Executive Summary
- The hypothetical studio should assign demonstrated rights in human-authored drawings and qualifying human contributions to mixed assets. Generated elements need separate treatment because ownership of a final file does not establish copyright throughout its contents. (Copyright Act 98 of 1978, ss 1–3, 21–22; 17 U.S.C. §§ 102–104, 204.)
- South Africa recognises statutory authorship for specified computer-generated works, but originality and the identity of the person making the necessary arrangements remain separate requirements. US protection requires its own assessment of human expression; South African title cannot establish equivalent US protection. (Copyright Act, s 1(1), definition of author, para (h), and s 2; Haupt t/a Softcopy v Brewers Marketing Intelligence (Pty) Ltd 2006 (4) SA 458 (SCA), paras 31–35; 17 U.S.C. §§ 102, 104.)
- Employees' in-course work can belong to the studio under South African law. Ordinary freelance drawings require a documented transfer unless a specific ownership exception applies. Economic assignments also leave moral-rights questions to be addressed separately. (Copyright Act, ss 20–22.)
- Commercial tool permission does not prove statutory copyright, clean title or non-infringement. The proposed Midjourney example also requires disclosure of provider licences and public-sharing conditions; its standard terms supply no output infringement indemnity to fund the publisher's demand. (Midjourney Terms of Service, effective 27 May 2026, ss 1, 4, 10.)
- Registration cooperation should identify human authorship and exclude generated material above the Copyright Office's threshold for trivial content. Early registration matters even where a foreign work avoids the usual registration prerequisite to suit. (88 Fed. Reg. 16190, 16192–93; 17 U.S.C. §§ 411–412.)
- A competing generated image and a third-party infringement claim require different responses. Contractual non-reuse cannot restrain strangers and faces its own enforceability limits. Price the supported rights and agree replacement, defence and monetary remedies for defined failures. (17 U.S.C. §§ 301, 501–504; Feist Publications, Inc. v Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340, 345–46, 361 (1991).)
- A qualifying transfer to an unrelated non-resident can proceed through an Authorised Dealer under South African exchange controls. The studio must establish the relevant conditions, support the price and arrange timely repatriation; an IP licence has its own requirements. (Exchange Control Regulations 1961, reg 10(1)(c), (4); Currency and Exchanges Manual for Authorised Dealers, B.2(A)(ii)–(v).)
Each delivered image needs a contribution and rights record
The parties should identify the rights in each contribution before negotiating an exclusive grant. The studio's employees create concepts and compositions, generate image elements and edit selected results. Freelancers supply drawings. Some final assets retain substantial human work; others mainly contain model output. Those differences affect what the publisher can acquire and enforce.
South African law treats drawings as artistic works. Software production does not turn an image into a computer program. Ordinary artistic authorship, computer-generated authorship and authorship of an actual program have different statutory definitions. In the United States, pictorial and graphic expression can qualify, while ideas and concepts remain outside copyright. (Copyright Act, s 1(1), definitions of artistic work, author and computer program; 17 U.S.C. § 102.)
Record the original drawing, generated components, retained human expression, composition and later edits separately. A saved file establishes a fixed object, but the parties must still identify the protected expression and its owner. Selection or arrangement can support a limited claim without creating rights in every selected element. (Copyright Act, s 2(1)–(2); 17 U.S.C. §§ 102–103.)
The record should name each contributor and identify where each contribution was made. Nationality, domicile, residence and first publication can affect copyright eligibility. The studio should also distinguish a still illustration from animation or game code, since different work categories can carry different rules. South African author-based and first-publication qualifications require their own assessment. (Copyright Act, ss 3(1), 4(1); 17 U.S.C. § 104.)
South African computer-generated protection requires more than tool use
South African law offers a possible copyright route for generated artistic works. Section 1 identifies the statutory author as the person undertaking the arrangements necessary for creation. Section 2 still requires an original, fixed work. Payment for a model subscription or possession of its output does not establish those elements. (Copyright Act, s 1(1), definition of author, para (h), and s 2(1)–(2).)
In Haupt, the Supreme Court of Appeal distinguished computer-generated works lacking a human author from works created with computer assistance. Human decisions about the databases before the court placed them in the latter category. The court required origin in the author and a non-trivial degree of skill, judgment or labour. It rejected importing the US creativity requirement into South African originality. (Haupt, paras 31–35.)
