"[Art,] Copyrights cannot be assigned to the AI software a human used to create the work" which may or may not be sufficiently transformative, fair use, or apparently derivative
I'm still not sure how I feel about the actual copyright issue, but this was a bad test case. Thaler is trying to have his cake and eat it too; his position is inconsistent (this similar to a previous comment I've made: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34783707).
He wants credit for creating the AI, and he wants to that AI to be recognized as autonomous and independent by getting the Copyright Office's imprimatur. But at the same time he wants to treat the art created by the AI as if it were his, or at least to act on behalf of the AI as if it were not autonomous.
I've started using the best AI work I could find in all my works too, without attribution, and it makes me money. I recently added AI music to a website, which I found on youtube and got with a youtube downloading script, really drives engagement
I also don't care if someone does the same to works I generated in Midjourney, which I display in my various presentations. The Executive branch and now Judicial branch are pretty clear about this (so far), so its a free for all
My understanding is the ruling actually says the copyright cannot be granted to the AI. But that might not mean a human cannot claim copyright for AI art.
Assuming the AI has a vast number of outputs, many which are uninteresting; a human can select a few outputs as being worthy of being called art or suitable for their purposes.
So an AI can create an image, but the process of selection constitutes an editorial process, and a person can the claim copyright for images they generate and choose to distribute.
This seems to be somewhat similar to copyrighting a found object as art, or taking a photo of a building and owning the copyright to that. It would not make sense to give the copyright to the camera, which is what this ruling confirms.
The reasoning in the ruling is a bit different: copyright was invented to give humans a financial incentive to create art. Machines need no incentive, so they do not need copyright :)
So, if the basic distinction here is:
- if AI can create something all by itself, then it is not copyrightable (due to "machines need no incentive" rule)
- if AI still needs human help, then it is just a tool (like a brush, or computer with Photoshop installed), and the human is the real author. It's not just about an "editorial process" - book editors do not have any copyright even after they fix hundreds of typos and grammar mistakes of the original author.
Also, the plaintiff is making contradictory claims: when applying for copyright he said that AI was fully autonomous, but then, in the lawsuit he tries to change his story and say that his role in creating the piece of art was crucial. Probably just desperately fighting to make any money from this.
I guess I used the term inappropriately since the other commenter picked up on it as well, but I did compare it to deciding what to take a picture of as opposed to editing something written. There is some decision making and we don’t award the copyright to the architect or camera, but the photographer.
Just spitballing here, because this is very fun to think about.
If I reproduce the likeness of Mickey Mouse via an AI, then because an AI made it, is there no defensible claim from Disney to own the copyright? That doesn't make intuitive sense, as we 'sort of know' that Disney owns the likeness.
Meanwhile, if I produce one single image that I own via copyright, and feed it to the AI as a prompt and receive a derivative of that image back, per this ruling I would not own the proceeds. It makes some sense-- an AI made it, and further, I did not produce enough instances of this art and the branding behind it for its likeness to be sufficiently "mine". I don't quite own the "mindshare", so people would not recognize the brand as being anybody's, really. So this is different from the way that Mickey Mouse is recognized.
But what if a bunch of artists were to band together to create a license of sorts for the use of an AI they altogether build? Suppose they collectively own a portfolio of copyrighted materials, characters, etc, that they use to feed the AI. Wouldn't they own the proceeds of the likenesses produced by the AI, as would provide legal justification for their licensing of the AI, and to defend their collective works in the same way that Disney can?
I believe what this ruling actually tries to defeat is an automated bulk art generation.
Just fire some H100 in a loop iterating over various ~random prompts, save it all on a website and then sue anyone producing anything remotely similar.
Problem is, bad actors will say all of this art was generated by a human with mere AI assistance.
God, I haven't even considered that. Design trolling! Prompt for an apple, iterate over all fashionable logo design styles, implicitly own the copyright all of them, then sit and wait. You're more likely to get a 'hit' as brand logos tend to be simple.
I would imagine that context matters a lot in trademark law and in design art though, since there's a lot of namespace collision in that domain. For there to be a violation of trademark or copyright, there needs to be a material loss or harm on the part of the owner of the copyrighted material, and it needs to be in the same space that the owner operates in.
