Provenance Records Tracks Each Component in the Creative Process for Artists & Businesses to Confidently Claim Ownership of their Work
ATLANTA, GA – February 10, 2025 – In a landmark decision from the US Copyright Office, Invoke, a generative AI platform for enterprise businesses and professional artists, has been granted copyright protection for an image composed entirely of material generated with an AI model. This important decision marks a new precedent for the industry and represents a major advancement in the legal recognition of AI-assisted creativity.
Under current guidance from the Copyright Office, images generated from conventional text prompts are not eligible for copyright protection because they lack human authorship, a prerequisite for copyrights. Recognizing the need for professional creatives to secure copyright protection for their works, Invoke’s founder and CEO Kent Keirsey set out to test the boundaries of protectability for works created with the assistance of AI. He created a piece using the Invoke platform to demonstrate how visual works created using platform features may be eligible for copyright protection. Specifically, he focused on the application of Invoke’s inpainting features to iterate upon an AI-generated image, coordinating and arranging where to inpaint and then selecting from among multiple inpainted images to create a composite work: A Single Piece of American Cheese. Invoke then filed an application with the U.S. Copyright Office to register the piece. Consistent with the Copyright Office’s guidance on protectability of AI-generated images, Invoke claimed rights in the selection, coordination, and arrangement of the inpainted components of the composite image, but not the individual AI-generated inpainted segments.
Despite previous failed attempts by artists to secure copyright using other AI image generation tools, Invoke was able to secure copyright protection by proactively combining human creativity with AI-assisted image generation, and by documenting the creative techniques that Keirsey used inside the Invoke platform, many of which are not possible in simple text-to-image generators. He recorded every decision, direction and use of Invoke’s features, demonstrating how he transformed an initial prompt-based work into an original work guided by human creativity. He was able to use this record to demonstrate to the Copyright Office that A Single Piece of American Cheese is a work of human authorship.
A time-lapse video showcasing Keirsey’s creative process with Invoke can be viewed here.
Introducing Provenance Records
Invoke’s Provenance Records, a tool enabling users to track and document every component that goes into the AI-assisted creative process, like models, reference images, and settings, is already being used by Invoke’s enterprise clients to ensure copyright compliance and address the needs of detailed authorship tracking. The tool serves multiple purposes: it clearly demonstrates the human authorship behind AI-assisted creations, provides an easy-to-understand guide for compliant image creation, and is deployable across entire organizations.
Today, Provenance Records is available to all Invoke users by default, and incorporated into the metadata of every image generated on the platform. Invoke plans to continue to improve Provenance Records to align with the specific documentation that the U.S. Copyright Office requires for AI-assisted copyright claims.
“We saw a need from both our customers and the industry at large – artistic work needs copyright protection, and clarity on how to leverage emerging tools to produce protectable creative outputs. While I’ve always believed images created using the creative control capabilities of Invoke meet the U.S. Copyright Office’s standard for human authorship, we needed definitive guidance from USCO for our customers to feel confident incorporating AI into their production workflows,” said Keirsey, “With this precedent and our continually evolving Provenance Records tool, we’re making it easier for creatives and businesses to prove the elements of human authorship that been shown to assist in securing copyright protection, by embedding that data directly in the image. This clears a major hurdle to industry-wide adoption.”
Cooley LLP served as legal counsel handling the copyright application and advocacy before the U.S. Copyright Office. To view the copyrighted image and other Invoke assets, please check out the press kit here. If you want to try Invoke for yourself or learn more about how they help businesses train and deploy generative AI models securely, at scale, visit www.invoke.com.
About Invoke:
Invoke is the leading generative media platform for creative production in gaming, entertainment, architecture, advertising, and design. Built for professional creatives, Invoke offers a secure platform for AI model training, asset creation, and automated workflow development. Learn more at www.invoke.com.
Media Contact:
TriplePoint on behalf of Invoke
Invokeai@triplepointpr.com
Brad de Ramón