Generally speaking, you should not use any material that infringes on copyright in your prompt without appropriate permission. This is very clear in ChatGPT’s terms of use, which state:
“You may not use our Services for any illegal, harmful, or south africa whatsapp number data abusive activity. For example, you may not…use our services in a way that infringes, misappropriates or violates anyone’s rights.”
For example, if you were to cut and paste a portion of a copyrighted work from an article published online, and you asked ChatGPT to summarize or reword the information, you would be infringing on copyright and you’d be offside with ChatGPT’s terms of use. If you asked ChatGPT a question and you provided a paragraph of material from a copyrighted work as background context in your prompt, you’d be potentially infringing on copyright.
This is important to know because in some settings, we can use copyrighted material as part of fair use, with appropriate attributions. Academia is built on this provision! However, using copyrighted material in your PROMPT is not necessarily the same thing. As researcher Anita Toh notes.