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Comment by mensetmanusman | Hacker News Reader

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mensetmanusman·

The analogy of a camera works here. (On multiple levels)

A black box with incredible technology manipulating light etc.

The person who pushed the button owns it.

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The camera analogy does work, but not in the way you said.

The specific technology, and more importantly the region, determine who exactly owns the copyright. In the U.S. if you press the shutter button, you own it. In France, the same is not always true [1]

[1] https://www.rd.com/advice/travel/eiffel-tower-illegal-photos...

So in the US, if a professional photogropher puts a camera on a tripod, composes the image, adjusts the metering, sets up some lighting and then says "hey, can you push this shutter bulb for me?" Do I own the copyright?

If they composed the image then they would own the copyright. Copyright of photographs comes from creative expression not pushing the shutter button. The exception would be if the subject was moving, e.g. at a sporting event and pushing the shutter button at a given moment had a creative component.

Possibly yes. There was a case where a monkey picked up a camera and took a selfie, and the photographer who placed the camera had trouble claiming the copyright on the photo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...

Personally I think the photographer could probably win if they sued, but it's not totally clear.

So if I load up one of those websites that generates random images with AI and it spits out an image for me. Do I own the copyright to that image now or does the website creator own the copyright?

Right, "AI" is still developed by someone, it hasn't just poofed into existence fully formed. Now if two AI's from separate individuals collaborated to create a new AI...

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