The studio's strongest argument is the legislature's express inclusion of computer-generated artistic works. A court should not disregard that category merely because a machine supplied expression. The opposing argument concerns proof: which person undertook the necessary arrangements for this particular image, and what establishes originality? Depending on the workflow, the studio, employee and provider may make different contributions to those arrangements. The statutory wording does not designate every prompt writer as author.
The studio should preserve the brief, its own visual inputs, production decisions, model settings and successive versions. Those records permit a work-specific application of the statutory test. Detailed instructions and control mattered elsewhere in Haupt, but that holding concerned the separate computer-program definition. It does not automatically attribute generative artwork to the commissioning studio. (Copyright Act, s 1(1), definition of author, paras (h)–(i); Haupt, para 41.)
The Constitutional Court's decision of 26 June 2026 did not enact the Copyright Amendment Bill or decide modern AI authorship. It upheld specified proposed exceptions within the referral's scope, found proposed sections 12D(1)–(5) unconstitutional and rejected part of the referral as incompetent. The studio cannot treat the Bill's proposed fair-use provision as an operative permission for commercial artwork. (Ex parte President of the Republic of South Africa: In re Constitutionality of the Copyright Amendment Bill and the Performers' Protection Amendment Bill [2026] ZACC 26, paras 198–209 and order.)
US protection follows identifiable human expression
The publisher should assess what a human actually expressed in the final asset. Federal protection requires original authorship fixed in a tangible medium. Originality involves independent creation and at least minimal creativity; expenditure or effort alone is insufficient. (17 U.S.C. § 102(a); Feist, 499 U.S. at 345–46, 348–51.)
Thaler affirmed refusal of an application that identified a machine as sole author. The DC Circuit required human authorship in the first instance, while leaving the threshold for AI-assisted work unresolved. The Supreme Court denied review on 2 March 2026; that denial did not convert the appellate reasoning into a Supreme Court merits ruling. (Thaler v Perlmutter, No. 23-5233, slip op. 3, 9–16, 18–20 (D.C. Cir. 18 March 2025); Supreme Court No. 25-449, order of 2 March 2026.)
The Copyright Office's copyrightability report distinguishes assistance from substitution for human expression. Its assessment permits protection for perceptible human inputs, original arrangements and creative modifications. Prompts alone, with the systems assessed, generally lack sufficient control over the resulting expression. The report explains the agency's position and is persuasive administrative material; it is neither legislation nor a binding judicial decision. (US Copyright Office, Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability, January 2025, pp. 11–12, 17–27.)
That distinction produces different answers for the supplied variants. A human drawing can retain protection when AI assists its production. A composition assembled from generated elements can protect original arrangement or edits, while leaving the generated components outside that claim. Choosing one output or making mechanical corrections does not establish original human expression merely because the task took time. The extent of protection follows the contribution, without a prescribed percentage of edited pixels. (17 U.S.C. §§ 102–103; Copyrightability, pp. 21–27.)
The publisher's strongest objection is that the employees already supplied concepts and compositions. That is a reason to inspect the retained expression, rather than reject the entire delivery. It supports an assignment only to the extent that qualifying human expression survives in the asset and the studio owns it. An edited raw output also need not be a statutory derivative work: that label requires an underlying work of authorship. (17 U.S.C. §§ 101–103; Copyrightability, p. 25 n. 134.)
Foreign ownership and US protection require separate decisions
A South African statutory author may own a domestic interest without establishing the same protection in the United States. Section 104 supplies eligibility routes for foreign works, subject to the authorship requirements in sections 102 and 103. Berne national treatment and territorial protection do not require identical rights in every country. (17 U.S.C. § 104(a)–(c); Berne Convention, art. 5(1)–(2).)
The distinction extends to initial ownership and later transfers. In Saregama, the Eleventh Circuit applied origin-country law to initial ownership but did not decide a universal rule for subsequent assignments. That decision binds within its circuit and provides persuasive analysis elsewhere. A New York contract clause cannot by itself settle these federal and conflicts questions. (Saregama India Ltd v Mosley, No. 10-10626, slip op. 13, 16–17 (11th Cir. 25 March 2011).)
The studio could argue that South Africa supplies a statutory arranger-author, unlike the machine named in Thaler. That is a material distinction. Thaler did not adjudicate this foreign statutory category. Yet identifying an owner under South African law does not demonstrate the human expression required for the US claim. The Copyright Office expressly applies US copyrightability requirements to foreign-created and foreign-published works. (Thaler, slip op. 18–20; Compendium of US Copyright Office Practices, 3rd ed., § 303.)
