Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US appeals court rules AI generated art cannot be copyrighted

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 562 posts

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

#391

Post by tpm »

buzer wrote: post #361
tpm wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

> In Germany at least, code written by AI is not copyrightable > 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. How far does that extend? Like would IntelliSense cause your code to not be copyrightable? It's not that different from AI autocomplete on principal level. It shows you some options, but you make the final decisio…

IANAL, but the distinction is whether you are using the tool as a tool, in which case the code is still your creation, vs. the tool is the creator - and in this case I have to refer to a German definition as it was given to me - Geistiger Schöpfer (lit. spiritual creator), here [0] they define it as "An agent who is responsible for creating a work". Clearly this is something that would have to be decided by courts in some cases.

[0] https://sta.dnb.de/doc/RDA-E-W135

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

#392

Post by fnord123 »

chii wrote: post #384
radlad wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> Who owns the copyright when you ask someone to take a photo of you using your phone in a tourist location? because you asked and they complied, there's a work contract between said photo-button presser and you. The implicit agreement is that you own the copyright to the photo, and the consideration paid is a word of thanks from you. Now on the other hand...if you dropped your phone, and a stranger with no prior int…

> Now on the other hand...if you dropped your phone, and a stranger with no prior interaction picked it up, and pressed the button, then you can argue that they own the copyright.

If they've performed an Unauthorized Access to a Computer System then they may want to drop any copyright claim.

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

#393

Post by fnordian_slip »

mminer237 wrote: post #379
Kerrick wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds to me like a recipe. Recipes their interaction with copyright are well-established, legally speaking, in the United States.

Their interaction being they are in no way copyrightable because they are functional, not creative expressions. That's part of why every recipe has a dramatic story, so they can have a clear copyright case if copied wholesale.

Is that really the reason for these stories? I only know about them from memes, and looked it up when I first read about it. In my language this trend hasn't caught on yet, thankfully. I always chalked it up to cultural differences (and judged Americans a little bit for it tbh, since the idea of integrating a story into a recipe sounds rather insane).

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

#394

Post by johnisgood »

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…

But what if I made "that guy" to take the photo, just like I "made" (prompted) AI?

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

#395

Post by johnisgood »

fnord123 wrote: post #392
chii wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who owns the copyright when you ask someone to take a photo of you using your phone in a tourist location? because you asked and they complied, there's a work contract between said photo-button presser and you. The implicit agreement is that you own the copyright to the photo, and the consideration paid is a word of thanks from you. Now on the other hand...if you dropped your phone, and a stranger with no prior int…

> Now on the other hand...if you dropped your phone, and a stranger with no prior interaction picked it up, and pressed the button, then you can argue that they own the copyright. If they've performed an Unauthorized Access to a Computer System then they may want to drop any copyright claim.

Precisely.

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

#396

Post by johnisgood »

Aloisius wrote: post #247
onemoresoop wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It makes perfect sense. The photograph is the photographer's creative expression. This is how copyright has always worked.

In terms of AI, then it should be clear that the prompts (that AI used to generate my work) are my creative expressions. Sure, the AI may alter it in some unknown ways, but does this make it any less so my creative expression?

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

#397

Post by johnisgood »

sejje wrote: post #387
Dylan16807 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"you choose" is a pretty important factor in this.

What if I ask a stranger to take my photo, and it turns out he's Ansel Adams? He's going to make some decisions about the framing etc, as one of the best photographers of all time.

So if I ask someone to take a photo, but I tell them "tilt the camera", I am the copyright holder, but if they do so without me "prompting" them, then I no longer am?

Am I understanding you correctly?

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

#398

Post by tiborsaas »

dlivingston wrote: post #360
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…

Just zooming in on txt2img, an AI generated image is: - The text prompt - The negative prompt - The model - The model seed - Any LoRAs selected What about this is copyrightable? The specific text used in the prompt? This would mean I could copyright "man holding apple". Maybe the summation of all of the above? But that would be akin to copyrighting a specific Adobe Photoshop workflow.

You just stated how an AI generated image should be copyrightable. You should be able to own the copyright to all the configuration settings. If those settings then can be transformed to a 100% deterministic image (true, since you provide the seed) then I don't see how this is different than developing a photo negative film and transferring it to paper.

> This would mean I could copyright "man holding apple".

I think this is true today. You can have copyright on this phrase, just consider if it were the title of a song or poem.

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

#399

Post by Timwi »

naasking wrote: post #294
dylan604 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

AI agents will exist some day, and almost certainly some will be granted personhood status.

“Some day”, sure, but as we know the granting of personhood status doesn't formally happen until 2365, when Phillipa Louvois rules in the Brian Maddox case. And despite the success of that ruling, it still doesn't fully apply to all AI agents (e.g. the EMH Mk 1).

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

#400

Post by thaumasiotes »

chii wrote: post #384
radlad wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> Who owns the copyright when you ask someone to take a photo of you using your phone in a tourist location? because you asked and they complied, there's a work contract between said photo-button presser and you. The implicit agreement is that you own the copyright to the photo, and the consideration paid is a word of thanks from you. Now on the other hand...if you dropped your phone, and a stranger with no prior int…

> because you asked and they complied, there's a work contract between said photo-button presser and you

No, this can't happen, because there is no consideration.

> and the consideration paid is a word of thanks from you

Nope. You can call it consideration, but that won't make it consideration.

Post reply on HN