Can I legally use AI-generated images in my blog posts or social media?

You can use AI-generated images commercially, but you can't copyright them — which means anyone else can legally take your AI image and use it for their own purposes without asking you. This is the part most people miss. The U.S. Copyright Office has been pretty clear on this since 2023. In the Thaler v. Perlmutter case, they ruled that works created entirely by AI without sufficient human authorship don't qualify for copyright protection. So if you generate an image in Midjourney and slap it on your blog, you own exactly nothing. Competitors can grab it. Other blogs can republish it. You can't stop them. That said, if you substantially modify the image — like compositing it with your own photography, adding hand-drawn elements, or doing significant editing in Photoshop — you might have a case for copyright on the final, human-authored version. But the raw AI output? Fair game for everyone. This matters less for a small blog than for a brand building visual assets they plan to license or protect. Also worth noting: the terms of service for the AI tool matter. Midjourney's paid plan grants you commercial rights to use the images, but that's about usage permission, not copyright ownership. Two different things. For a deeper dive, see our guide on AI content copyright and legal issues. **Related**: Do I need to disclose when I use AI-generated images on my website? | What happens if someone steals my AI art and sells it?