Who owns AI-generated art, logos, writing and business content, and can any of it actually be copyrighted? Tom Bush and Stuart MacDonald speak with business and intellectual property attorney Shannon Villalba, founder of Heartsong Legal, about AI copyright, human authorship, ownership, contracts and the uncertain territory between fully human-created and fully AI-generated work. The central lesson: using AI does not automatically eliminate ownership, but businesses need to understand what a human created, what a model generated, what their contracts transfer, and what rights exist in the final product.
Guest: Shannon Villalba, JD, LLM, Founder, Heartsong Legal
In this episode:
• Why copyright protection centers on human authorship, and the difference between AI-generated and AI-assisted content
• Why prompting alone may not establish ownership, and how editing, inpainting and creative selection can matter
• Authorship vs. ownership, and the AI language you need in contractor and work-for-hire agreements
• How third-party AI platform terms can affect your business content, and the risks of AI-generated logos
• Why blanket AI bans limit productivity, and how to use AI with safeguards, policies and the right accounts
Connect with Shannon:
LinkedIn: / shannonvillalba
Heartsong Legal: https://www.heartsonglegal.com
This conversation is provided for general informational purposes and is not legal advice.
Recorded live at Columbus AI Week (Sept 10–11, 2026), produced by the Enterprise Technology Association with JobsOhio: https://www.joinaiweek.com/columbus
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