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Comment by SilasX | Hacker News Reader

>Q: And [who owns the copyright to DeepDream images], according to [my law school mentor]?

>A: Basically, "no one does," because AIs don't have legal personhood.

Wait, what? So if you build a tool that helps you build the final product, the tool counts as the creator, since the tool doesn't have legal personhood? Do we argue that easels and spirographs don't have legal personhood so if you use that stuff in your work then no one has the copyright?

Reminds me of the quip: "Dismissing a graphic artist's work because it was computer-generated is like dismissing Michaelangelo's work because it was brush-generated."

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If you used a spirograph to create art, you would own the copyright. If you created a spirograph that was robot controlled and could automatically create art then nobody would own the copyright. I don't see how an easel count create art on it's own.

The distinction is arbitrary. The only difference between the spirograph and the robot is you are touching the spirograph while it's operating.

If I write a computer program (say a Processing sketch) that generates an image, who owns the copyright to the image?

Unless your directly influencing the output you own the copyright to the program not the output. Basically, if your code generates a random image you don't get copyright, which is useful as generating say every English haiku is actually possible. It's under ~(15,831 syllable candidates) ^ 17.

Here's a real case: The Policeman's Beard is Half Constructed, a book released in 1984. The prose and poetry was written by Racter, a computer program written by William Chamberlain. The illustrations were done by Joan Hall, and the introduction to the book was written by William Chamberlain.

So it's clear that Joan Hall owns the copyright to the illustrations, and William Chamberlain the introduction. But what of the rest of the book?

So when you procedurally generate a world in mine craft does the guy who manually inputs the seed count as the creator, or Notch, or both, or none?

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