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I just read the article and surprisingly, you're wrong. Key quote: "The Office will not register works produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that op

I just read the article and surprisingly, you're wrong. Key quote: "The Office will not register works produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically without any creative input or intervention from a human author. The crucial question is “whether the ‘work’ is basically one of human authorship, with the computer [or other device] merely being an assisting instrument, or whether the traditional elements of authorship in the work (literary, artistic, or musical expression or elements of selection, arrangement, etc.) were actually conceived and executed not by man but by a machine." Machine generated works cannot be copyrighted. Edit: and gee, did you get hn to rewrite the headline on the strength of your false claim? Sigh...

netizen-936824 5y ago
There is input from a human in the form of algorithmic programming and choice of training data
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  Where the work in question would fall within the law is another question. But it's definite that the US Copyright Office won't copyright a work it considers machine generated, contrary to the gp's claim and the (apparently) rewritten headline. IE, the processed used is not irrelevant.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    I understand, but I disagree with the copyright office's decision. Why is there a distinction made between methods of creation, say if someone used Photoshop to create art vs someone who programmed some ML thing to spit out art of a certain style or genre (ie thisanimedoesnotexist) Where, exactly, does the line lie that was crossed?
    - joe_the_user 5y ago
      I'm not a fan of copyright generally and sure the line might seem arbitrary. But if you consider for second, just one of the problems with copyrighting machine-generated works is that a machine could generate so much text it make thing so any author would be bound to infringe on some part of it, especially if the text was generated cleverly. Plus: you've replied to some point other than what I actually said twice now, what's up with that?
      - netizen-936824 5y ago
        I was simply disagreeing with the predicate that the argument is based on I understand your point about mass text generation as well, that's why I wonder where that line is that makes it "machine generated" in the eyes of the copyright office (although another commenter mentioned that this was admitted by the filer)
    - paxys 5y ago
      The copyright office did not have to judge at all. The author himself insisted that he had nothing to do with the creation and the machine did it by itself, which was obviously a lie.
- lr4444lr 5y ago
  That input and training data isn't what's being copyrighted.
- ummonk 5y ago
  Yes and that would potentially allow the (human) creator to get copyright on the creation.
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paxys 5y ago
What you quoted is the copyright office's policy from 1966, not something new ruled for this case. It only came up because the author himself insisted that he had no input in creating the work (effectively a lie) and so the work MUST be attributed to "Creative Machine" and not him. A work generated by a human-created algorithm with a human name on the application will still be accepted. In fact this describes almost every modern company logo. A lot of art created today is inputs to a computer rather than pen on paper, and the copyright office isn't rejecting any of them for that reason.
- Ansil849 5y ago
  > he had no input in creating the work (effectively a lie) What is the lie? If you give loose instructions to another person to create a work, who holds the copyright, you or the person who created it? Giving input is irrelevant to being the copyright holder.
  - paxys 5y ago
    We aren't debating ownership between two people. The lie is that there is no computer in existence that can produce work "without any creative input or intervention from a human author". Until the day a machine spontaneously becomes self aware and decides to draw something, this policy is a non-issue.
    - deleted 5y ago
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    - rtpg 5y ago
      I believe that the USPTO will have disagreements on this. And like many policy issues there's going to be a bit of a Lemon test regarding what this means. Of course a human needs to set up a program and run it. But I think that this policy is saying "you can't show up with an enumeration of a bunch of things in an attempt to 100% speedrun patents". Like at least prove you tried the thing out a bit! "Did you come up with this idea?" can have different answers. "Yes" is one. "I wrote a program for a computer to apply a bunch of regression on other ideas and spit this out for me" is also "yes", but a different flavor that is closer to "No".
jdavis703 5y ago
If I don’t have any pragmas or other statements to instruct a compiler, does that mean my binary wouldn’t be subject to copyright protection?
- chrismcb 5y ago
  Your binary is generated from your source code. That is the creative input... Or are you saying the source code was written by a machine?
luma 5y ago
This very issue came up in 2014 in relation to a selfie taken by a monkey that became popular on the internet: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disp... The US copyright office wrote: "Only works created by a human can be copyrighted under United States law, which excludes photographs and artwork created by animals or by machines without human intervention" and that "Because copyright law is limited to 'original intellectual conceptions of the author,' the [copyright] office will refuse to register a claim if it determines that a human being did not create the work. The Office will not register works produced by nature, animals, or plants."
ummonk 5y ago
More accurately, machine generated works with no human involvement.