The grant should therefore identify the studio's demonstrated human-authored interests and separately describe any qualifying South African computer-generated interest. Worldwide wording can transfer the interests actually held in the specified territories. It cannot establish uniform subsistence, remedies or standing wherever the game is sold. For a US exclusivity-dependent asset, the publisher should require evidence of protectable human expression rather than rely solely on foreign statutory attribution. (Copyright Act, s 22(1)–(2); 17 U.S.C. §§ 104, 201(d), 501(b).)
Employee and freelance rights must reach the studio
The studio should establish its ownership before making title warranties. Under South African law, an employer ordinarily owns work made in the course of employment, subject to the statutory special categories and contrary agreement. The employment contract, assigned duties and creation records must support that application. Employment status alone does not establish that every personal drawing belongs to the company. (Copyright Act, s 21(1)(a), (d)–(e).)
Freelance payment requires a different analysis. The commissioned-work exception covers specified categories, including photographs, painted or drawn portraits, films and sound recordings. It does not transfer every ordinary drawing to its purchaser. A particular portrait or animation requires correct classification; the remaining freelance interests should reach the studio through signed assignments. (Copyright Act, s 21(1)(c).)
Those instruments should identify existing contributions and future project work, the transferred rights, territory and permitted onward dealings. South African assignments and exclusive licences require signed writing, while future copyright can be transferred. Obtain a matching studio-to-publisher grant and further-assurance duties. For transfers governed by US copyright law, section 204 also requires a signed writing except for transfers by operation of law. (Copyright Act, s 22(1)–(3), (5); 17 U.S.C. § 204(a).)
The publisher should not attempt to cure missing title by labelling every contributor's work made for hire. Where US rules apply, an employee must satisfy the agency-law test and act within employment scope. A commissioned work requires an eligible statutory category and a signed written agreement expressly designating it a work made for hire. A contribution to an audiovisual work can qualify on the appropriate facts; payment alone does not establish it. (17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 201(b); Community for Creative Non-Violence v Reid, 490 U.S. 730, 737–41, 751–53 (1989).)
South African moral rights survive transfer. Section 20 preserves authorship claims and objections to modifications prejudicial to the author's honour or reputation. Its proviso covers authorised film or television uses, computer programs and works associated with programs. It prevents objections to modifications absolutely necessary on technical grounds or for commercial exploitation. Obtain permissions for intended edits, adaptations and credits without assuming that a general assignment extinguishes these interests. US visual-art rights have their own narrow definition and waiver requirements; ordinary game use and an original standalone drawing need separate classification. (Copyright Act, s 20; 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 106A(c)(3), (e).)
The agreement should also preserve mandatory limits on long-term grants. For US copyright rights, section 203 can permit termination of qualifying author grants despite contractual language, except for works made for hire. A corporate downstream assignment does not necessarily eliminate an upstream author's relevant interest. Avoid promising irrevocability beyond the rights and exceptions that apply. (17 U.S.C. § 203(a), (a)(5), (b)(1), (5).)
AI art commercial licensing under the Midjourney terms
A proposed Midjourney workflow illustrates the tool-licence check. Its terms effective 27 May 2026 allocate assets subject to applicable law and third-party rights. They reserve a perpetual, irrevocable, sublicensable licence over inputs and outputs. Public sharing permits remixing; Stealth does not cancel that provider licence. Sections 1 and 10 disclaim non-infringement assurances and supply no provider output indemnity. The customer instead undertakes specified third-party indemnification obligations. (Midjourney Terms of Service, ss 1, 4, 10.)
The plan also matters. Midjourney requires a Pro or Mega subscription for commercial company use where annual revenue exceeds US$1 million. Upscaling another user's image does not transfer that user's rights. Its published plan and commercial-use pages remain subject to the detailed terms. (Midjourney, Comparing Midjourney Plans; Using Images & Videos Commercially.)
The studio should archive the accepted version, generation dates, account holder, tier and relevant revenue evidence. Disclose the provider's retained interests and any public availability before negotiating exclusivity. A later assignment cannot promise an unencumbered interest that the studio already licensed away. If the publisher requires confidential, exclusive character art, use a workflow whose verified permissions fit that requirement or commission a cleared human-created substitute. (Copyright Act, s 22(7)–(8); 17 U.S.C. § 201(d).)
Third-party copying requires separate clearance
The studio must assess infringement even where its own generated output lacks protection. US infringement requires a valid copyright and copying of protected original elements. Independent creation, shared ideas and unprotected similarities can defeat that claim. A model's involvement does not excuse copying another work's protected expression. (17 U.S.C. §§ 102(b), 106, 501; Feist, 499 U.S. at 345–46, 361.)