Like if I generate a banana brand logo for my Banana Plumbing Co., and your AI generated similar banana line art prior, unless you were using it for plumbing it would (probably) be hard to enforce in court.
So towards preventing bulk image generation and trolling, I don't know if this ruling was especially necessary.
leaving the disadvantage of this ruling in that it encourages people to use AI as an excuse to sell like art? :D can't say I hate it though.
Imagine you're an human artist, and you painted Mickey Mouse (let say playing pickeball). Disney doesn't own the copyright to your artwork, but of course they own the copyright to _Mickey Mouse_ (the character), but that doesn't entitle them to all art with Mickey Mouse in it.
I think it does though if you try to sell it... I mean Disney does occasionally go after artists selling baby yoda plushies that have been cropping up all over Etsy. Part of that is how busted copyright claims systems are, but they suuurely have some legal right to the likeness of yoda himself, especially in plushie context. Surely?
Just because Disney can stop you from commercializing something does not mean they own the copyright of the entire work.
Suppose you make a Yoda painting. You do not own the rights of _Yoda_, but Disney does not own rights of your painting, either. If you make a painting of Yoda, Disney can't commercialize and sell it either.
In this case, Disney owns some rights, and you the artist have rights. But it doesn't mean Disney "owns the copyright" to your work. They cannot publish/commercialize your exact Yoda painting and put it on t-shirts to sell.
Let's say you are a software developer working on an extensive library that deals with data processing. You come across a small, but particularly efficient algorithm developed by Company A, which they've shared on their blog. This algorithm, called the XYZ Algorithm, is explicitly mentioned to be freely usable but retains the copyright to Company A.
You decide to use this XYZ Algorithm as a component within your larger library. You integrate it as-is, without modifying the original code of the XYZ Algorithm.
Implications:
Rights on the XYZ Algorithm: Even though you've integrated the XYZ Algorithm into your library, Company A retains the copyright on that specific algorithm. If they've specified particular licensing terms or conditions for use (like attribution), you'd have to abide by them.
Rights on the Entire Library: The rest of your library, which you developed independently, remains your intellectual property. Company A's copyright doesn't extend to the whole library, just the specific portion that constitutes the XYZ Algorithm.
Distribution and Licensing: If you decide to distribute or sell your library:
You'd have to ensure you comply with any licensing terms or conditions attached to the XYZ Algorithm.
For the parts of the library you own, you can choose any licensing model you like.
Just because Company A can stop you from commercializing your entire Library, does not mean they own rights to your entire Library.
That's of limited use, because here algorithm is a subset of a library
But a painting of Yoda is a different Depiction of the same character. There are no subsets. It's the general image and idea of the character that is Disney's property.
There is no 100% painting of Yoda, with exception of perfectly copying an existing work.
You can a take a photo of Yoda at Disneyland. Disney still cant take your photo and slap it on t-shirts to sell without your permission. (It doesnt mean you can either)
Hm; maybe you are right in that I am conflating 'copyright' and 'the ability to commercialize'. So to follow up, I'm under the impression that the copyright of a character enables companies to create and sell licenses to third parties to use the likeness of the character under terms limited by the license, and that any commercial usage outside of that paradigm is a copyright violation.
EG. it's 1998 and the Pokemon Company licenses MadCatz (defunct) to create Pokemon themed N64 controllers. Such a license is limited to N64 controllers; let's say under the terms of the license, MadCatz can't turn around and make a Pokemon themed bag in the style of ugh, Rat Fink. MadCatz can't make N64 controllers, and the Pokemon Company knows this, and really doesn't want them botching up their brand with horrific art, too. Copyright protects brand.
Now legally speaking, I can put a depiction of pikachu on a powerpoint slide in a school report and call it 'fair use'. But the second I sell that art on a bag (regardless of whether I put the words Pokemon on it), I've violated copyright laws, because the purchaser of my bag has deprived our poor Pokemon company of potential income. Womp-womp. Dumb as it is for Nintendo to come after me (as they go after the makers of Pokemon rom hacks, et al), it makes some sense, depending on how I scale up.
