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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

#221

Post by kopecs »

sgc wrote: post #108
kopecs wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I can guarantee, is that the prompt itself would be copyright-able. That's non-obvious to me. Even if the prompt is extremely long and precise, if it is somehow purely functional, it seems possible for it to not be (although in practice, I agree that most prompts could be).

It is basically pseudo-code, and should have the same copyright as other code if it is sufficiently complex to pass the typical test for copyright. One might think code should not have copyright, but that is a different conversation.

Yes, I agree. I don't think I am saying anything inconsistent with that.

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

#222

Post by borgdefenser »

favorited wrote: post #88
iamleppert wrote: post #34

So just don't tell anyone you used AI? How exactly are they going to prove it? And does this mean any works created with the assistance of graphics software, like Photoshop, are not copyrightable? What is the definition of AI here? They failed to define what AI means, which means that if there is no test, the ruling can't stand on its own.

It's not the appeals court's job to "define what AI means," their job is to rule on the case in front of them. This particular case involved someone asserting copyright over an image that he claimed was generated by a sentient[0] AI. This image was not created by a human, and only works created by humans can be copyrighted under US law, so they ruled against him. [0] https://thenewstack.io/stephen-thaler-claims-hes-b…

Thank you. That sounds perfectly sensible.

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

#223

Post by randomNumber7 »

bee_rider wrote: post #183
ssalka wrote: post #49

I think the headline is overly broad, especially considering: > As a matter of statutory law, the Copyright Act requires all work to be authored in the first instance by a human being. Dr. Thaler’s copyright registration application listed the Creativity Machine as the work’s sole author, even though the Creativity Machine is not a human being. As a result, the Copyright Office appropriately denied Dr. Thaler’s appli…

The headline on Reuters seems to be more accurate (maybe it was changed after the article was posted here?). Unfortunately I can only got a glimpse of it before their overly-aggressive ad-blocker-blocker asserts itself (I’m fine with Reuters not wanting to serve me, since I block their ads, but their anti-adblocker system totally hijacks mobile safari).

You can click on "continue without supporting us".

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

#224

Post by JamesLeonis »

pas wrote: post #196
JamesLeonis wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The artist still owns the copyright. Payment by itself does not transfer copyright. To do that the artist needs to explicitly sign away those rights. This happens in employment all the time. Part of the paperwork you sign is about transferring over the copyrights from yourself to the company. I highly recommend you check your own paperwork to see exactly how much this covers, since some states allow contracts that co…

doesn't need to explicitly, it's enough to have the understanding that it's a "work for hire" situation (at least in the US) of course just giving someone money is not sufficient to establish this, but telling someone that "I want to hire you to make a photo for me (of me)" and they acknowledge, then that is probably enough.

This is not correct.

The copyright office itself doesn't recognize any transfer of works-for-hire [0] unless there's (#3) a written document of the transfer, (#4) signed by the recipient, (#5) signed by the copyright holder, and finally (#6) the work was made expressly as work-for-hire. Every employment, contractor, and freelancer contract is written with all of these questions accounted for.

Even wedding photographers keep the copyright of the photos they take of your wedding too for this very reason, unless explicitly contracted to transfer those rights.

[0]: https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ30.pdf, page 5

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

#225

Post by kopecs »

pnut wrote: post #103
kopecs wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way do you think corporate personhood is relevant here?

Obviously corporations are a legal fiction and not biological human entities with inherent intelligence and agency. They are tools to enable the wills of specific human beings, so the comparison seems fair?

What comparison do you think the parent comment is making? They just vaguely gesture at corporate personhood and say "what about that?"

My best reading of it is "can 'they' say that corporations can author works?" and excepting works for hire, no, "they" can't.

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

#226

Post by DecentShoes »

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…

Why is the person who "took the photo" the thing that pressed the button and not the person who did 99% of the work?

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

#227

Post by DecentShoes »

pests wrote: post #186
acchow wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. If I set up an entire scene with props and artwork for a photoshoot with a model, but I would like to actually be the model so I ask a friend to go behind the tripod and tap the shutter, the friend holds the copyright?

It depends. Did they have any creative input before hitting the shutter? Did they tell you to move? Or adjust lighting? Did they choose the angle or framing? These answers influence the answer to your question.

If they did then the monkey wouldn't have been awarded copyright on that photo.

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

#228

Post by johnnyanmac »

dylan604 wrote: post #190
bagels wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It can never be the AI. The AI is NOT a person. Why are we belaboring this?

Many vested interests really want to be artists without putting in the work into the craft required to be one.

Of course, other interests simply want to cut out artists entirely while claiming their creations totally aren't a result of stealing Petabytes of existing artistity.

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

#229

Post by kemitchell »

The current Reuters headline is "US appeals court rejects copyrights for AI-generated art lacking 'human' creator". That's still kind of clickbaity, but far more accurate and correct than the link I see here on HN.

This whole case has been a dumb waste of time for anyone but scurrilous headline writers.

The plaintiff insisted on filling out the copyright app with their "creation" in the author field. Every legal opinion since has had to start assuming that's true, making "no copyright for you" legally obvious. The plaintiff apparently tried to walk that back on appeal, to argue he authored the work using the software. There's a paragraph right near the beginning where the court points out it simply doesn't consider that argument, since it wasn't brought up to the Copyright Office, back when the plaintiff was insisting on the opposite.

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

#230

Post by [deleted] »

ssalka wrote: post #49

I think the headline is overly broad, especially considering: > As a matter of statutory law, the Copyright Act requires all work to be authored in the first instance by a human being. Dr. Thaler’s copyright registration application listed the Creativity Machine as the work’s sole author, even though the Creativity Machine is not a human being. As a result, the Copyright Office appropriately denied Dr. Thaler’s appli…

[deleted]
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