Hacker News Reader

Comment by lbotos | Hacker News Reader

> As far as I know, AI art can't be copyrighted.

Why do you think that?

There is a common article that gets passed around where a person tried to get copyright assigned to a machine and that keeps getting denied. That is very different from "AI generated images cannot be copyrighted".

If I write a program to randomly generate an image of squares of different colors:

- I, a human, can have copyright over the program text itself as a literary work

- I, a human, can have copyright over the image output of the program

View on HN

I can't claim copyright on one of your works, because I'm not the author.

I can't claim copyright on a work by an AI, because I'm not the author.

AI created works, like animal-created works [2], lack authorship, and are thus not eligible for copyright at all.

It's being litigated, and might change, but this is the current position of the US Copyright Office [1].

The only AI generated copyrighted work at the moment is a graphic novel, Zarya of the Dawn, and was granted a copyright as 'visual material', not 'visual arts work'. The most likely legal interpretation of which is that the author has added copyrightable material to non-copyrightable material, and obtained a copyright on the addition [3].

[1] https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/15/dude-who-keeps-suing-to-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.H.O.O.Q.

>I can't claim copyright on a work by an AI, because I'm not the author

Is there any source for this? The only things I can find are people trying to assert non humans as copyright holders and being told no.

Go read Title 17 of the United States Code. AI would be considered an anonymous author. You can't claim title to another authors anonymous work. If you claim I can own copyright for works created using my software algorithms, you would then be claiming that Adobe owns the works to all works created within their tools as long as those works did not have copyright claims made by the original author, which obviously Adobe doesn't own.

Well, I'm fairly certain one can claim ownership of works they create via algorithms, as the entire digital media space wouldn't exist. I don't think authoring or hosting an algorithm gives one carte blanche ownership over things other people create with that algorithm, but cynically I could see that happening if enough money is involved unfortunately, but hopefully not. It's not clear at all why AI would ever be considered the author and in fact all the sources I've found assert the opposite, that AI cannot be considered an author. So I still haven't seen anything preventing people from claiming copyright protections on works they create via AI.

There is also this filing [1] from February regarding the "human authorship" requirement. Thaler was requesting that he be granted the copyright to this work as the AI was "work-for-hire". The Copyright Office found that Thaler “provided no evidence on sufficient creative input or intervention by a human author in the Work.”

So, at least in this instance, the AI created the work with insufficient creative input from a person, and thus has no human author, and is not eligible for copyright.

https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/...

You are misreading it and it's easy to do so. This is the money quote:

"Thaler does not assert that the Work was created with contribution from a human author"

All it takes is for the copyright submission for this Artist to say "I used a computer to generate this image through x y z steps selecting for q r s features until I was satisfied." I'm confident they would accept it.

This case is an attempt to set new precedent for copyright by granting it to a computer. And rightfully so, the Copyright office refuses to do so.

> I can't claim copyright on a work by an AI, because I'm not the author.

You can lie about authorship, and it will (probably) be undetectable/irrefutable.

Also, currently AI's are not given personhood under law, hence they are not the author of the work they create. Given that, it isn't much of a stretch to say that if you wrote the software that runs the AI, you are the author. Which is a problem for users of tools like DALL-E.

I don't believe this is the case, because the AI is what is known as an 'anonymous author' under copyright, and authorship does not just transfer because you're the first to claim it.

Are you claiming that whoever wrote Photoshop automatically owns digital art created in Photoshop if the artist of the digital art doesn't claim copyright?

The AI is controlled by the user prompting it.

Or is it controlled by the code that constitutes it? Which "control" is more significant?

In the eyes of copyright law, the human element, as only humans can hold copyright. (for now)

The Copyright Office finds it too much of a stretch, at least for now.

https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/...

" The finding that AI cannot be an author for copyright purposes does not mean that AI-assisted outputs are void of any copyright protection. Works created by a human using software on a computer (e.g., Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop) are arguably protectable under copyright law."

https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/which-ai-components-are-co...

Current AI is "really fancy automatic photoshop collage".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com