Fast forward to 2026 and now we have GPT-8 (flip it sideways for infinity, as we have reached the Singularity by this time). Pokemon is old as the hills and is celebrating its 30th anniversary (Jesus!). I use an AI with the prompt "fat yellow thunder mouse", and it generates a "pikachu but better", uncannily like the iconic character (because it's the only yellow thunder mouse anyone ever draws) but cute in all the ways that our AI knows how to get to humans, and I decide to coin it in an NFT and put it up for sale. Let's say the Pokemon Company is particularly litigious in its old age and is a veritable Disney. Or hell, let's suppose Disney bought the Pokemon Company (and now Misty is a Disney princess, just like Leia).
Given that: I own the NFT (in the sense of your software library example), no-one owns the art (AI-generated), Pokemon owns the brand and the concept of a Pikachu, and this particular depiction is recognized to be pikachu "but kinda better", we live in one of these worlds:
1. Disney is owed money from the proceeds, and can request cease of production / legal remedy
2. It is not owed anything, as the art itself was generated from an AI.
>If I reproduce the likeness of Mickey Mouse via an AI, then because an AI made it, is there no defensible claim from Disney to own the copyright? That doesn't make intuitive sense, as we 'sort of know' that Disney owns the likeness.
Disney owns their own copyright in Mickey Mouse, it has nothing to do with them owning a copyright you claim. Copyright infringement is when you make a(n illegal) copy of something that was already copyrighted.
>But what if a bunch of artists were to band together to create a license of sorts for the use of an AI they altogether build?
They can license it all they want to, but they can't stop anyone from copying the work produced by the AI because there is no copyright in that work.
>defend their collective works in the same way that Disney can?
No, because the only people infringing would be themselves.
Interesante: so I would consider AI to be necessarily transformative. The idea is that the art it produces could never be a copy, because of the effect the rest of its data corpus has on the output.
There are several layers of transformation, feedback loops, etc. I don't know exactly how it all works (I'm not an AI engineer) so there's a lot of hand waving here.
So to understand this:
1. In a world where someone owns the rights to the Mona Lisa, if I ask it to produce Mona Lisa as exactly as it can, and it produces the Mona Lisa (uncannily so, in layers of paint), can it be said to be a copy? Was there a violation? Or, per this ruling and by virtue of being produced by an AI, should that work be free to sell?
2. If I ask it to produce 'Mockey Mouse', and it produces a likeness uncannily approaching Mickey Mouse, should that work be free to sell without claims otherwise?
1. It's a copy. You described copying. You can't sell something that's a copy of another person's work (with some exceptions). That's the basic principle of copyright infringement. The ruling doesn't stand for the principle that anything created by an AI can be free to sell. It stands for the proposition that an AI can't obtain a copyright because it isn't a creative author. Can I sell homemade VHS copies of the Seinfeld DVDs? Should I be able to?
2. An AI can't obtain a copyright, so, assuming it's not a work that violates an existing copyright, it would not be copyrightable.
So! Here's my really dumb question: what is the difference between the two?
I agree, in that first instance and at first glance, clearly copying. There are plenty of incredible copy artists in China who fabricate like copies of fine art, who approximate the role of our AI here.
There might be something to be said later about the nature of what makes a work transformative and whether the use of an AI is sufficient for it, but setting that thought aside, let's slide the scale from the meatspace to the rasterized space.
For the second: our mockey mouse is the spitting image of mickey mouse. Maybe the lines are a breadth of a hair off the fine print from what was submitted to the USPTO. Maybe it is by all intents and purposes using the same line width for his outlines, etc, but due to some fluke with how AI works, Mockey has three buttons instead of two, or (incredibly) 5 fingers instead of 4. Or maybe Mockey is exactly better proportioned than the cartoon friend we know, appealing more to our gross human sensibilities, but some may still construe him to be Mickey Mouse from a distance.
That image can't be copyrighted (as an AI can't obtain a copyright). Disney can't claim that image as Mickey too, lest they claim every permutation of his characteristics possible, the territory of which is really large.
Still, it stands to reasonable, common law: if its the 90s, and I drew Mockey myself and put him on a bag and made enough money on it that Disney goes after me, it's a sensible outcome that Disney wins this in court, and its primary defense is that this likeness violates their copyright. Yet if an AI made this in 2023, suddenly there is a gray area, as I am selling a likeness that nobody owns (by virtue of a lack of personhood in its creation). I feel that's a bit odd, and something people may try to exploit with this ruling. At the same time, if we give that to Disney, what's the end of the scope of copyright?
