Animated Drawings
sketch.metademolab.com
sketch.metademolab.com
Can a child draw something and use this to animate it for a Youtube video?
The basic element of copyright is some level of creative input. Mass, automated transformative processes without human input traditionally don't count as creative (e.g. compiling source code with a compiler usually doesn't mean that compiler authors get copyright over the binary as a derived work).
AI is recently being presented as kind of a gray area where if you remove the inputs far enough from the outputs with huge, incomprehensible machine learning models the outputs count as original works, even when provenance is sometimes clear in the end (e.g. see the whole debate about GitHub Copilot regurgitating well-known pieces of code). I suspect that's mostly the big tech companies lobbying and pushing for this re-interpretation of copyright.
This is a case which is legally complex. The result here combines Meta's work with the child's work. A lot of the legal test might hinge on things such as the extent to which the gaits (jumping, dancing, etc.) are creative works created by Meta versus automated transformations. I suspect a court decision would hinge on the judge, and perhaps what the judge ate that morning.
But, for the sake of argument, let's assume you're right, and remixing outputs is 100% legal.
Families won't know that. For families to know that, they'd need a legal analysis from a lawyer. Families won't pay for that so their kid can make a Youtube video.
If you're making the world's ultimate video skit, do you want to make it without knowing what you're allowed to do with it?
The problem with legal complexity is simply that people don't do things.
A nice license, being explicit about what you can and can't do resolves that.
License text is also a social contract. A compiler maker might not have copyright over the output, but if they don't want me using their tool for something, I might respect that out of politeness. Or I might choose to pick a fight if I think they're being unreasonable and it will help others. It depends on the context. Signalling intentions is helpful as well.
Where is the complexity?
For instance ReCycle was a tool written in the 90s for chopping up a sampled beat (waveform) to allow easy re-arranging. (Now the company makes Reason.)
1) Writing the script.
2) Designing the visual look of Bob and Alice.
3) Designing the animation (e.g. animating the body language of "slinking").
Those are all creative contributions. A tool like this one converts an image into bones, which I don't think has a creative element. It also has a bunch of pre-baked animations of those bones, which are neat, and do have a creative element.
Is that enough? I don't know.
Let's take this to an extreme. In the early '00s, there was a popular video (an early meme) of a pair of stick figures having a rather fancy fight. Most of the work was in the rather comedic body language. If I replaced those stick figures with something my child drew, it'd still be /mostly/ the original work. Simply replacing a stick figure with a child's drawing doesn't change the underlying work. Even if I took a little clip, say a neat-looking jump turning kick, I couldn't take that without permission.
There's a line somewhere in there, and I'm not quite sure where it is. I don't think anyone really knows until there's case law.
I'm sure if I dug into a professional animation application, I could find a dozen more analogous tools.
I don't see where the legal complexity is. Not that I'm a lawyer, but I can't think of a single case where a tool to automate artistic tedium resulted in some transfer of copyright.
I agree.
> (Let's assume that you own the copyright to the underlying recording in the ReCycle situation, so as to avoid a discussion of the legal implications of sampling music.)
And this assumption isn't valid, and it's precisely where the complexity comes in. The tool doesn't just create bones. It has a bunch of rather nice gaits which presumably a human artist designed to be nice to look at:
- 8 dancing movements
- 8 funny movements
- 7 jumping movements
- 9 walking movements
I think those are analogous to the samples you're using in your example. If the sample is a generic recording of a piano, that's one thing. If it's Justin Bieber saying "Stay," that's another thing.