The A.I. Content Creating Dilemma: IP and Copyright Essentials for Creative Freelancers

"Corporate Colin" is what Zsike Peter calls the polite, polished and boring writer that appears when you let ChatGPT do your writing. Her talk on 14 May 2025 argues that freelancers who outsource their thinking and voice also outsource responsibility, and that the legal side is just as shaky. She says she is not a lawyer, so she presents what she follows, not legal advice.

What the talk covers

• Why it matters beyond style: AI writing is flooding feeds, readers sense when something is off, and trust is the business of a freelancer. For her, AI is a tool for repetitive tasks, summaries and dry data, not for the thinking a brand story needs.
• Ownership, in her account: The US Copyright Office said in 2023 that purely AI-written text cannot be copyrighted. The EU sees authorship with people. Clients may not own AI copy they paste on their websites. AI may also reproduce phrases from other authors without saying so, and the originator, not the AI company, would be the one to sue.
• Cases she follows: a stock photo company against an image generator and an authors' lawsuit against an AI company.

Her unofficial code of honour

1. Be transparent when AI shaped the work.
2. Be the editor in chief: rewrite, trim, add your essence.
3. Understand that these tools average their training data and create nothing new.

Q&A

Where to draw the line with clients? Her practice: brainstorm top-level ideas from interview notes with AI, share them with the client, then write them yourself. Image tools: commercial use is fine as far as she understands it. Telltale signs of AI posts: an over-motivational tone and repeated sentence openers.

The legal points are her statements as of May 2025 and may have changed since.

Who it's for

Creative freelancers who use AI for client work.