>So! Here's my really dumb question: what is the difference between the two?
In one there is copying, in the other there isn't copying. Neither is sufficiently creative to get its own copyright because there is no human author.
>That image can't be copyrighted (as an AI can't obtain a copyright). Disney can't claim that image as Mickey too, lest they claim every permutation of his characteristics possible, the territory of which is really large.
If I write a love story, can someone copy it just by changing the name of the characters? Why don't you just go on wikipedia and read about copyright a bit? There's over a hundred years of caselaw navigating the line you are trying to define so crudely.
All I'm doing here is turning the knobs and testing the variables here. I realize it might be crude, I apologize for that. You're probably a lawyer, and you probably hate this.
The line I'm trying to understand is this: Mockey has three buttons and was generated by an AI, and looks similar to Mickey. I can copy that art and become the human owner of it (my hands are the 'spark of creativity' mentioned in our Wikipedia article), then sell it. Disney will claim that selling this art can infringe on its copyright, but nobody earns copyright to the AI-generated art itself. I own copyright to my physical, hand drawn copy of it. Okay;
Taking that apart: Disney's copyright is infringed when? The sale? The second I drew Mockey? Or the second the AI created it? Or is it when the AI was trained?
I'm assuming -I- am the violator of the copyright. At least, I'm the guy who gets sued. So now, let's remove me from the equation.
If I train a model on Mickey and all permutations thereof, sell the model, and when the user prompts it, it hallucinates none other than Mickey in his enigmatic circular perfection, who copied it and when? Who violated Disney's copyright? You might say the AI (nobody) copied it, and nobody (the AI) violates Disney's copyright until some human tries to ctrl+c/ctrl+v the file from the AI's 'electronic threshhold' to a file on their desktop, and it's the viewer who copied it.
So let's extend that 'electronic threshhold' in the following scenario: a sufficiently impressive AI makes a video game world simulation and incidentally hallucinates a Mickey Mouse character model. I sold the -game-, is there a violation of copyright? Absurd.
Sorry for being facetious but, throughout the history of US case law, I'm not finding good refs for these cases. You think maybe tech outstrips law? :D It just seems to me: if AI art can't be copyrighted as there is no human source, then there is no human responsible for incidental copyright violation either. "By golly lightning struck that tree and it looks like Mickey Mouse! Sue God!"
>All I'm doing here is turning the knobs and testing the variables here. I realize it might be crude, I apologize for that. You're probably a lawyer, and you probably hate this.
I understand what you are doing. Lawyers have been doing it for over 100 years litigating copyright, and it's reflected in the caselaw, which has much deeper answers for the questions you are poking at.
>The line I'm trying to understand is this: Mockey has three buttons and was generated by an AI, and looks similar to Mickey. I can copy that art and become the human owner of it (my hands are the 'spark of creativity' mentioned in our Wikipedia article), then sell it. Disney will claim that selling this art can infringe on its copyright, but nobody earns copyright to the AI-generated art itself. I own copyright to my physical, hand drawn copy of it. Okay;
The question you are asking is what's a copy. That's a really complicated answer, that is dependent upon numerous factors, which as I mentioned before, is best answered through the caselaw on the subject. There is no clear line. There never was a clear line. By the way, you didn't respond to my hypothetical!
>Taking that apart: Disney's copyright is infringed when? The sale? The second I drew Mockey? Or the second the AI created it? Or is it when the AI was trained?
Take a copyright class somewhere! I'm sure there's some free ones online. I work with the VLA and we provide such classes to member artists. There are numerous rights associated with copyright and they can be violated in a numerous ways.
>If I train a model on Mickey and all permutations thereof, sell the model, and when the user prompts it, it hallucinates none other than Mickey in his enigmatic circular perfection, who copied it and when? Who violated Disney's copyright? You might say the AI (nobody) copied it, and nobody (the AI) violates Disney's copyright until some human tries to ctrl+c/ctrl+v the file from the AI's 'electronic threshhold' to a file on their desktop, and it's the viewer who copied it.