netizen-936824 5y ago

There is input from a human in the form of algorithmic programming and choice of training data

joe_the_user 5y ago
Where the work in question would fall within the law is another question. But it's definite that the US Copyright Office won't copyright a work it considers machine generated, contrary to the gp's claim and the (apparently) rewritten headline. IE, the processed used is not irrelevant.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  I understand, but I disagree with the copyright office's decision. Why is there a distinction made between methods of creation, say if someone used Photoshop to create art vs someone who programmed some ML thing to spit out art of a certain style or genre (ie thisanimedoesnotexist) Where, exactly, does the line lie that was crossed?
  - joe_the_user 5y ago
    I'm not a fan of copyright generally and sure the line might seem arbitrary. But if you consider for second, just one of the problems with copyrighting machine-generated works is that a machine could generate so much text it make thing so any author would be bound to infringe on some part of it, especially if the text was generated cleverly. Plus: you've replied to some point other than what I actually said twice now, what's up with that?
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      I was simply disagreeing with the predicate that the argument is based on I understand your point about mass text generation as well, that's why I wonder where that line is that makes it "machine generated" in the eyes of the copyright office (although another commenter mentioned that this was admitted by the filer)
  - paxys 5y ago
    The copyright office did not have to judge at all. The author himself insisted that he had nothing to do with the creation and the machine did it by itself, which was obviously a lie.
lr4444lr 5y ago
That input and training data isn't what's being copyrighted.
ummonk 5y ago
Yes and that would potentially allow the (human) creator to get copyright on the creation.

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paxys 5y ago

What you quoted is the copyright office's policy from 1966, not something new ruled for this case. It only came up because the author himself insisted that he had no input in creating the work (effectively a lie) and so the work MUST be attributed to "Creative Machine" and not him. A work generated by a human-created algorithm with a human name on the application will still be accepted. In fact this describes almost every modern company logo. A lot of art created today is inputs to a computer rather than pen on paper, and the copyright office isn't rejecting any of them for that reason.

Ansil849 5y ago
> he had no input in creating the work (effectively a lie) What is the lie? If you give loose instructions to another person to create a work, who holds the copyright, you or the person who created it? Giving input is irrelevant to being the copyright holder.
- paxys 5y ago
  We aren't debating ownership between two people. The lie is that there is no computer in existence that can produce work "without any creative input or intervention from a human author". Until the day a machine spontaneously becomes self aware and decides to draw something, this policy is a non-issue.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - rtpg 5y ago
    I believe that the USPTO will have disagreements on this. And like many policy issues there's going to be a bit of a Lemon test regarding what this means. Of course a human needs to set up a program and run it. But I think that this policy is saying "you can't show up with an enumeration of a bunch of things in an attempt to 100% speedrun patents". Like at least prove you tried the thing out a bit! "Did you come up with this idea?" can have different answers. "Yes" is one. "I wrote a program for a computer to apply a bunch of regression on other ideas and spit this out for me" is also "yes", but a different flavor that is closer to "No".

jdavis703 5y ago

If I don’t have any pragmas or other statements to instruct a compiler, does that mean my binary wouldn’t be subject to copyright protection?

chrismcb 5y ago
Your binary is generated from your source code. That is the creative input... Or are you saying the source code was written by a machine?

luma 5y ago

This very issue came up in 2014 in relation to a selfie taken by a monkey that became popular on the internet: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disp... The US copyright office wrote: "Only works created by a human can be copyrighted under United States law, which excludes photographs and artwork created by animals or by machines without human intervention" and that "Because copyright law is limited to 'original intellectual conceptions of the author,' the [copyright] office will refuse to register a claim if it determines that a human being did not create the work. The Office will not register works produced by nature, animals, or plants."

ummonk 5y ago

More accurately, machine generated works with no human involvement.