Did AI just nick some else’s work and put your name on it?
It's 6.15pm. You've got a newsletter that should've gone out yesterday, and AI conjures up a gorgeous image and a tidy little paragraph in roughly the time it takes to visit the loo. Magic! And honestly, ninety percent of the time, crack on — it's brilliant. But here's the bit the shiny tools conveniently forget to mention: AI got that clever by quietly helping itself to millions of other people's words, photos and designs, mostly without so much as a "do you mind?" So every now and then it'll hand you something that looks like yours but legally belongs to a complete stranger. (Case in point: a New Zealand model recently accused a streetwear brand of using AI to recreate his likeness in a campaign without paying him a cent. The brand's adamant it didn't — but it's a neat little reminder that "the AI made it" and "it's mine to use" are not the same thing.)
And before you assume this is a big-brand problem, pull up a chair. It’s pretty easy for any business owner or marketer to use AI to produce some fantastic website copy or create a logo that looks so polished. Imagine you run a retirement village, and that beaming AI "resident" on your homepage turns out to be modelled on a real, identifiable face. Bit awkward, when trust is the entire product. What about that AI rendered image of the property you are currently developing - all ready to go into your sales leaflet. It is awfully tempting, but if it's actually a competitor's building wearing your branding like a borrowed high-vis vest, you're on dodgy ground.
Nobody sets out to nick anything — the tool just does it on the sly while you're busy, you know, running a business.
Right, before you panic and delete every AI tool off your laptop: New Zealand has deliberately chosen not to write a special AI law, opting for a "light-touch" approach instead. But it is absolutely not a hall pass. Our existing laws are built to stretch over new tech, so they apply to whatever AI dreams up at 6.15pm when you ask it to create a newsletter article. The Copyright Act 1994 has your number if your content's a little too cosy with someone else's. The Trade Marks Act 2002 keeps an eye on names, logos and slogans. The Fair Trading Act 1986 gets distinctly twitchy about anything misleading — like an AI photo pretending to be your real team or your real handiwork. And the second a real, identifiable person wanders into the frame, the Privacy Act 2020 sits bolt upright. Translation: "no AI law" does not mean "no rules," sorry.
Good news though — staying on the straight and narrow here is mostly just common sense. Treat whatever AI gives you as a rough first draft, never the finished masterpiece — the more of your own brain, voice and local know-how you pour in, the safer (and frankly, the better) it gets. A few quick checks before you hit publish: reverse image search the pictures, run the words through a plagiarism checker, and have a squiz at the IPONZ (Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand) trade mark register before you go falling head over heels for a new name or logo. Skim the tool's terms while you're at it — some of them sneakily reckon they own whatever you make — never dress an AI image up as a genuine photo of a real person or a real job, and jot down how you made things, just in case anyone asks. Bottom line? Use AI as your clever offsider, not a photocopier.
The more of you that ends up in the work, the more it's properly, gloriously, indisputably yours.
P.S. If you want to find a good plagiarism checker - read this blog.
