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US appeals court rules AI generated art cannot be copyrighted

reuters.com

141–150 of 562 posts

Re: US appeals court rules AI generated art cannot be copyrighted

#141

What, if any, practical implications does this have? Why would a real person or company want to specify a non real person as an author?

https://itsartlaw.org/2023/12/11/case-summary-and-review-tha... attempted to assign copyright to AI. I think it was mostly for the purpose of getting to officially work through the legal arguments around the issue.

Re: US appeals court rules AI generated art cannot be copyrighted

#142
post #21

This is pretty much the exact same case as the monkey that took a photo. The photo is now in the public domain as the monkey cannot be an author of the photo and since the photographer didn't take the photo, neither is he the author. The US Copyright Office clarified that "only works created by a human can be copyrighted under United States law, which excludes photographs and artwork created by animals or by machines…

Ai data is gathered from public and private sources. Unless that data is entirely private source, it's inappropriate to be able to copyright those derivitive works.

Re: US appeals court rules AI generated art cannot be copyrighted

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still can't believe the guy went to Indonesia, went into the monkeys' habitat, gained their trust, set up the camera on a tripod in a way the monkeys would have access to it, adjusted the focus/exposure to capture a facial close-up -- basically engineered the entire situation specifically for that outcome, and simply because he didn't physically hit the shutter he lost credit for the photo. Meanwhile I can open my…

Yeah I'm a little torn on this one. I generally think that much of IP law causes more harm than good, so in the abstract I'm in favor of copyright being weaker. But in this specific case, given the context of existing copyright law and its intent it seems pretty obvious to me that he should have copyright over the photo. I don't think it's analogous to AI art though - no other humans creative input and therefore live…

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Re: US appeals court rules AI generated art cannot be copyrighted

#145

Is there AI art that didn’t involve human intervention? At minimum, somebody entered a prompt,right?

At minimum, somebody pressed a button.

You can generate AI art that doesn't involve a prompt, using only random noise and sampler settings as input. It's a good way to test for bias in the training material or overfitting for a specific style/type of content.

Re: US appeals court rules AI generated art cannot be copyrighted

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still can't believe the guy went to Indonesia, went into the monkeys' habitat, gained their trust, set up the camera on a tripod in a way the monkeys would have access to it, adjusted the focus/exposure to capture a facial close-up -- basically engineered the entire situation specifically for that outcome, and simply because he didn't physically hit the shutter he lost credit for the photo. Meanwhile I can open my…

It's not difficult to understand. Replace the monkey with a 2nd human, and it's obvious that "the guy" does not earn the copyright, it goes to the person who took the photo. If there was no person, then there is no copyright. The AI thing is no different. If I ask my human friend, "please paint a picture using your vast knowledge and experience", then my friend gets the copyright. Replace friend with AI; there is no…

> there is no person to assign the copyright, so there is no copyright

Surely then same would apply to any photos edited with any of the fancy filters in Photoshop? Or any other software for that matter…

> just because I asked for it.

It often does (even in the example you have suggested previously). It’s just that you can’t legally hire a monkey to press the trigger unlike a human (even through its effectively the same thing)

Re: US appeals court rules AI generated art cannot be copyrighted

#147
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not difficult to understand. Replace the monkey with a 2nd human, and it's obvious that "the guy" does not earn the copyright, it goes to the person who took the photo. If there was no person, then there is no copyright. The AI thing is no different. If I ask my human friend, "please paint a picture using your vast knowledge and experience", then my friend gets the copyright. Replace friend with AI; there is no…

If you pay someone to paint a picture, who owns the copyright? If you pay for an AI to paint a picture according to your specifications?

You don't. You don't pay an AI. You pay a company owned by humans that offer an AI service.

Re: US appeals court rules AI generated art cannot be copyrighted

#148
post #58

I doubt this will settle the issue. We are about to enter the age of AI generated X (movies, games, etc. 'I want to watch a western tonight.' ...'generating'...). Would the end user own the copyright on that since they prompted it? We are very early days still so the deep implications of the direction and potential of this technology aren't even remotely understood well enough yet.

such an important topic right here. are we really going to enter an age of media that is AI generated or are we entering an age where media bifurcates into two broad categories: AI sloppish brain rot and more refined products that are hand made.

> two broad categories: AI sloppish brain rot and more refined products that are hand made

If we graph it: Sloppishness is the Y axis and if we then put progres-in-AI on the X axis, the two lines will eventually touch each other. With some segment¹ of the population not being able to tell the difference sooner than others, slowly reducing available budget of handmade media, increasing it's slop over time. Therefore progress in AI will reduce the quality of even handmade media.

¹ https://pleated-jeans.com/2024/07/15/boomers-fooled-by-ai-fa...

Re: US appeals court rules AI generated art cannot be copyrighted

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still can't believe the guy went to Indonesia, went into the monkeys' habitat, gained their trust, set up the camera on a tripod in a way the monkeys would have access to it, adjusted the focus/exposure to capture a facial close-up -- basically engineered the entire situation specifically for that outcome, and simply because he didn't physically hit the shutter he lost credit for the photo. Meanwhile I can open my…

It's not difficult to understand. Replace the monkey with a 2nd human, and it's obvious that "the guy" does not earn the copyright, it goes to the person who took the photo. If there was no person, then there is no copyright. The AI thing is no different. If I ask my human friend, "please paint a picture using your vast knowledge and experience", then my friend gets the copyright. Replace friend with AI; there is no…

There was no person that took the photo with a canon digital SLR. It was a bunch of machinery and microchips and a sensor.

Re: US appeals court rules AI generated art cannot be copyrighted

#150
post #21

This is pretty much the exact same case as the monkey that took a photo. The photo is now in the public domain as the monkey cannot be an author of the photo and since the photographer didn't take the photo, neither is he the author. The US Copyright Office clarified that "only works created by a human can be copyrighted under United States law, which excludes photographs and artwork created by animals or by machines…

There is already a lot of automation and tech involved in creating images. At what point of automation is the image considered created by the AI rather than the human? When does the hand-off occur? There are photoshop filters that involve using neural networks to create complex patterns. Are those images owned by the human or not? The amount of processing done by digital SLRs is staggering. Millions of hours of work went into all the science and tech that eventually led to a digital SLR, but some rando human who clicked a button keeps the copyright? A human had to click a button to generate that AI image as well. At what point does the machinery become so complex that it's no longer considered the human's image?
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