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US appeals court rules AI generated art cannot be copyrighted

reuters.com

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

#201

Post by ZeroTalent »

visarga wrote: post #131
kopecs wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a matter of law? Sure it does. Thaler said the image at issue was "autonomously created by a computer algorithm running on a machine". He's been trying to walk that back for the last couple of years though. See Thaler v. Perlmutter , 1:22-cv01564-BAH (ECF #24), D.D.C. (Aug. 18, 2023).

How about selection? If I select the good image from 1000 others? Curation is also a contribution to art.

I would say curation and editing are much more important than creating the art itself, but that might be a very unpopular opinion.

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

#202

Post by qwertox »

Would this mean that ILM / Pixar will be unable to copyright their AI-generated movies?

Assume that they generate the entire movie in low poly count with flat shading, enough to properly prime an AI to generate incredible-looking movies. It simply cannot be true that they would lose the copyright to it just because they immersed it in AI.

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

#203

Post by gdubs »

tantalor wrote: post #92
mikehearn wrote: post #43

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…

My initial response to this was to think of all the artists who don't actually create their own work. Lots of contemporary artists have assistants that do the actual painting, sculpting, installation, etc. Even way back a lot of masters were credited for work that was done by apprentices.

But, then on the other hand I suppose that in the eyes of the law, a monkey can't legally sign a contract agreeing to pass ownership over to the person 'employing' them as an assistant.

It's a strange grey area though – Warhol's whole thing was how the factory made the art. People have been making generative art for decades before AI came along, and as far as I know – and I went to school for Art and studied Art History pretty extensively – people just said, "oh that's a cool way to call ownership and authenticity into question." But generally nobody doubted that like, Damien Hirst is the copyright holder of his works even if an assistant makes it – and even if they have no formal piece of paper that lays it all out.

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

#204

Post by tpm »

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #133
tantalor wrote: post #92

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…

> there is no person to assign the copyright, so there is no copyright. Wait, so if I have a script that generates some source-code autonomously (based on whatever trigger I setup say in a ci/cd pipeline) then that code is not copyrightable? What about macros? This seems silly to me.

In Germany at least, code written by AI is not copyrightable, it's in public domain, as we were briefed by a lawyer recently. This is a huge issue if you are writing software for a customer and agree to transfer all rights to him (happens sometimes), because you don't own rights to AI-written code and so can't transfer that.

There are nuances, so if you create a macro and then that macro writes something but it is completely determined by you then it should be ok.

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

#205

Post by thereisnospork »

jedberg wrote: post #33

I'm not sure how this actually matters. Knowing this ruling exists, why would anyone ever claim an AI created their art without human assistance? Even if the AI created the art just from the prompt, the human still made the prompt. Even if the prompt was "make art". I just don't understand how you could ever have AI art without human intervention. Is there a legal definition of "human intervention" that has some mini…

Not the least contrived situation, but I could imagine an inanimate object object falling from a shelf during an earthquake (a bonified 'act of god') which enters a 1 or 2 letter prompt and generates an image if the AI interface window was left open.

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

#206

Post by onemoresoop »

radlad wrote: post #112
tantalor wrote: post #92

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…

Who owns the copyright when you ask someone to take a photo of you using your phone in a tourist location? According to Wikimedia's legal analysis, it depends.[0] Furthermore, authorship and copyright are distinct. [0] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/Authorship_and_Cop...

From that ruling to this case it extends that the local or tourist who took the photo would be the copyright holder which makes little sense.

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

#207

Post by lesuorac »

SilasX wrote: post #191
mikehearn wrote: post #43

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 always felt to me like the photographer was trying to have it both ways there: "Whoa! Isn't this sooo trippy! A monkey showing self-awareness to take a picture of itself!" Courts: "Okay, the monkey took it, so no copyright for you." "No, you don't get it! I put in a ton of work to stage that to the point that the monkey just had to be in the right place at the right time. Hell, a worm could have triggered it!"

I'm not sure where you arrived at that conclusion.

The photographer has been claiming the entire time it's his copyright while other people (namely PETA) have been arguing the monkey should have it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...

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

#208

Post by jedberg »

jachee wrote: post #75
jedberg wrote: post #33

I'm not sure how this actually matters. Knowing this ruling exists, why would anyone ever claim an AI created their art without human assistance? Even if the AI created the art just from the prompt, the human still made the prompt. Even if the prompt was "make art". I just don't understand how you could ever have AI art without human intervention. Is there a legal definition of "human intervention" that has some mini…

If I prompt you to draw me a bird, I can’t claim copyright on the bird you draw. (At least not with a contract of some sort, of which you are party.)

But the LLM is a tool. If I use a set of colored pencils to draw you a bird, the pencil company doesn't own the copyright. I do. Because I used the tool.

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

#210

Post by dragonwriter »

kristopolous wrote: post #8

"affirmed that a work of art generated by artificial intelligence without human input cannot be copyrighted under U.S. law" Does that exist? What would that even be? A "random2image" model?

> Does that exist?

Yes, for the purposes of this case, because that that is an accurate description of the image in this case is not a fact in dispute between the two sides. This is a case about what the law means given that uncontroversial (between the parties) fact.

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