You are describing what could be contributory infringement, on top of direct infringement. Once again, I promise you that taking a class or reading about it (on wikipedia, lets say) will be a better guide than this dialogue has been.
>So let's extend that 'electronic threshhold' in the following scenario: a sufficiently impressive AI makes a video game world simulation and incidentally hallucinates a Mickey Mouse character model. I sold the -game-, is there a violation of copyright? Absurd.
Independent authorship is a thing. Two people can write the same poem independently of the other. In that case, there is no copying. If there is no copying, then they both have a valid copyright (I'm talking about human authors, because as I've repeatedly explained to you that computers and algorithms cannot obtain copyrights).
>Sorry for being facetious but, throughout the history of US case law, I'm not finding good refs for these cases. You think maybe tech outstrips law? :D It just seems to me: if AI art can't be copyrighted as there is no human source, then there is no human responsible for incidental copyright violation either. "By golly lightning struck that tree and it looks like Mickey Mouse! Sue God!"
Literally so much of what you describe is in the oldest caselaw out there. The one thing I find surprising here is that for all the intelligent people that post here, so many put effort into trying to distinguish their own thought as being inventive or creative, when in reality, you are expressing nothing new.
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[ 1311 ms ] story [ 1069 ms ] threadHe wants credit for creating the AI, and he wants to that AI to be recognized as autonomous and independent by getting the Copyright Office's imprimatur. But at the same time he wants to treat the art created by the AI as if it were his, or at least to act on behalf of the AI as if it were not autonomous.
I've started using the best AI work I could find in all my works too, without attribution, and it makes me money. I recently added AI music to a website, which I found on youtube and got with a youtube downloading script, really drives engagement
I also don't care if someone does the same to works I generated in Midjourney, which I display in my various presentations. The Executive branch and now Judicial branch are pretty clear about this (so far), so its a free for all
Assuming the AI has a vast number of outputs, many which are uninteresting; a human can select a few outputs as being worthy of being called art or suitable for their purposes.
So an AI can create an image, but the process of selection constitutes an editorial process, and a person can the claim copyright for images they generate and choose to distribute.
This seems to be somewhat similar to copyrighting a found object as art, or taking a photo of a building and owning the copyright to that. It would not make sense to give the copyright to the camera, which is what this ruling confirms.
So, if the basic distinction here is:
- if AI can create something all by itself, then it is not copyrightable (due to "machines need no incentive" rule)
- if AI still needs human help, then it is just a tool (like a brush, or computer with Photoshop installed), and the human is the real author. It's not just about an "editorial process" - book editors do not have any copyright even after they fix hundreds of typos and grammar mistakes of the original author.
Also, the plaintiff is making contradictory claims: when applying for copyright he said that AI was fully autonomous, but then, in the lawsuit he tries to change his story and say that his role in creating the piece of art was crucial. Probably just desperately fighting to make any money from this.
If, as some predict, everything is soon done by people feeding prompts to AI, a great bonus would be if it all became uncopyrightable.
Shame neither is really going to happen.
If I reproduce the likeness of Mickey Mouse via an AI, then because an AI made it, is there no defensible claim from Disney to own the copyright? That doesn't make intuitive sense, as we 'sort of know' that Disney owns the likeness.
Meanwhile, if I produce one single image that I own via copyright, and feed it to the AI as a prompt and receive a derivative of that image back, per this ruling I would not own the proceeds. It makes some sense-- an AI made it, and further, I did not produce enough instances of this art and the branding behind it for its likeness to be sufficiently "mine". I don't quite own the "mindshare", so people would not recognize the brand as being anybody's, really. So this is different from the way that Mickey Mouse is recognized.
But what if a bunch of artists were to band together to create a license of sorts for the use of an AI they altogether build? Suppose they collectively own a portfolio of copyrighted materials, characters, etc, that they use to feed the AI. Wouldn't they own the proceeds of the likenesses produced by the AI, as would provide legal justification for their licensing of the AI, and to defend their collective works in the same way that Disney can?
Just fire some H100 in a loop iterating over various ~random prompts, save it all on a website and then sue anyone producing anything remotely similar.
Problem is, bad actors will say all of this art was generated by a human with mere AI assistance.
Unless an AI generator proves it owns all related copyright material, how can it claim the output under the same law.
It's basic CC ally a copyright blackhole. The laws of copyright doesn't survive.
I would imagine that context matters a lot in trademark law and in design art though, since there's a lot of namespace collision in that domain. For there to be a violation of trademark or copyright, there needs to be a material loss or harm on the part of the owner of the copyrighted material, and it needs to be in the same space that the owner operates in.
Like if I generate a banana brand logo for my Banana Plumbing Co., and your AI generated similar banana line art prior, unless you were using it for plumbing it would (probably) be hard to enforce in court.
So towards preventing bulk image generation and trolling, I don't know if this ruling was especially necessary.
leaving the disadvantage of this ruling in that it encourages people to use AI as an excuse to sell like art? :D can't say I hate it though.
Suppose you make a Yoda painting. You do not own the rights of _Yoda_, but Disney does not own rights of your painting, either. If you make a painting of Yoda, Disney can't commercialize and sell it either.
In this case, Disney owns some rights, and you the artist have rights. But it doesn't mean Disney "owns the copyright" to your work. They cannot publish/commercialize your exact Yoda painting and put it on t-shirts to sell.
Scenario: The XYZ Algorithm
Let's say you are a software developer working on an extensive library that deals with data processing. You come across a small, but particularly efficient algorithm developed by Company A, which they've shared on their blog. This algorithm, called the XYZ Algorithm, is explicitly mentioned to be freely usable but retains the copyright to Company A.
You decide to use this XYZ Algorithm as a component within your larger library. You integrate it as-is, without modifying the original code of the XYZ Algorithm.
Implications:
Rights on the XYZ Algorithm: Even though you've integrated the XYZ Algorithm into your library, Company A retains the copyright on that specific algorithm. If they've specified particular licensing terms or conditions for use (like attribution), you'd have to abide by them.
Rights on the Entire Library: The rest of your library, which you developed independently, remains your intellectual property. Company A's copyright doesn't extend to the whole library, just the specific portion that constitutes the XYZ Algorithm.
Distribution and Licensing: If you decide to distribute or sell your library:
You'd have to ensure you comply with any licensing terms or conditions attached to the XYZ Algorithm. For the parts of the library you own, you can choose any licensing model you like.
Just because Company A can stop you from commercializing your entire Library, does not mean they own rights to your entire Library.
But a painting of Yoda is a different Depiction of the same character. There are no subsets. It's the general image and idea of the character that is Disney's property.
There is no 100% painting of Yoda, with exception of perfectly copying an existing work.
You can a take a photo of Yoda at Disneyland. Disney still cant take your photo and slap it on t-shirts to sell without your permission. (It doesnt mean you can either)
EG. it's 1998 and the Pokemon Company licenses MadCatz (defunct) to create Pokemon themed N64 controllers. Such a license is limited to N64 controllers; let's say under the terms of the license, MadCatz can't turn around and make a Pokemon themed bag in the style of ugh, Rat Fink. MadCatz can't make N64 controllers, and the Pokemon Company knows this, and really doesn't want them botching up their brand with horrific art, too. Copyright protects brand.
Now legally speaking, I can put a depiction of pikachu on a powerpoint slide in a school report and call it 'fair use'. But the second I sell that art on a bag (regardless of whether I put the words Pokemon on it), I've violated copyright laws, because the purchaser of my bag has deprived our poor Pokemon company of potential income. Womp-womp. Dumb as it is for Nintendo to come after me (as they go after the makers of Pokemon rom hacks, et al), it makes some sense, depending on how I scale up.
Fast forward to 2026 and now we have GPT-8 (flip it sideways for infinity, as we have reached the Singularity by this time). Pokemon is old as the hills and is celebrating its 30th anniversary (Jesus!). I use an AI with the prompt "fat yellow thunder mouse", and it generates a "pikachu but better", uncannily like the iconic character (because it's the only yellow thunder mouse anyone ever draws) but cute in all the ways that our AI knows how to get to humans, and I decide to coin it in an NFT and put it up for sale. Let's say the Pokemon Company is particularly litigious in its old age and is a veritable Disney. Or hell, let's suppose Disney bought the Pokemon Company (and now Misty is a Disney princess, just like Leia).
