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AI and Copyright
Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies — including tools that generate text, images, data, music, and code — are increasingly used in teaching, research, and creative practice. This page outlines key copyright considerations when using AI tools at Western University.
AI raises questions about ownership, authorship, and the use of copyrighted materials for training and output generation. Western’s approach emphasizes both compliance with copyright law and responsible innovation.
Who Owns AI-Generated Work?
Under current Canadian copyright law, copyright protection requires human authorship.
This means that:
- AI-generated content alone (without meaningful human creative input) is not protected by copyright in Canada.
- If a person contributes significant intellectual direction — such as designing prompts, editing, or selecting AI outputs — that human contribution may be protected.
- Ownership generally follows the same principles as other academic or creative work: the author or creator is the owner (unless the work was created as part of employment or under specific agreements).
When publishing, sharing, or submitting work created with AI tools, authors should clearly disclose AI involvement, in accordance with publisher policies where they exist.
Using Copyrighted Material in AI Tools
When using AI tools that ingest or reproduce copyrighted content (such as text, images, or datasets), users must:
- Ensure they are not uploading copyright-protected or confidential material without authorization.
- Be aware that some AI platforms may retain input data for further training or analysis.
- Avoid prompting the AI with licensed content (such as subscription-based journal articles, textbooks, or course readings) unless the content’s license expressly allows it.
- Find license terms by searching for the content in the library catalogue, OMNI. Select “SHOW LICENSE” to expand the terms.
- Note: An exception is using Western’s enterprise data-protected Microsoft Copilot Chat, which keeps chat content unsaved, unused for model training, and isolated within Western’s protected environment.
- Treat AI-generated outputs as derivative works that may include copyrighted fragments or style emulation from their training data and disclose your use.
Best Practice: Use only publicly available, openly licensed, or original materials when working with AI systems.
Responsibilities of Faculty and Graduate Students
Members of the Western community are expected to:
- Follow institutional copyright guidelines, access to information and protection of privacy guidelines and relevant research policies and procedures when using AI.
- Verify the originality of AI-generated materials before reusing or publishing them.
- Provide appropriate attribution for any reused or adapted content, including AI-assisted text or images.
- Consult the Copyright Officer if unsure whether a particular use of AI is permissible.
Institutional Resources
For related information, policies and updates, refer to: