Who owns a song made with AI — me or the tool company?

Ownership vs. permission

Copyright ownership. Under Thaler v. Perlmutter (D.C. Circuit 2025, cert denied March 2026), purely machine-generated works have no author and therefore no copyright — nobody owns them, including the tool company. Your human creative contributions (lyrics, arrangement, performance, substantial editing) are protectable and belong to you.

Contractual permission. Separately from copyright, every generation tool's terms of service allocate usage rights between you and the company — typically varying by free vs. paid tier, and sometimes claiming licenses back to the company. These terms change often and differ per product. Our Tool records track commercial-use statements with dates and sources; always confirm against the tool's current official terms before releasing commercially.

The trap in between

The uncomfortable middle: output you're contractually allowed to sell but nobody owns under copyright can be re-used by others without infringing your rights in the AI-generated parts. Your protection strategy is maximizing genuine human contribution — which is also what makes the work registrable.