A Paradigm for Creative Ownership

Abstract: As generative AI tools become more integrated into creative workflows, questions of ownership in co-creative contexts have become increasingly urgent. While legal frameworks offer definitions of ownership rooted in intellectual property, they often overlook the nuanced, psychological experience of creative ownership - how individuals come to feel that a creative product is "theirs." Drawing on interdisciplinary literature in philosophy, psychology, and the social sciences and humanities more broadly, we introduce a new framework that surfaces the material and immaterial dimensions of creative ownership. Our model organizes creative ownership into three domains - Person, Process, and System - each of which contains subdimensions that shape ownership sentiment. We offer an accompanying interactive tool that enables creators and researchers to visualize and evaluate ownership across a range of contexts. This paradigm provides a new lens through which to understand and support creative agency in human-AI collaboration, and lays the groundwork for future empirical research in design and human-computer interaction.