Given that: I own the NFT (in the sense of your software library example), no-one owns the art (AI-generated), Pokemon owns the brand and the concept of a Pikachu, and this particular depiction is recognized to be pikachu "but kinda better", we live in one of these worlds:
1. Disney is owed money from the proceeds, and can request cease of production / legal remedy 2. It is not owed anything, as the art itself was generated from an AI.
Which makes more sense?
Disney owns their own copyright in Mickey Mouse, it has nothing to do with them owning a copyright you claim. Copyright infringement is when you make a(n illegal) copy of something that was already copyrighted.
>But what if a bunch of artists were to band together to create a license of sorts for the use of an AI they altogether build?
They can license it all they want to, but they can't stop anyone from copying the work produced by the AI because there is no copyright in that work.
>defend their collective works in the same way that Disney can?
No, because the only people infringing would be themselves.
There are several layers of transformation, feedback loops, etc. I don't know exactly how it all works (I'm not an AI engineer) so there's a lot of hand waving here.
So to understand this:
1. In a world where someone owns the rights to the Mona Lisa, if I ask it to produce Mona Lisa as exactly as it can, and it produces the Mona Lisa (uncannily so, in layers of paint), can it be said to be a copy? Was there a violation? Or, per this ruling and by virtue of being produced by an AI, should that work be free to sell?
2. If I ask it to produce 'Mockey Mouse', and it produces a likeness uncannily approaching Mickey Mouse, should that work be free to sell without claims otherwise?
2. An AI can't obtain a copyright, so, assuming it's not a work that violates an existing copyright, it would not be copyrightable.
I agree, in that first instance and at first glance, clearly copying. There are plenty of incredible copy artists in China who fabricate like copies of fine art, who approximate the role of our AI here.
There might be something to be said later about the nature of what makes a work transformative and whether the use of an AI is sufficient for it, but setting that thought aside, let's slide the scale from the meatspace to the rasterized space.
For the second: our mockey mouse is the spitting image of mickey mouse. Maybe the lines are a breadth of a hair off the fine print from what was submitted to the USPTO. Maybe it is by all intents and purposes using the same line width for his outlines, etc, but due to some fluke with how AI works, Mockey has three buttons instead of two, or (incredibly) 5 fingers instead of 4. Or maybe Mockey is exactly better proportioned than the cartoon friend we know, appealing more to our gross human sensibilities, but some may still construe him to be Mickey Mouse from a distance.
That image can't be copyrighted (as an AI can't obtain a copyright). Disney can't claim that image as Mickey too, lest they claim every permutation of his characteristics possible, the territory of which is really large.
Still, it stands to reasonable, common law: if its the 90s, and I drew Mockey myself and put him on a bag and made enough money on it that Disney goes after me, it's a sensible outcome that Disney wins this in court, and its primary defense is that this likeness violates their copyright. Yet if an AI made this in 2023, suddenly there is a gray area, as I am selling a likeness that nobody owns (by virtue of a lack of personhood in its creation). I feel that's a bit odd, and something people may try to exploit with this ruling. At the same time, if we give that to Disney, what's the end of the scope of copyright?
In one there is copying, in the other there isn't copying. Neither is sufficiently creative to get its own copyright because there is no human author.
>That image can't be copyrighted (as an AI can't obtain a copyright). Disney can't claim that image as Mickey too, lest they claim every permutation of his characteristics possible, the territory of which is really large.
If I write a love story, can someone copy it just by changing the name of the characters? Why don't you just go on wikipedia and read about copyright a bit? There's over a hundred years of caselaw navigating the line you are trying to define so crudely.
All I'm doing here is turning the knobs and testing the variables here. I realize it might be crude, I apologize for that. You're probably a lawyer, and you probably hate this.
The line I'm trying to understand is this: Mockey has three buttons and was generated by an AI, and looks similar to Mickey. I can copy that art and become the human owner of it (my hands are the 'spark of creativity' mentioned in our Wikipedia article), then sell it. Disney will claim that selling this art can infringe on its copyright, but nobody earns copyright to the AI-generated art itself. I own copyright to my physical, hand drawn copy of it. Okay;
Taking that apart: Disney's copyright is infringed when? The sale? The second I drew Mockey? Or the second the AI created it? Or is it when the AI was trained?
