Copyright applies to novels, art, software, architecture, photos, and more.
If you create it, you own it, and that makes most of us copyright holders.
But there is "fair use" under the Copyright Act of 1976,
which allows for the usage of copyrighted material without explicit permission.
That's what's being debated and what AI companies are hoping for.
One of the questions, for fair use, is whether new work competes with the original.
And the Copyright Office hasn't really answered whether AI use is fair use,
so in the meantime we will have to wait for more thoughtful laws or wait for individual court rulings.