For the recognisable-work or protected-character variant, compare the actual inputs and final image with the asserted source. Check permission for copying, model upload, adaptation and the intended game and promotional uses. A licence permitting display of a reference image may not permit all those acts. Minor changes cannot be treated as a reliable clearance method. South African copyright can subsist in original additions despite infringement in their production, while exploitation still requires attention to underlying rights. (Copyright Act, ss 1(2A), 2(3), 7, 23(1); 17 U.S.C. §§ 103(a), 106.)
Fair use remains a possible US defence, but it requires the statutory assessment of purpose, nature, amount and market effect. Commercial game use is not automatically disqualified, nor is a recognisable character automatically cleared by generation or editing. Where the publisher needs an ordinary entertainment asset and permissions do not support the proposed use, the recommended response is replacement with independently created, cleared expression. (17 U.S.C. § 107.)
An identified brand or real-person likeness requires a separate screen. Federal false-affiliation liability depends on the relevant likelihood of confusion. New York likeness claims also require their statutory elements and account for expressive uses. Lohan confirms that a game avatar can qualify as a portrait, while rejecting the particular claim because the images did not identify the claimant. Recognisability is a review trigger, not a universal liability finding. (15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)(1)(A); N.Y. Civil Rights Law § 51; Lohan v Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., 31 N.Y.3d 111, 120–123 (2018).)
The supplier should keep any model-training assurance distinct from output clearance and input permissions. The publisher can request the provider's actual commitments without treating a subscription as proof of training legality. Licentium's AI training-data copyright and transparency analysis addresses those upstream questions.
The grant should reflect each asset's commercial function
For human-drawn assets with evidenced authorship and title, offer an assignment of the defined copyright interests. Specify use in the game, updates, localisation, promotion and any agreed merchandising. Obtain the contributor permissions needed for those uses. Schedule retained background tools and third-party components so that the grant does not imply their ownership. (Copyright Act, ss 21–22; 17 U.S.C. §§ 106, 201(d), 204.)
For mixed assets, assign the identified human drawing, arrangement and editing interests. Give the publisher the contractual permissions actually available for incorporated material, with express exclusions from any US copyright assurance. If the publisher needs to prevent reuse of a generated component itself, protection of the overall composition may be insufficient. Replace that component or commission a new human-authored asset whose protected expression serves the intended function. (17 U.S.C. §§ 102–103; Copyrightability, pp. 22–27.)
For substantially generated output with minimal human contribution, supply permitted uses and any demonstrated territorial interests without pricing an assured US copyright monopoly. Contractual non-resupply can have commercial value if enforceable, but cannot stop an unrelated user from independently generating a similar image. Where exclusive control is indispensable, a cleared human-created substitute is the better transaction. A redraw that merely copies the same problematic source does not resolve third-party rights. (17 U.S.C. §§ 102–104, 301; Feist, 499 U.S. at 345–46, 361.)
For an asset incorporating unlicensed protected expression, withhold acceptance until the relevant permission or a cleared replacement is supplied. The publisher can accept a limited right for a background element whose commercial purpose tolerates similarity. It should reject the same limitation for a central asset if the deal depends on excluding competitors. These are proposed commercial choices, conditional on the asset-specific rights assessment.
Contractual exclusivity has its own enforceability limits
The parties should not treat a non-reuse covenant as equivalent to copyright. Section 301 can displace state-law rights equivalent to federal copyright within its subject matter. That subject-matter enquiry can include material that does not itself qualify for protection. A separate agreement therefore requires assessment of the actual obligation and remedy. (17 U.S.C. § 301(a), (b)(1), (3).)
For a dispute heard in New York's federal courts, Second Circuit decisions provide an important qualification. Forest Park protected a distinct promise to pay for use. Universal Instruments pre-empted a claim enforcing an implied software-use restriction equivalent to copyright rights; contractual privity was insufficient. A paid bespoke supply arrangement was also at issue in Universal Instruments; its label does not settle the enquiry. (Forest Park Pictures v Universal Television Network, Inc., No. 11-2011-cv, slip op. 7–16 (2d Cir. 26 June 2012); Universal Instruments Corp. v Micro Systems Engineering, Inc., No. 17-2748-cv, slip op. 23, 31–34 (2d Cir. 8 May 2019).)
