The human part: authorship, credits and transparency

Mexico's Supreme Court and the US Copyright Office agree: the author is a person. What that means for anyone making music with AI.

By Dovva Studio Editorial · October 20, 2026

When a song is made with the help of artificial intelligence, who is its author? In Mexico and the United States, the 2026 legal answer is clearer than it looks: the author has to be a person. What remains open is how much human involvement is enough.

Mexico: authorship belongs to natural persons

On July 2, 2025, the Second Chamber of Mexico's Supreme Court (SCJN) decided amparo directo 6/2025. The case began when INDAUTOR, the national copyright institute, refused to register an image, "Avatar virtual: Gerald García Báez," which the applicant had generated with the AI tool Leonardo from his own photographs. He asked for the moral rights to be granted to the AI and the economic rights to himself.

The Court unanimously denied the claim, four votes to none. According to the ruling, the Federal Copyright Law requires two things to register a work: authorship by a natural person and an original creation. Copyright, the Court says, is directed at people who, "through their creativity, experience, intellect, emotions and context," create an original work.

United States: AI is a tool, not an author

On January 29, 2025, the US Copyright Office published Part 2 of its report on AI. Its conclusion is that generative AI outputs can be protected only where a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements. That includes a human-authored work perceptible in the output, or creative arrangements and modifications made by a person. It does not include merely providing prompts. The Office also confirmed that using AI to assist in creation, or including AI-generated material in a larger human-authored work, does not bar protection.

The courts point the same way. On March 18, 2025, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in Thaler v. Perlmutter that the law requires human authorship. On March 2, 2026, the Supreme Court declined to review the case.

As the law firm Baker Donelson explains, that case did not settle how much human involvement is enough, because Thaler disclaimed any human creative contribution. That question is raised in another case, Allen v. Perlmutter, still pending. The same firm recommends documenting the human role: prompts, revisions, selection decisions and later changes.

Credits: saying what the machine did

Platforms are starting to ask for the same thing the law does: separate what's human from what's generated. DistroKid explains that AI Credits are for disclosing when AI generated part of a track:

• the audio (vocals or instruments)
• the lyrics
• the composition (melody or arrangement)

Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube show that information. Using AI only as a tool, for example for pitch correction or AI-assisted mixing and mastering, doesn't require a credit. Spotify says it now receives tens of thousands of AI credits every day.

There's a distinction worth keeping in mind: disclosing that a song was made with AI is not the same as presenting a false identity. Spotify keeps AI Credits separate from its AI Persona badge. That badge is for profiles whose image is a photorealistic human who doesn't exist. It doesn't apply to someone who uses AI to make music under their real name, a stage name, or a character that doesn't pose as a person.

Our part

All this points to a simple practice. It's the one we try to follow in this house:

• A person directs, writes or chooses the lyrics, selects, edits and decides what gets released. That's the part the law recognizes, and the part worth documenting.
• We disclose the use of AI in each release, song by song.
• We don't use invented faces or human biographies for projects that don't have them.
• We don't imitate the voices or styles of real artists.
• When we take a commission, we explain that legal protection for the AI-generated part is still uncertain.

It isn't about image. It's the most honest way to work while the law finishes drawing the line.

Disclosure: this piece describes the practices of Dovva Studio, the same house that publishes this magazine.