AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted, rules a US Federal Judge::United States District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell found that AI-generated artwork can’t be copyrighted, putting to rest a lawsuit against the US Copyright Office over its refusal to copyright an AI-generated image.
This title is massively misleading. There is no ruling that says AI-Generated Art cannot be copyrighted at all. This case is about someone who filed for copyright listing the AI as the author and that the copyright should be transferred to him as the owner of the AI.
Plaintiff Stephen Thaler owns a computer system he calls the “Creativity Machine,” which he claims generated a piece of visual art of its own accord. He sought to register the work for a copyright, listing the computer system as the author and explaining that the copyright should transfer to him as the owner of the machine.
The claim was rejected on account of you can only claim copyright if you are human and an AI does not count as a human - so no AI can claim copyright over a works.
The Copyright Office denied the application on the grounds that the work lacked human authorship,
And he explicitly stated he gave no real input into the work.
Plaintiff requested reconsideration of his application, confirming that the work “was autonomously generated by an AI” and “lack[ed] traditional human authorship,”
But that does not mean AI generated work is uncopyrightable like the title claims - only that enough human input needs to be present to be able to claim copyright over any works. We have yet to decide on how much input is required for someone to claim copyright over an AI generated image, which the case clearly states:
Undoubtedly, we are approaching new frontiers in copyright as artists put AI in their toolbox to be used in the generation of new visual and other artistic works. The increased attenuation of human creativity from the actual generation of the final work will prompt challenging questions regarding how much human input is necessary to qualify the user of an AI system as an “author” of a generated work
So AI generated work is not uncopyrightable by the own conclusion of this case. Making the title of this article a complete lie. More cases will likely be done to draw the line as to what really counts as enough human input - this case was not one that does that. Only confirms that non-humans cannot claim copyright over an image. And that you need enough human input for a work to be copyrightable.
Well this is going to the Supreme Court I guess.
This has potentially interesting implications for AI generated source code and “copilots”
ai and copyright can both suck my balls
Copyright law as currently implemented limits expression and prevents expansion of ideas - think less House of Mouse and more like “screws, but different”
think less House of Mouse and more like “screws, but different”
What are you talking about with “screws, but different”? Are you confusing patent law. with copyright law…?
Patents protect the design and/or mechanism of physical inventions vs copyright which protects written works (books, articles, papers, source code, etc) and similar media assets (music, movies, tv shows, etc) from unauthorized reproduction?
WRT patents, I agree they suck, and they need rethought (or at least, there needs to be a much higher bar to getting a patent).
Copyright law as currently implemented limits expression and prevents expansion of ideas
Copyright does very little to limit expression and actually encourages people to come up with original work vs simply reproducing or altering in the smallest way possible an existing work. Through fair use, copyright even permits sufficiently derived works like parodies and satire.
How does this work for using ai generated art as part of larger projects e.g. games development? Is the game still copy rightable? Are parts of it protected but others not?
The title is a lie if you actually read the case. AI work can be copyrighted if there is enough human input into the work. This case was just about trying to get the AI to claim copyright (which it cannot do as it is not human) and transferring that right to the owner of the AI.
As for cases where the AI work is not under copyright then I believe it would be consider public domain? And thus we already have rules for how that works can be used as part of a greater works.
Also, is there even any need to tell people that parts aren’t copyrighted? That’d be pretty tedious to do (“texture on model pot_interior_clay_2_cracked is not copyrighted”). But if a game has a mix of copyrighted and non copyrighted media, that basically means nobody can use the non copyrighted parts because they simply can’t identify which parts those are.
I suspect there’s no need to tell people. After all, mixed media is already a thing. I can make a copyrighted video, for example, in which I quote some Shakespeare. The Shakespeare quote isn’t copyrighted, but the rest is. I’ve never seen any kind of copyright notice mention this.
So the net result might not be any different. Just if you steal assets from something, they might have a harder time identifying if they have a case of copyright infringement. Only if something was entirely AI generated would things likely change much. Though there’s also some weird edge cases. Like what if a human makes a 3D model but an AI textures it. 3D models are basically never used without their texture. So what’s the copyright implications of using videos of this textured model? Perhaps something for a very expensive legal case to figure out?
So what’s the copyright implications of using videos of this textured model?
If the textures are not copyrightable then they are in the public domain are they not? If so the same rules apply to any public domain works and I believe you can use them however you want to in your own works.
Technically no. But law is all about interpretation and it can be easy enough to hide depending on what stage of the project it’s used.
TBH, this really only affects people who thought they could gut their entire writing team or artists and release content solely done by AI.
It’s unlikely to affect places that use it for things like mood boarding or other menial tasks.
The ai generated portion does not have copy right protection. This also applies within an image. So for instance in an ai generated building image with a human created character in front. People couldn’t copy the character but could use the background.