Those decisions concerned other subject matter, so their application to wholly generated artwork requires an assessment of the work and pleaded duty. Specify genuine payment, delivery, provenance, confidential-access and replacement obligations. Adding those provisions elsewhere does not necessarily save a separate claim seeking only to prohibit copying. A confidentiality clause should distinguish information kept secret before release from information that remains confidential afterwards. The publisher should value those undertakings for their supported contractual function, with human-authored replacement available where competitive exclusivity remains essential.
US registration cooperation requires accurate exclusions
The studio can promise cooperation with a truthful application, rather than guaranteed registration of every element. The Copyright Office requires disclosure and exclusion of more than trivial AI-generated material, described in its guidance as more than de minimis. The application must describe the human authorship. Identify the people responsible for that expression and explain the publisher's acquisition of their rights. (Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence, 88 Fed. Reg. 16190, 16192–93 (16 March 2023).)
The evidence packet should contain pre-generation drawings, layered edits, before-and-after comparisons and an intelligible account of the retained human expression. Preserve raw outputs so the applicant can distinguish what the model supplied. The publisher should control the filing description, obtain the studio's confirmation of factual accuracy and use the appropriate correction procedure if the description changes. An inaccuracy does not automatically invalidate every registration; section 411(b) requires the statutory knowledge and materiality enquiries. (88 Fed. Reg. at 16192–93; 17 U.S.C. § 411(b).)
Record first-publication dates, places and author qualifications before choosing a filing strategy. A South African supplier's address does not establish that an asset falls outside the statutory United States work category. Section 411(a)'s usual registration prerequisite to suit applies to United States works, with specified refusal and other procedures. A qualifying foreign work can avoid that particular prerequisite while remaining subject to section 412's limits on statutory damages and attorneys' fees. (17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 411–412.)
Aim to register the qualifying contributions before release and before any infringement begins. Section 412 includes an exception for registration within three months of first publication, but that is not a universal cure for earlier infringement of unpublished work. The parties should link the filing calendar to the actual publication and infringement chronology. Registration supports enforcement of the claimed human contribution; it does not enlarge that contribution into rights over excluded material. (17 U.S.C. §§ 103(b), 412.)
South African exchange controls affect the signing sequence
The finance lead should arrange the bank's approval route before the operative cross-border grant. Regulation 10 addresses entering transactions that export capital, expressly including IP assignments to non-residents. The current Authorised Dealer manual generally requires prior written Financial Surveillance approval unless an applicable permission covers the transaction. Delaying the assignment's effective date alone is not a reliable substitute for addressing the transaction restriction. (Exchange Control Regulations 1961, reg 10(1)(c), (4); Currency and Exchanges Manual for Authorised Dealers, B.2(A)(ii).)
For a qualifying outright transfer to an unrelated non-resident, an Authorised Dealer may approve an arm's-length, fair-market transaction. The dealer needs the agreement and an auditor's letter or IP valuation certificate supporting the price. The delegated permission excludes sale-and-leaseback, and receipts must be repatriated within 30 days of entitlement. A related-party sale requires assessment under the appropriate approval route. (Manual, B.2(A)(iii).)
An Authorised Dealer may also approve an arm's-length IP licence at a fair and market-related price for the agreement's term. The dealer must see the licence and an auditor's letter confirming the royalty or fee calculation. Royalties and fees carry the same entitlement-based repatriation period. The parties should agree a supported allocation between services and IP, confirm the tax treatment and settle any conditional signing arrangement with the bank. No approval should be represented as obtained merely because a contract describes the transaction as services. (Manual, B.2(A)(iv)–(v).)
Warranties and indemnities should address defined failures
For the publisher agreement, a valid New York governing-law choice offers a specific basis for negotiating indemnities and remedies. The choice is a proposed contract term; it does not select the forum or replace the copyright laws applicable to each territory. The parties must establish an effective choice under the relevant conflicts rules. New York permits certain choices without a reasonable connection to the state. Its statutory route has a US$250,000 threshold and exclusions, including labour or personal-services contracts. (N.Y. General Obligations Law § 5-1401.)
The studio should give title assurances for scheduled rights only after establishing the contributor chain. It can also undertake to disclose material AI use, identify known encumbrances and preserve provenance records. A separate non-infringement statement can be qualified by specified reasonable enquiries, knowledge and authorised uses. The inquiry should include contributor confirmations, input permissions and review of recognisable third-party material. These negotiated qualifications allocate contractual responsibility; they do not restrict a third party's statutory claim. (Copyright Act, ss 21–23; 17 U.S.C. §§ 204, 501.)
