I'm a freelance designer. I used Midjourney to generate initial concepts for a client's logo, then heavily modified the output in Illustrator — changed colors, simplified shapes, added custom typography. The final logo is maybe 30% AI-generated and 70% my modifications.
Client wants to trademark it. Can they? And who owns the copyright — me, the client, or Midjourney?
This is a rapidly evolving area. Here's the current state:
Copyright: The purely AI-generated portions are not copyrightable (per Thaler v. Perlmutter and the Copyright Office's guidance on AI works). BUT — your substantial human modifications likely create a copyrightable derivative work. The Copyright Office has registered works with AI assistance where the human contribution was substantial (see the Zarya of the Dawn registration).
Trademark: Trademark registration doesn't require copyright ownership. It requires that the mark is distinctive and used in commerce. You can trademark an AI-assisted logo. The PTO looks at distinctiveness, not authorship origin.
For the client relationship: your contract should address IP ownership. If your freelance agreement assigns all work product to the client, the copyrightable portions (your modifications) transfer to them.
From a practical standpoint, I'd recommend recreating the key design elements from scratch in Illustrator using the AI output as inspiration only. Then there's zero question about copyright ownership. It takes an extra hour but eliminates the legal ambiguity entirely.
That's a good idea. The AI-generated portion is really just the overall layout concept at this point. I could redraw it from scratch and cite the Midjourney output as "reference material" rather than a derivative work. Would that be cleaner?
Much cleaner. If you independently create the logo using the AI output as a mood board or concept reference, the final work is 100% human-authored and fully copyrightable. This is the approach most IP attorneys currently recommend for commercial logo work.
At our agency, we've standardized this: AI tools for ideation and concept exploration only. All final deliverables are human-created from scratch. We include a clause in our contracts stating that all deliverables are original human-created works. Clients get clean IP ownership and we avoid the whole AI copyright mess.
Don't forget Midjourney's own ToS. Under their terms, paid subscribers own the outputs they generate. But that "ownership" is limited by copyright law — you can't own what can't be copyrighted. It's a license to use, not a copyright assignment.
Going to redraw the logo from scratch using the AI concept as reference. Client is fine with the extra day of work. Thanks for the clear guidance — this AI IP area is a minefield.
For more on AI output ownership, see the AI platform content ownership guide and the Midjourney commercial rights megathread.
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