Live data from Hacker News

Copyright Registration Guidance: Works containing material generated by AI

federalregister.gov

371–380 of 415 posts

Re: Copyright Registration Guidance: Works containing material generated by AI

#371
post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I wave my camera around taking lots of pictures, and then find one that I really really like I can copyright it. If I generate a bunch of AI images and find one that I really really like, I think I should be able to copyright that too. In both, the creative spark comes from discerning what has value.

Careful with your wording: you don't generate AI images, the AI generates images. You use the AI to generate images. An argument could be made that the AI acts like the camera and the selection process is the creative act. The text hints at this when it mentions curation. But curation also provides a far more limited protection than authorship (e.g. consider the copyright of phonebooks).

There is a precedent that any work done in a data center on behalf of a user, because a user initiated the action, has the same protections as if the user had performed the action themselves. It has been used, in connection to copyright, to allow "cloud DVR services".

I'd argue that in the case of AI generated work as we see it now, especially if a prompt from the user is required, that work would not exist except for the action of the user, and is thus created by their action.

Re: Copyright Registration Guidance: Works containing material generated by AI

#372
post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does not really matter in practice. The risk of legal sanctions is too high for most businesses, they will follow the law. This is kind of similar to pirate software, businesses almost never use them even if they could definitely get away with it in most cases. The issue is that a single angry former employee is all it takes to make your life hell. This is even more true for large organizations where many people…

In practice, the larger the organization the less likely the potential legal sanctions are to dissuade them. My observation has been that once an organization (in the US anyway) grows large enough it is in a special protected status where no real penalties can come to it and there is certainly no risk of exposure to criminal charges for the decision makers. Source: front page here every single day.

As someone who works for large enterprises: they are absolutely terrified of legal sanctions and pay huge amounts to contractors who can mitigate the risk. And sanctions do regularly happen, they are just not advertised on the HN frontpage I guess :)

Re: Copyright Registration Guidance: Works containing material generated by AI

#373
post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, you can enact a policy in your corporation that no one is allowed to use AI tools like Copilot to write code, but how do you monitor this? How do you know if some developer did use Copilot? That’s easy: corporate firewalls that block all traffic to openai.com, its subdomains and the IP ranges used by GitHub Copilot. Enterprises that care about exfiltration of code from their internal networks (e.g. banks and o…

yeah but you could get the AI to write the code on your personal laptop, then copy it over to the work laptop. I can see this being a thing.. "I have three jobs as Senior Engineer for three different organisations. All I do is copy code from an AI engine to my work laptop all day"

I guess that could happen and we will definitely see some people try this. But in the grand scheme of things, it will be exceptionally rare. Most developers can't work outside their developer environment set up by their company, they often rely on internal tools, services hosted on the internal network, stuff like that. If stackoverflow and google didn't cause this to happen, I don't see how GPT will.

Re: Copyright Registration Guidance: Works containing material generated by AI

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Cage also wrote some genuinely beautiful music and was a sincere and thoughtful artist. It just needs to said that he wasn't a merely a "gimmick" man.

I'm only familiar with those elements of his career so if you have so recommendations I'd be happy to explore his other work.

Try "A Room" for solo piano. It's akin to proto-minimalism with a bit more "spice".

His writing is apparently very good although I've never delved deep. His work was motivated by his interest in Zen and similar topics rather than any kind of high-concept modernism.

Re: Copyright Registration Guidance: Works containing material generated by AI

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the AI generates all the code, but then a human debugs it and alters it, is that copyright that can be owned? Does the entire code base then become copyrightable? I am not a lawyer and I did not research anything for this, but I'm under the impression that a derivative work of something in the public domain is itself copyrightable. If something isn't copyrightable, it's in the public domain. So, if you alter it…

> derivative work of something in the public domain is itself copyrightable I don't think this is true in most of the world. Here's a UK referience: https://copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p22_derivative_work... "You cannot extend the duration of copyright in a work by creating a derivative work. If the original work is in the public domain, it will remain in the public domain; you cannot prevent anyone else using t…

What you've quoted directly agrees with the interpretation of the person you replied to.

Re: Copyright Registration Guidance: Works containing material generated by AI

#376
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent is complaining of amount of effort put into the work but should be justifying that each of those steps was a creative decision by a human which contributed to the end result.

With ControlNet and LatentCouple you are doing straight-up set direction. With Loras you are casting, costuming and directing the film/lens/lighting.

One could argue that setting up a printing press for high-quality art printing is creative. Deciding what inks to use for a 7-color press and how to separate the original image was a creative act.

Or at least it used to be. Now it's automated.

Re: Copyright Registration Guidance: Works containing material generated by AI

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean to say he's a con artist?

I give the benefit of the doubt that Marchel Duchamp and others genuinely believed in the artistic merit of their works and their enthusiasm made it easier to persuade people to agree with their viewpoints. The brief history of these artforms suggests that in the absence of their champions they don't resonate with artists but are still talked about because they stoke conversation about the nature of art. Maybe that w…

Apologies, I wasn't being serious - an attempt at wordplay.

Re: Copyright Registration Guidance: Works containing material generated by AI

#378
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still hoping it stays that way. That'd be a fantastic direction for works in the public domain.

Agree, it's fascinating to think we could just generate a whole new public domain. Also, it's fascinating to think humans might be kept in the creative loop only to establish copyright status. Legal enablers.

> Also, it's fascinating to think humans might be kept in the creative loop only to establish copyright status. Legal enablers.

I don’t know of any specially, but any union or trade group that represents creatives should be jumping to line the pockets of politicians to enshrine this asap.

Re: Copyright Registration Guidance: Works containing material generated by AI

#379

Unpopular opinion : the government shouldn’t protect your art from getting used as training data. The government shouldn’t protect your generated art from being copied. Intellectual property is not real property. Nothing is being taken from you. Force is only justified in response to force, and you don’t get the right to throw someone in jail for “stealing” something you still have.

So if I trash your house that's cool? You still have your house, it's just in a different entropy state.

Or maybe one particular state had more value than another?

So maybe when other people value different entropic states over others, perhaps that has value?

Re: Copyright Registration Guidance: Works containing material generated by AI

#380

Unpopular opinion : the government shouldn’t protect your art from getting used as training data. The government shouldn’t protect your generated art from being copied. Intellectual property is not real property. Nothing is being taken from you. Force is only justified in response to force, and you don’t get the right to throw someone in jail for “stealing” something you still have.

So if I trash your house that's cool? You still have your house, it's just in a different entropy state. Or maybe one particular state had more value than another? So maybe when other people value different entropic states over others, perhaps that has value?

> Am I physically touching your painting when I copy it? If not, then your attempt at equating physical property to thoughts is nonsense. We both believe in physical property, however arbitrarily invented it is. Only you believe in intellectual property, and I’m willing to bet you aren’t even consistent with it. Should you be fined for saving an NFT?
Post reply on HN