I'm assuming -I- am the violator of the copyright. At least, I'm the guy who gets sued. So now, let's remove me from the equation.
If I train a model on Mickey and all permutations thereof, sell the model, and when the user prompts it, it hallucinates none other than Mickey in his enigmatic circular perfection, who copied it and when? Who violated Disney's copyright? You might say the AI (nobody) copied it, and nobody (the AI) violates Disney's copyright until some human tries to ctrl+c/ctrl+v the file from the AI's 'electronic threshhold' to a file on their desktop, and it's the viewer who copied it.
So let's extend that 'electronic threshhold' in the following scenario: a sufficiently impressive AI makes a video game world simulation and incidentally hallucinates a Mickey Mouse character model. I sold the -game-, is there a violation of copyright? Absurd.
Sorry for being facetious but, throughout the history of US case law, I'm not finding good refs for these cases. You think maybe tech outstrips law? :D It just seems to me: if AI art can't be copyrighted as there is no human source, then there is no human responsible for incidental copyright violation either. "By golly lightning struck that tree and it looks like Mickey Mouse! Sue God!"
I understand what you are doing. Lawyers have been doing it for over 100 years litigating copyright, and it's reflected in the caselaw, which has much deeper answers for the questions you are poking at.
>The line I'm trying to understand is this: Mockey has three buttons and was generated by an AI, and looks similar to Mickey. I can copy that art and become the human owner of it (my hands are the 'spark of creativity' mentioned in our Wikipedia article), then sell it. Disney will claim that selling this art can infringe on its copyright, but nobody earns copyright to the AI-generated art itself. I own copyright to my physical, hand drawn copy of it. Okay;
The question you are asking is what's a copy. That's a really complicated answer, that is dependent upon numerous factors, which as I mentioned before, is best answered through the caselaw on the subject. There is no clear line. There never was a clear line. By the way, you didn't respond to my hypothetical!
>Taking that apart: Disney's copyright is infringed when? The sale? The second I drew Mockey? Or the second the AI created it? Or is it when the AI was trained?
Take a copyright class somewhere! I'm sure there's some free ones online. I work with the VLA and we provide such classes to member artists. There are numerous rights associated with copyright and they can be violated in a numerous ways.
>If I train a model on Mickey and all permutations thereof, sell the model, and when the user prompts it, it hallucinates none other than Mickey in his enigmatic circular perfection, who copied it and when? Who violated Disney's copyright? You might say the AI (nobody) copied it, and nobody (the AI) violates Disney's copyright until some human tries to ctrl+c/ctrl+v the file from the AI's 'electronic threshhold' to a file on their desktop, and it's the viewer who copied it.
You are describing what could be contributory infringement, on top of direct infringement. Once again, I promise you that taking a class or reading about it (on wikipedia, lets say) will be a better guide than this dialogue has been.
>So let's extend that 'electronic threshhold' in the following scenario: a sufficiently impressive AI makes a video game world simulation and incidentally hallucinates a Mickey Mouse character model. I sold the -game-, is there a violation of copyright? Absurd.
Independent authorship is a thing. Two people can write the same poem independently of the other. In that case, there is no copying. If there is no copying, then they both have a valid copyright (I'm talking about human authors, because as I've repeatedly explained to you that computers and algorithms cannot obtain copyrights).
>Sorry for being facetious but, throughout the history of US case law, I'm not finding good refs for these cases. You think maybe tech outstrips law? :D It just seems to me: if AI art can't be copyrighted as there is no human source, then there is no human responsible for incidental copyright violation either. "By golly lightning struck that tree and it looks like Mickey Mouse! Sue God!"
Literally so much of what you describe is in the oldest caselaw out there. The one thing I find surprising here is that for all the intelligent people that post here, so many put effort into trying to distinguish their own thought as being inventive or creative, when in reality, you are expressing nothing new.
https://blogs.loc.gov/copyright/2020/09/historic-court-cases...
For example, your question of what is a copy is addressed in Bu...