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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

#311

Post by anigbrowl »

kube-system wrote: post #158
anigbrowl wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that you can run an AI company, churn out enough material to flood a particular market, and leverage copyright protection to cash in. Like say you call it the Kittenator, and then do automated keyword search for anything involving kittens - kitten in a box, kitten wearing socks, kittens on the rocks, kitten versus fox - and generate 25 different images for any given keyword combination, and push them out to major…

You don't need an AI assigned copyright to do that. Companies have humans at them too.

Well you do if someone rejects a copyright claim on the grounds that the image is AI-generated, and a court backs them up.

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

#312

Post by 627467 »

mistrial9 wrote: post #284
gdubs wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ownersh…

> Lots of contemporary artists have assistants that do the actual painting, sculpting, installation, etc. this is outlandish bullshit

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-damien-hirst-is-controve...

> There are nearly 1,400 of Damien Hirst's "spot" paintings in existence.

> The artist has only painted around 25 of them himself.

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

#313

Post by spyder »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #165
quadragenarian wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense to me, and good point about Adobe/Dell. So then any AI would not create art spontaneously right? It would always require a user to prompt it in some way. So wouldn't it be correct to say that all AI art is actually be authored by a human and as such copyrighted to that human?

Copyright covers the prompt, it's not even clear why it should be relevant for the output of the AI software based on that prompt.

That's like saying copyright covers the mouse clicks and mouse movements in Photoshop but not the output pixels.

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

#314

Post by mistrial9 »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #273
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…

Ah, I see, so all those Hollywood camera operators own the copyright for all the footage they took for studios. Multi-trillion dollar class action lawsuit here we come...

no, because Hollywood in 100 years has already evolved through every possible lying weasel lawsuit you or others here could imagine.. and yet humans continue to dream, write, paint and act. Single-line gotcha's are not new, hold no weight, produce very little that is constructive IMHO

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

#315

Post by sahila »

Aloisius wrote: post #264
bb88 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this ruling is wrong. It's not hard to imagine a compiler using AI to optimize byte code, and so now the binary it creates is no longer copyrightable? Compilers and transpilers, even though someone else may have wrote them, the courts have held the the copyright of the output binary is whoever wrote the source code. In that sense AI is nothing more than a English language to image compiler.

Compiled byte code is a derivative work of the original source code. Copyright extends to derivative works.

Wouldn't AI generated art be derivative work done by Google (or whoever) when creating their Gemini models? So then Google owns all gemini created ai artwork?

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

#316

Post by Kye »

protocolture wrote: post #301
jarsin wrote: post #104

This is old news. The copyright office already ruled that AI generative outputs are not copyrightable in January [1]. I think many have not understood the implications of the CO ruling. This means anything you build with llms you don't own. Your company doesn't own. If your using copilot and you have a copyright notice at the top of your source file if that ever goes to court you will learn that copyright is not vali…

It doesnt say that, it says that anything thats solely produced by simply prompting is not owned. I have seen very few works that want copyright and are solely prompts. From your own link: "“To be sure,” the Court further explained, “the requisite level of creativity is extremely low; even a slight amount will suffice." "The Office agrees that there is an important distinction between using AI as a tool to assist in…

It sounds like even something minimal like choosing, applying, and adjusting one of the nodes in something like ComfyUI would be sufficient.

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

#317

Post by phire »

mikehearn wrote: post #43
wildzzz wrote: 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…

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…

This case is confusing because there were actually three sides.

Wikimedia (and others) were arguing that the image was in public domain because animals can't hold copyright. PETA were arguing that monkeys should be able to hold copyright. And the original "photographer" was arguing that he should own the copyright because he did everything except push the button.

The only side that actually reached court was PETA, arguing the monkey should hold copyright. And the court promptly ruled against PETA. But that ruling doesn't say the image is public domain, it simply rules the monkey can't hold copyright.

It wasn't even an interesting court case, copyright law is pretty clear that animals can't hold copyright. Nobody (other than PETA) really thought otherwise.

If the original "photographer" actually went to court against the public domain camp, I do think they would have a decent chance of winning back the copyright to that image. But he never scrapped together enough funding for a lawsuit, so it hasn't gone to court.

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

#318

Post by connicpu »

Aerroon wrote: post #274
connicpu wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you can make your prompt so specific that the AI generates substantially the same image every time you run it, I think you're perpetually vulnerable to the argument that significant decision making was done without human hands and therefore the work is not primarily human created.

As kids we did an art project where you mixed colors with some yoghurt-like substance. You drop it on the paper and then fold it. This created these beautiful arrangements of colors. Does this mean that those works are not copyrighted either since the kids didn't actually direct where each color goes? Every time you do this you'd get a substantially different picture too.

I mean, these edge cases are very sensitive to the exact facts at hand. Even an experienced copyright lawyer can't give you a definitive answer until you go to trial. That's why I said you're vulnerable to the argument, not that you'll definitely lose the copyright.

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

#319

Post by m463 »

mikehearn wrote: post #43
wildzzz wrote: 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…

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…

What I can't believe is to funnel every student in school in front of the same photographer, have him/her press a button, and then it costs grandma $110 for an 8x10 and two wallet-sized photos.

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

#320

Post by NewJazz »

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…

You can't just replace monkeys with humans when the legal system doesn't treat them as the same class of organism.
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