When a song generated by Suno AI or Boomy racks up millions of listens or an image made through Midjourney or Artlist.io wins an art competition, one question resonates across creative industries: who owns the art? The rapid rise of generative AI has blurred the line between inspiration and imitation, prompting society to reconsider what it means to create. While copyright law was designed to protect human ingenuity, it now faces a test that could redefine the future of authorship.

Traditionally, copyright hinges on a simple premise: only humans can be authors. The U.S. Copyright Office reaffirmed this in 2023 when it denied protection to AI-generated works, emphasizing that creativity must be the “product of human authorship.” This principle was tested in the Zarya of the Dawn decision, where the Office ruled that the comic book’s text was eligible for copyright but the images, generated using Midjourney’s AI system, were not. The case underscores how AI tools complicate ownership: while the human author provided narrative and structure, the visual storytelling relied on software incapable of holding rights. As AI continues to draw from vast datasets of existing music, writing, and art, often scraped from the internet without permission, it produces outputs that may appear entirely new. Yet each creation is ultimately built from human labor that went uncompensated.

For musicians, writers, and visual artists, this challenge is a lived reality. As a musician, seeing this firsthand was astonishing. AI tools can now replicate a composer’s style within minutes, generating symphonies that sound uncannily human. While innovation deserves recognition, it’s difficult not to feel uneasy knowing that machines can mimic a lifetime of artistic training with only a few lines of code. Creativity, once a uniquely human act, now risks becoming a commodity generated at the click of a button.

Still, outright banning AI in creative spaces isn’t the solution. Generative tools can democratize creation by giving individuals without formal training the ability to express themselves. The issue lies not in technology, but in the absence of accountability. Companies developing AI models should be transparent about their training data and compensate the creators whose works underpins these systems. Recent lawsuits, such as the authors’ class action against OpenAI and Microsoft, reflect growing frustration from artists seeking recognition and fair treatment.

To strike a balance, policymakers should consider frameworks that merge innovation with ethical responsibility. One option is to establish a data licensing registry allowing creators to opt in or out of having their work used for AI training. Another to require clear labeling for AI-generated content, so consumers know when they’re engaging with machine-made material. These measures would promote transparency and preserve trust among artists, audiences and developers alike.

Beyond policy, we must also revisit how society values creativity. AI will never understand the heartbreak behind a melody or the lived experiences that shape a novel’s voice. Those distinctly human emotions are what give art meaning. Protecting that essence is not anti-technology, it is pro-human.

The debate around copyright and AI isn’t just about ownership, It’s also about identity. As algorithms learn to “create,” we must decide whether to let them redefine artistry or to uphold the principle that creativity remains a reflection of human thought, emotion, and imagination. If policymakers and innovators can work together, the future does not need to pit human artists against machines. Instead, it can celebrate both, grounded in fairness and transparency for the minds that make art possible.