What We Should Know About Commercial Use of AI Generated Images

from a Biblical Perspective

In the last post, I used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to generate a book cover image. A reader asked me an important question: can we use AI images for commercial purposes? It turns out, the answer is complicated.

Simplifying the Complicated

Commercial use of text, images and other media is a complicated issue. It is under the Intellectual Property Laws of the country or countries where you are offering it. In the USA, there are different agencies that work together to grant the right, make policies and enforce the law. Google AI gave these details about it:

In other words, we need to find out WHAT are the policies and WHO, if ever, owns the images we use for commercial purposes.

Do Not Steal

Exodus 20:15 plainly states that we must not steal. We must also “. . . submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God.” Romans‬ ‭13‬:‭1‬ ‭NLT‬‬ As Christians, we must do due diligence to find out and follow policies. The easiest way to start is to ask ChatGPT to make me a table about commercial use of images generated by popular AI image apps. Below is its answer.

As you can see, ChatGPT encouraged me to check the commercial license policies of each app. I requested that it add Meta AI (Facebook) and Canva and the website of each. The revised output is below.

What to do next

Artificial Intelligence is opening up a lot of areas for debate, especially in the area of intellectual property. If you use an AI Image app, it is best to find out its usage rights. Sometimes, the terms are buried deep in their web pages. Still, take time to find and read them before using any images for commercial use. In the next post, I will start a series on AI and Intellectual Property.