Doubt regarding copyright in images generated by AI

Another thing is to never, not ever, use prompts such as, "in the style of Art Kane" or "Norman Rockwell," etc., unless you dabble in AI simply as a hobby rather than for commercial purposes. Even then, I wouldn't upload them to the internet. If I see one more AI image of Scarlett Johansson or Elvis Presley, I'm going to scream.

I sometimes upload my own photographs to Midjourney and use the /describe command, letting Midjourney provide me with four prompts based on the photograph that I uploaded (again, MY photographs). Midjourney will often insert the names of living or dead photographers that I either summarily remove from the prompt or which I replace with my own name (hey, who knows, my photos might be in the training database). What I've never quite understood is why photographs that I took over 40 years ago are reminiscent of contemporary photographers who weren't even alive when I was taking photographs. Are they copying MY style?!?! Doubt it. But it does help verify the old adage that there is nothing new under the sun.

There are 26 letters in the English alphabet, from which millions of books have been written and will continue to be written, while bearing no resemblance from one to the other short of outright plagiarism. In comparison, there are 256 colors in a typical 8-bit image, from which an infinite number of images can be produced. (Again, short of outright plagiarism).  

Bottom line: avoid using names or descriptions of styles that are unique to specific individuals, and it's extremely unlikely you will have issues regarding copyright. What do I mean by styles? Let's take cubism for example. While Picasso wasn't the only artist who painted in this particular style, I highly suspect that AI would draw heavily from his work just the same, and you'd end up with a very "Picasso-like" result Not enough to result in copyright issues unless you used his actual name, but it's something I would personally avoid. Abstract art or surrealism? These concepts are much too generalized to result in copyright issues, so long as no specific names are involved.

I don't know. Maybe I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, but these are things I take into consideration when prompting. Your mileage may vary.

The thing with AI is that it is not AI exactly. AI is rather an all-inclusive term, which can be misleading. AI - generative is based on machine learning and uses pre-existing images to 'create' a new image. This is where copyright could cause a problem.

I would go with @Nancy OShea 's suggestion, use around 50% AI generation, and then modify it with your own creation. Then you can be sure that you are not breaking any copyright infringements.

You can't use an AI-generative programme - Adobe Firefly - put in a prompt, get an image produced, and then - hey presto -  let's upload to Adobe Stock. It doesn't work like that!

It would be extremely rare for that to happen, unless you were to use a prompt such as, "Award winning Time magazine cover photo." But when in doubt, do a reverse image search.

If you are creating an asset that is modelled after someone other's asset, then you infringe the copyright. If your AI was trained with copyrighted images without authorization, then you infringe the copyright. You also infringe the copyright if you use a non-commercial generator for commercial tasks (like selling on Adobe stock).