Zarya of the Dawn: AI Disclosure Rules for Copyright Registration

In February 2023, the U.S. Copyright Office issued its decision on Zarya of the Dawn, the first detailed ruling on how copyright law treats a work that mixes human writing with AI-generated images. The Office split Kristina Kashtanova’s graphic novel in two: her written text and her creative arrangement of the pages stayed protected, but the individual images she generated with Midjourney received no copyright protection at all. That split is now the working framework for every creator registering work that involves generative AI.

What the Ruling Protected and What It Stripped

Kashtanova originally received a copyright certificate in September 2022 under registration number VAu001480196, having applied as sole author of the entire graphic novel without mentioning Midjourney.¹ After she discussed her AI workflow on social media, the Office opened a review and asked her to justify the registration. On February 21, 2023, it partially cancelled the original certificate and issued a narrower one.

Two categories survived. The written narrative did, because Kashtanova wrote it herself and it met the “modicum of creativity” standard. The selection, coordination, and arrangement of images and text across the book’s pages did too, because compilation copyright covers original editorial choices about what to include and how to order it.² Compilation protection, though, extends only to the arrangement itself. It does not reach the individual pieces being arranged.

The individual Midjourney images got no protection. Practically, that means the book’s overall structure is defended, but someone could extract a single generated image and reuse it without infringing Kashtanova’s copyright. What they could not copy is her sequence of images paired with her text.

The Office also looked at Kashtanova’s post-generation edits. She had adjusted a character’s mouth and lips on one image. Those changes were “too minor and imperceptible to supply the necessary creativity for copyright protection.”¹ Small tweaks to AI output do not clear the bar; the human modifications have to be substantial enough to stand as original expression on their own.

Why Prompts Do Not Count as Authorship

The core of the decision is the Office’s reasoning about what happens when a user types a prompt. Kashtanova’s attorney argued that her detailed, iterative prompting demonstrated the kind of creative control that qualifies as authorship. The Office disagreed and pointed to the gap between what a user asks for and what Midjourney actually produces.

Midjourney starts from randomly generated noise and evolves it into an image through its own internal process. A prompt like “a holographic elderly woman inside a spaceship” can produce dozens of wildly different results, and the user cannot predict or control the specific visual details the system chooses.¹ The Office compared this to commissioning a painter: telling an artist what you want makes you the client, not the author. Midjourney prompts work the same way. This is different from a tool like Photoshop, where the human controls each brushstroke.

The Office reinforced this in its January 2025 copyrightability report, concluding that “prompts alone do not provide sufficient human control to make users of an AI system the authors of the output” and that prompts “essentially function as instructions that convey unprotectible ideas.”³ Even very detailed prompts do not control how the AI turns instructions into pixels.

The Office was equally clear on effort. Time, expense, and iteration have “no bearing on whether a work possesses the minimum creative spark required.”¹ The question is whether the human “actually formed” the expressive elements, not whether the human worked hard to get them.

The Office also rejected “authorship by adoption.” Generating many outputs and picking the best one is closer to curating a gallery than making the art. Selection does not turn the selector into the author of what was selected.

When an AI-Assisted Work Can Still Be Registered

Nothing in the ruling says AI-assisted work is uncopyrightable. The Office identified two paths that can produce a valid registration.⁴

The first is creative arrangement. A human who selects and organizes AI-generated content in an original way can register the compilation. Zarya of the Dawn itself is the example: the book as a whole is copyrighted even though the images are not, because the editorial choices were creative enough.

The second is substantial human modification. An artist who takes AI output and reworks it heavily enough that the changes count as original expression can register those changes. Kashtanova’s minor face adjustments did not qualify, so “substantial” is doing real work here. Even when this path succeeds, protection covers only the human-authored modifications, not the underlying AI material.³

How to Disclose AI Content on a Registration

The Office published formal guidance in the Federal Register in March 2023, built directly on the Zarya experience.⁵ Applications for works that include AI-generated content have to follow specific steps.

File through the Standard Application. The Single Application and other short forms lack the fields you need to disclaim unprotectable material.
In the “Author Created” field, describe what the human contributed. Do not name an AI tool or its developer as an author.
In the “Material Excluded” section, disclaim any AI-generated content that is more than minimal, with a short description such as “illustrations generated by artificial intelligence.”
Use the “Note to CO” field to explain your workflow if anything is unclear. A general statement that the work contains AI material is enough to trigger follow-up from an examiner.

Disclosure is not optional. The Office treats omission of AI involvement as grounds to cancel or modify a registration, which is exactly what happened in Zarya.⁴ The underlying statutory duty is in the application requirements themselves.⁶

Fixing a Registration That Did Not Disclose AI

If you already hold a registration that did not mention AI-generated content, you correct the record with a supplementary registration. In it, describe the human-authored portions in “Author Created,” disclaim the AI-generated material in “Material Excluded/Other,” and complete the “New Material Added/Other” field. If enough human authorship remains, the Office issues a new certificate with its own registration number and effective date, and the original stays on record alongside it. Electronic filing costs $100.⁷

For an application still pending when you notice the gap, contact the Copyright Office’s Public Information Office. Staff will add a note so the examiner follows up about the nature of the human authorship.

What Happens If You Do Not Disclose

Concealing AI involvement carries two layers of risk. The Copyright Office can cancel the registration outright once it learns that essential information was omitted.⁴

The bigger problem shows up in court. A registration certificate satisfies the prerequisites for filing an infringement suit, but a court can disregard the certificate if the applicant knowingly included inaccurate information and the accurate information would have caused the Office to refuse registration.⁸ A creator who hides AI-generated content and then sues someone for copying it could lose the ability to enforce the copyright at all. The court asks the Office whether the truth would have changed the registration decision, and if the answer is yes, the case collapses.

The Zarya framework treats the applicant’s honesty as the pivot. Human creativity gets protected, machine output does not, and the burden falls on the person filing to draw the line accurately the first time.

1
U.S. Copyright Office. Zarya of the Dawn Letter
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 103 – Subject Matter of Copyright, Compilations and Derivative Works
3
U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2 Copyrightability Report
4
U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright Registration Guidance – Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence
5
Federal Register. Copyright Registration Guidance – Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 409 – Application for Copyright Registration
7
U.S. Copyright Office. Fees
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 411 – Registration and Civil Infringement Actions