Can AI generate images of copyrighted characters?
Some tools will draw a famous character on request, but using that picture is the problem. The Copyright Office's report on AI training notes that users have gotten AI systems to produce copyrightable characters and near-exact stills from movies, and says such outputs likely infringe the copyright owner's reproduction right, plus the right to make derivative works when they adapt the original. OpenAI's usage policies separately forbid using its services to infringe others' intellectual property. Marketplaces act on this too: Redbubble's User Agreement counts content that infringes copyright or trademark rights as Inappropriate Content. For anything you sell, describe an original character in your own words, and leave out the names of existing characters, brands and franchises.
Is it legal to use AI-generated images?
In general, yes. The questions that come up are about what a picture shows and how you use it, not the fact that AI made it. The Copyright Office says existing law can settle questions about copyright in AI outputs without new legislation. These are the risks to check:
- Copying protected work. A picture that reproduces a character, a painting or a photograph can infringe, whoever or whatever drew it.
- Real people. OpenAI doesn't allow a realistic likeness of someone to be used without their consent in a way that confuses viewers about authenticity. Never make intimate or sexual images of a real person. The guide to AI images of yourself covers consent for photos of people.
- Misleading buyers. Marketplaces set their own disclosure rules. The page on selling AI art on Etsy and Redbubble lists them.
- Provenance labels. OpenAI marks supported ChatGPT images with two hidden provenance signals, Content Credentials and SynthID, and verification tools can read both. The page on whether ChatGPT adds watermarks explains how each one works.
Lawsuits over AI training are a separate issue. The Copyright Office's training report, released in pre-publication form in May 2025, counted dozens of pending US lawsuits over whether training on copyrighted works is fair use, and it expects some training uses to qualify and some not to. Those cases are about how models were built, and the Office says their outcomes can't be prejudged.
Before you use an AI image commercially
Run through this list for anything that will sit on a product, an ad or a client's website.
- Read the tool's terms. Check who owns the output and any condition, such as Midjourney's revenue rule for companies.
- Leave out characters, logos and brand names, in the prompt and in the picture.
- Get written consent from any real person the picture shows or resembles.
- Search for look-alikes. Run the image through a reverse image search such as Google Lens, which lists websites showing the same or similar images.
- Add your own work where protection matters. Your own drawing, hand edits, text and layout are the parts copyright can cover.
- Keep records of prompts, drafts and edit files.
- Say it's AI wherever a marketplace or client requires it, and never present the picture as made entirely by hand.
- Don't promise exclusivity. Similar output can reach other users.
Using Image Generator images commercially
Toybox's Terms of Service say you own the rights to the outputs you generate (images, text, video, and code), subject to the Terms. You're responsible for how you use them, so check copyright, trademark and platform rules before using AI images commercially. The Terms also prohibit generating images of real people without their explicit consent.
If you want part of a design to be your own authorship, start from your own work. In Image Generator, tap "Add reference photos" to add your own sketch or photo (up to 3), then describe the finished image. The AI uses reference photos as a guide, so it may not keep your lines exactly. Check the result against your sketch, and keep the original file as a record. An image currently costs 50 credits, or 95 with "Enhanced quality" for sharper text (see current prices). Edits you make by hand in an editing program can count as your own authorship; under the Copyright Office's current view, another typed prompt doesn't.