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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

#51

Post by bogwog »

kopecs wrote: post #32
bogwog wrote: post #19

I think that's a good ruling. Say I create a website that just sells AI generated logos. I set up some automation so I'm constantly generating millions of logos per day. I also have a bot that scrapes the web to try and find anyone using a logo similar to the ones on my website, and then send legal threats demanding payment for copying my artwork. I'm sure more imaginative scammers will find a way to copyright troll…

I don't think it takes that much imagination here. Not sure what good the first step is actually doing you. Might as well just AI-generate your racketeering demand letters without doing that part.

If I just send fake letters, it's illegal (I assume). If I have a legitimate website selling logos, and point to the product page for the logo I accused you of copying, and I can claim copyright ownership over AI generated art, then I have the law on my side even if I get taken to court (I assume).

I'm not a lawyer though, so I'm probably wrong. At the very least, the legitimate website makes the threatening letter look more believable.

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

#52

Post by intrasight »

cvoss wrote: post #37
intrasight wrote: post #23

What, if any, practical implications does this have? Why would a real person or company want to specify a non real person as an author?

The practical implication is you can't copyright something that your AI generated. As the article notes, copyright applications are also being rejected in cases where a human asserts authorship over an AI generated work.

That's a legal implication. I'm asking what is it a practical implication. Why would an AI want to copyright their work?

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

#54

Post by creer »

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…

Thaler seems to go out of his way to claim no human intervention and authorship by the AI - So yeah, that's a very specific ruling that has little to do with AI as a tool. It's really more about AI personhood.

What's potentially more of a problem is the mention of artists using Midjourney and denied copyright - and very much separate cases from Thaler.

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

#56

Post by LadyCailin »

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…

I was curious what the copyright was on Wikipedia. It’s listed as public domain, but it also has a link to this article. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow

So, that is apparently a thing, at least in some cases and places.

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

#57

Post by bilbo0s »

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…

Pretty sure this wouldn't pass the merit part unless the prompt was unusually long and precise.

the human still made the prompt

What I can guarantee, is that series of prompts itself would be copyright-able. (The series of prompts that ultimately created the image.) No matter how little they may weigh any one of those prompts in isolation. That is, assuming the EULA of the LLM doesn't require you to essentially place your prompts in the public domain.

And of course,

everyone reads the EULA. Right?

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

#58

Post by smeeger »

jmward01 wrote: post #47

I doubt this will settle the issue. We are about to enter the age of AI generated X (movies, games, etc. 'I want to watch a western tonight.' ...'generating'...). Would the end user own the copyright on that since they prompted it? We are very early days still so the deep implications of the direction and potential of this technology aren't even remotely understood well enough yet.

such an important topic right here. are we really going to enter an age of media that is AI generated or are we entering an age where media bifurcates into two broad categories: AI sloppish brain rot and more refined products that are hand made.

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

#59

Post by torben-friis »

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…

Assisted work is the big clarifier I think

Is a picture edited with photoshop invalid when it uses content fill? What about a picture taken with an iphone, where AI could be part of the phone's processing pipeline or even generate details to make up for lack of optical zoom?

Does spell correction invalidate a book? what if there's AI rephrasing features at work? Where's the line?

I think as you get into those side questions, the only reasonable position becomes treating AI as tooling no different than any other piece of equipment.

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

#60

Post by anigbrowl »

intrasight wrote: post #52
cvoss wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The practical implication is you can't copyright something that your AI generated. As the article notes, copyright applications are also being rejected in cases where a human asserts authorship over an AI generated work.

That's a legal implication. I'm asking what is it a practical implication. Why would an AI want to copyright their work?

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 image-sharing platforms. The stock imagery market is pretty large but if you have the copyright enforcement in your pocket you can go after it in chunks.
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