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Comment by iamleppert | Hacker News Reader

So just don't tell anyone you used AI? How exactly are they going to prove it? And does this mean any works created with the assistance of graphics software, like Photoshop, are not copyrightable? What is the definition of AI here? They failed to define what AI means, which means that if there is no test, the ruling can't stand on its own.

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It's not the appeals court's job to "define what AI means," their job is to rule on the case in front of them. This particular case involved someone asserting copyright over an image that he claimed was generated by a sentient[0] AI. This image was not created by a human, and only works created by humans can be copyrighted under US law, so they ruled against him.

[0]https://thenewstack.io/stephen-thaler-claims-hes-built-a-sen...

Thank you. That sounds perfectly sensible.

The court didn't rule that AI generated art isn't eligible for copyright at all. They ruled that only humans may be assigned a copyright. If you are a human that uses AI as a tool to create something, the door is still open for you to claim copyright as a human.

The court is ruling that computers themselves don't have the human right to copyright. Not exactly surprising.

> The court is ruling that computers don't have human rights.

No, it is just ruling that the Copyright Act requires human authorship. Whether computers have human rights is not an issue before the court.

Well you misquoted the person you responded to by cutting their sentence short. They specifically said that computers don't have the human right to copyright. As in - the right that a human has under copyright law.

Why are you commenting to disagree with something the parent comment didn't say?

you are right

>So just don't tell anyone you used AI?

This guy literally wants his pet AI to be listed as the author. He then wants to sublicense the work back to himself. The AI as the author is the point.

>So just don't tell anyone you used AI? How exactly are they going to prove it?

In court if it has to escalate? Why do you think legal cases take months or years, instead of days? They can subpoena your computer, your company, the AI generator's company, etc. And any communication related to it. Until they get an answer beyond reasonable doubt.

All that resource gathering takes time to write-up, justify, contact, and retrieve.

I suspect in the future we will have a jury consisting of people who are good at prompting. They will load a model that existed at a given time (e.g. when the "author" claimed they came up with the design), and then try to get similar art by just using prompting. Then a judge checks if the art looks similar, and if the prompts were simple enough.

We could have a similar approach with patents.

>And does this mean any works created with the assistance of graphics software, like Photoshop, are not copyrightable? What is the definition of AI here?

This is a good question. More specifically, using photoshop with the integrated AI features. Where is the line exactly?

there are a lot of ways to detect AI generated imagery with low false-positives (though false-negatives are a risk)

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