Under German law, images and texts generated purely by AI are not protected by copyright, because the German Copyright Act requires a personal intellectual creation, and only a human can make one. That means nobody holds a copyright in them: copyright gives you no way to stop others from using the same or a similar image. Whether you may use and sell an AI result is decided by the provider's terms of use and by other people's rights, for example if a third-party work or a real face is recognisable in it.
I am a developer, not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, just the operator's perspective. This article covers German and EU law; other countries, including the US, have their own rules. My fourteen AI employees run on Claude Team, some also on open models or through the API. I read the statutes, the guidance from the German Federal Ministry of Justice and the courts' press releases at the source on 27 October 2026. More on AI in day-to-day business is collected on my AI Basics page.
Why AI images usually have no author
The German Copyright Act (UrhG) is brief on this. Section 2(2) says that works within the meaning of the Act are only personal intellectual creations. And section 7: the author is the creator of the work.
The Federal Ministry of Justice draws a clear conclusion in its questions and answers on AI and copyright from March 2024: purely AI-based content enjoys no copyright protection, because the way the AI works is beyond the user's control. The result, it says, is texts or images that have no author in the legal sense. What matters, according to the ministry and the case law of the European Court of Justice, is that a work expresses the "free creative choices" of a human being.
When you can be the author after all
Protection is not ruled out entirely. According to the ministry, the user could be the author "at most" where the software is merely a tool and its use plays a subordinate role in creating the work. That has to be assessed case by case.
Typical cases where your own share is larger include:
- You draw or photograph something yourself and only let the AI edit details.
- You write a text yourself and only let the AI tidy up spelling and wording.
- You assemble something new from many parts, including AI parts, through your own choices.
By the ministry's reasoning, a prompt alone is probably not enough, because according to the ministry the result can only be steered to a limited extent. That does not replace a court ruling on your case. In practice, it helps to keep your own drafts and intermediate versions. Then you can later show what came from you.
May you use and sell AI images?
The contract with the provider comes first here. Anthropic states in its consumer terms that it assigns to you all its right, title and interest in outputs, "(if any)". That is the heart of the matter: a provider can only give you rights that actually exist. Other providers restrict use. Microsoft, for example, says on its own help page that Designer is licensed for personal, non-commercial use. How the big image providers handle this is compared in Creating AI Images: Free and Free to Use.
If the terms allow business use, you can usually sell an AI image too. But there is no copyright you could sell exclusively.
Where it can get expensive: third-party works in the result
The lack of protection for your AI image does not mean everything in it is free. The ministry stresses that when using an AI result, you have to check whether and to what extent pre-existing works are recognisable in it. Publishing protected content without permission is generally not allowed. Under section 23(1) UrhG, there is no adaptation if the new work keeps a sufficient distance from the work used. If the works used are no longer recognisable, the content can be used freely, according to the ministry.
That models can actually reproduce third-party works was found by the Munich Regional Court I on 11 November 2025 (case no. 42 O 14139/24). The song lyrics at issue were "reproducibly" contained in two OpenAI language models, the court said, and this storage in the model was already a reproduction. In that case, the court held OpenAI, as the provider of the models, responsible for the outputs, not the users. On 31 July 2026, the same chamber ruled similarly against SUNO, the provider of a music generator (case no. 42 O 763/25). According to the press releases, neither judgment is final.
For you, this means: if an AI result reproduces a well-known text, a song or a recognisable character, you are publishing someone else's work. With faces and voices, personality rights come in as well: deepfakes can violate them, according to the ministry.
Training: what happens to your own content
Whether AI companies may train on other people's texts and images is governed by the rules on text and data mining. Section 44b UrhG permits reproductions of lawfully accessible works for automated analysis. Rights holders can opt out, though: for works accessible online, such a reservation is only effective under section 44b(3) if it is made in machine-readable form. Behind this is Article 4 of the EU Directive 2019/790. In the Munich Regional Court's view, this permission covers compiling the training data, but not storing whole works in the model.
How strict that is was shown by a ruling of the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg on 10 December 2025 (case no. 5 U 104/24). A photographer lost against an association that had built a training dataset. The reservation on the picture agency's website did not have the form required by law, namely machine readability. The use was also justified as scientific research under section 60d UrhG. According to the press release, the ruling is not final; an appeal to the Federal Court of Justice has been allowed.
In addition, since 2 August 2025 the EU AI Act has imposed obligations on providers of general-purpose AI models, such as large language models. For models that were already on the market before that date, the deadline is 2 August 2027. Under Article 53, they need a policy to comply with copyright law that respects such reservations, and they must publish a summary of the content used for training.
What to watch out for
- Read the terms before you sell. Private plans and free tiers do not always allow business use.
- No third-party works as templates. Don't upload photos, logos or texts you have no rights to, and don't ask for something "in the style of" with the aim of getting a copy.
- Check the result. If you recognise a well-known motif, a character or a brand, don't use the image.
- Record your own share. Keep drafts and intermediate versions if protection matters to you.
- Logos are a special case. A company logo usually needs exclusivity. A purely AI-generated logo does not offer that through copyright. Get advice on this.
Frequently asked questions
Who owns AI-generated images?
Under German law, purely AI-generated images have no author and therefore no copyright holder. What you may do with them is governed by the provider's terms. If you shaped the result substantially yourself, protection for your share can arise.
Can I sell AI-generated images?
If the provider's terms allow business use and no third-party work, brand or real face is recognisable, usually yes. There is no copyright, though, that you could pass on exclusively.
Are AI images royalty-free?
Not automatically. A lack of copyright protection is not a free licence. The terms of the service apply, as do third parties' rights in anything recognisable in the image.
May I publish AI-generated texts?
Yes, as long as they don't reproduce other people's texts. Check quotations, song lines and long passages that sound like a well-known work in particular. Whether you have to label the text is a separate question under the AI Act.
Do I have to register a copyright?
Not in Germany. According to the ministry, copyright arises directly with the creation of the work. There is no registration, so you cannot protect an AI image by registering it either.
Where to go from here
Take the last AI image you used for business and check two things: do the terms of your plan allow business use, and is anything from someone else recognisable in it? Whether you have to label the image is in AI Disclosure Rules Under the EU AI Act. Next on the learning path are fixed routines: What Is a Workflow? Simply Explained. You will find every AI term explained briefly in my AI glossary. How others work with AI images and texts is what we discuss in my community Claude Practitioners. Membership does not replace a legal review.