Define a defence obligation triggered by a covered third-party allegation and distinguish it from payment of a judgment or approved settlement. State the protected uses, covered rights, notice requirements, counsel selection and cooperation duties. Exclusions for publisher-supplied material, unauthorised modifications or prohibited uses should apply only to the extent they caused the claim. Settlement controls should prevent an admission, licence burden or operational restriction being imposed without the affected party's consent.
Treat first-party failures separately: false provenance, a missing assignment, refusal to cooperate with registration, or delivery outside the agreed rights category. A broad indemnity does not necessarily recover the publisher's legal fees in an action against the studio. New York requires sufficiently clear language for that fee shift, so identify any agreed first-party recovery expressly. (Sage Systems, Inc. v Liss, 39 N.Y.3d 27, 30–33 (2022).)
Replace the requested uncapped promise with an agreed allocation tied to the deal's value, available cover and the parties' control over the risk. State whether defence costs, settlements, replacement costs and contractual damages share a cap. A higher negotiated cap for covered IP claims can coexist with a general cap. Deliberate copying, fraud or concealed rights defects warrant separate negotiation. These are proposed allocations, without an invented market-standard amount or assumption that insurance will respond.
New York does not invalidate every remedy limit merely because a claimant alleges gross negligence. Part 60 distinguishes effective contractual remedies from total or nominal exculpation in pure contract cases, while leaving separate tort questions open. The publisher should retain a usable remedy and insist on clear treatment of intentional wrongdoing and mandatory liabilities. A nominal refund should not be presented as guaranteed insulation from all misconduct claims. (Matter of Part 60 Put-Back Litigation, 36 N.Y.3d 342, 349, 351–359 (2020).)
The publisher's strongest commercial objection is that a narrow grant or cap leaves it funding a costly interruption. Address that objection through an agreed replacement deadline, continuity permissions, responsibility for removal and patching, and a defined refund or repricing mechanism. If the studio cannot support the requested right or finance the risk, it should offer a properly cleared substitute or decline that asset and assurance. No indemnity expands the studio's statutory ownership.
Competing images and infringement claims require different responses
If another studio uses a similar generated image, first identify the protected human expression allegedly copied and the publisher's ownership of that interest. Independent generation or similarity confined to unprotected elements may defeat the US infringement claim. The publisher's disappointment with exclusivity does not itself establish infringement by a competitor. A contractual claim against its supplier depends on the actual promise, breach and enforceability. (17 U.S.C. §§ 102–103, 301, 501(b); Feist, 499 U.S. at 345–46, 361.)
If a rights holder alleges that the delivered art copies its work, activate the agreed notice and defence process. Preserve the files and production history, identify the allegedly copied expression and evaluate permissions and defences. Use the agreed replacement or removal route where continued distribution threatens the launch or increases loss. The allegation should remain an allegation until admitted or established; the contractual defence trigger can operate before a final liability finding.
Available US copyright relief includes actual damages and attributable profits, or eligible statutory damages, subject to the registration rules. An injunction requires the relevant equitable showing. In eBay, a patent case that expressly compared copyright remedies, the Supreme Court rejected an automatic infringement-to-injunction approach. The supply contract should provide operational responses without promising a particular court order. (17 U.S.C. §§ 412, 502, 504; eBay Inc. v MercExchange, LLC, 547 U.S. 388, 391–93 (2006).)
Acceptance should depend on the evidence handover
Before accepting a rights-sensitive asset, the publisher should receive the asset and component identifiers, final and editable files, named contributors and signed ownership documents. Add the human-contribution record, source permissions, tool and model version, accepted terms, account evidence and disclosed prior licences. The publisher should receive enough detail to assess the proposed grant and prepare a truthful registration. These are recommended delivery conditions derived from the ownership and disclosure requirements. (Copyright Act, ss 21–22; 17 U.S.C. § 204; 88 Fed. Reg. at 16192–93.)
The parties should record one agreed treatment for each asset: assignment of demonstrated human rights, a defined mixed-work grant, permitted generated-content use, or replacement. Finance should retain the approval and valuation records for the cross-border IP transaction. The publisher should schedule the registration and release steps after those conditions are met. Acceptance should not silently convert a disclosed limitation into a warranty of worldwide exclusive copyright. (Copyright Act, s 22; 17 U.S.C. §§ 103–104, 412; Manual, B.2(A)(ii)–(v).)