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No they do not. They assert that the AI can't be the "author", it has to be a human. It's exactly the same as trying to assign copyright to your camera. Even t

No they do not. They assert that the AI can't be the "author", it has to be a human. It's exactly the same as trying to assign copyright to your camera. Even though it generated the image from photons, it was the human pressing the button that mattered.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-copyright-office-rules-ai-art-cant-be-copyrighted-180979808/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-copyright-offic... > An image generated through artificial intelligence lacked the “human authorship” necessary for protection > Both in its 2019 decision and its decision this February, the USCO found the “human authorship” element was lacking and was wholly necessary to obtain a copyright, Engadget’s K. Holt wrote. Current copyright law only provides protections to “the fruits of intellectual labor” that “are founded in the creative powers of the [human] mind,” the USCO states. In his most recent appeal, Thaler argued this “human authorship” requirement was unconstitutional, but the USCO has proven unwilling to “depart from a century of copyright jurisprudence.” Lots of posts on the topic here: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=copyright+office+ai https://hn.algolia.com/?q=copyright+office+ai
- henryfjordan 4y ago
  In that case the human asserted he had absolutely 0 involvement in the matter, less than even using buttons on a camera. If you say "I directed the computer" or "I gave the AI a prompt", that would be enough to support your copyright claims.
- advisedwang 4y ago
  Take a look at the decision: https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/a-recent-entrance-to-paradise.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/... The person was still trying to get the AI marked as the owner. In fact in the application "does not assert that the Work was created with contribution from a human author" which the office acceded to but did not actually agree or disagree with. So it still says nothing about whether a human can have copyright over a image they used an AI to make. It is another example that the AI itself having copyright is rejected.
  - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
    I feel like recent considerations on the need to be creative in producing prompts for AIs like Stable Diffusion to work on/with promotes the argument that a human is sufficiently involved in the process (some times!) to warrant a claim to ownership of the copyright. If they trained the AI then I think it would be a no-brainer in favour of the human being a creative input into the creation of the work. Just my personal opinion.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    A distinction without a difference, since this was just someone who was hoping to be the beneficial owner of an AI with an enforceable copyright interest. Recall the failure of the photographer who allowed monkeys to play with his camera equipment, leading one of them to take a selfie photo that became famous. The photographer asserted copyright on the basis that he had brought his camera there, befriended the monkeys, and set his equipment up in such a way that even a monkey could use it and get a quality image, but his claim to authorship was rejected and so he was unable to realize any profit from selling the photo - although I'm sure he made it up on speaking tours telling the story of how he got it. To be sure, AI created art is done in response to a prompt provided by a human, but unless that human has done all the training and calculation of weights, they can't claim full ownership on the output from the model. There's a stronger case where a human supplies an image prompt and the textual input describes stylistic rather than structural content.
    - iudqnolq 4y ago
      "Is an AI-created work copyrighted and owned by the AI?" and "Is an AI-created work copyrighted and owned by a human?" and " Is an AI-created work copyright infringement?" are three separate questions. Just because the answer is no to the first doesn't mean the answer is no to the second, and the third is ever more distinct. That's why this is an open question educated lawyers make guesses about.
- lbotos 4y ago
  Advisedwang summarizes it below, but here is the key line from the ruling: https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/a-recent-entrance-to-paradise.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/... "the author of the Work was identified as the “Creativity Machine,” with Thaler listed as the claimant alongside a transfer statement: “ownership of the machine.” USCO is maintaining that computers/AI cannot hold copyright, only humans can. If Thaler were to submit again with his own name, I wholeheartedly expect that they would accept it as long as they have no reason to believe it's been previously copyrighted or is not "sufficiently creative". Is that copyright legitimate? Someone would have to then challenge it in court!
- visarga 4y ago
  Doesn't seem to apply to Stable Diffusion and Dall-E because there is substantial human work involved - picking and evolving the prompt and selecting the best result. Sometimes it's also collaging and masking. Maybe it could apply to making "variations" where you just have to click a button. But you still have to choose the subject image on which you do variations, and to pick the best one or scrap the lot. It's completely different from a monkey stealing your camera and shooting some pictures. AI art depends on the intent and taste of the human, except when it's an almost copy of a training set example, but that can be filtered by software. And if we look up from art, there are other fields that stand to benefit from AI image generation. For example illustration for educational contents, or ideas for products - shoes, clothes, cars, interior designs, maybe even cosplay costume design, it could be used to quickly create training data on a very specific topic, or to create de-biasing datasets (super balanced and diverse by design). A specially tuned version could function as a form of mood-inducing therapy - or Rorschach test. As a generative model of images it is of interest for AI research. So copyright gotta be weighed against all the other interests.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    What if you were to... I dunno, create a community that lets in any anonymous person and talks about art. Generate Stable Diffusion prompts from their conversations. Then add an upvote system, so that rather than having an individual pick particular results, the best results generally filter to the top. You could even have the "upvotes" be based on dwell-times or something like that.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    > a monkey stealing your camera It's really not different, because while everyone remembers it that way, the photographer went to great lengths to facilitate the monkey selfie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...
_1 4y ago
Wasn't there an issue a few years back about a photo taken by a monkey was non-copyrightable?
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...
- henryfjordan 4y ago
  Yes and the ruling GP is citing is basically about that scenario but with a computer instead of a monkey. The monkey pressed the buttons on the camera without human direction, and so was the "author". Since the monkey is not a human, no copyright existed. In this case, the human claims the computer had no input at all, it did it by itself, hence no copyright. However we all know that computers can't do things by themselves in the same way as a monkey. The USCO accepts whatever explanation you give them though, so they had to go by the stated facts. In any case where the human operator of the computer actually does want copyright of the images, all they have to do is say "I setup the computer to generate the images" and they will own the copyright.
  - jackblemming 4y ago
    “I setup the monkey to take the picture”

toomuchtodo 4y ago

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-copyright-office-rules-ai-art-cant-be-copyrighted-180979808/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-copyright-offic... > An image generated through artificial intelligence lacked the “human authorship” necessary for protection > Both in its 2019 decision and its decision this February, the USCO found the “human authorship” element was lacking and was wholly necessary to obtain a copyright, Engadget’s K. Holt wrote. Current copyright law only provides protections to “the fruits of intellectual labor” that “are founded in the creative powers of the [human] mind,” the USCO states. In his most recent appeal, Thaler argued this “human authorship” requirement was unconstitutional, but the USCO has proven unwilling to “depart from a century of copyright jurisprudence.” Lots of posts on the topic here: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=copyright+office+ai https://hn.algolia.com/?q=copyright+office+ai

henryfjordan 4y ago
In that case the human asserted he had absolutely 0 involvement in the matter, less than even using buttons on a camera. If you say "I directed the computer" or "I gave the AI a prompt", that would be enough to support your copyright claims.
advisedwang 4y ago
Take a look at the decision: https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/a-recent-entrance-to-paradise.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/... The person was still trying to get the AI marked as the owner. In fact in the application "does not assert that the Work was created with contribution from a human author" which the office acceded to but did not actually agree or disagree with. So it still says nothing about whether a human can have copyright over a image they used an AI to make. It is another example that the AI itself having copyright is rejected.
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  I feel like recent considerations on the need to be creative in producing prompts for AIs like Stable Diffusion to work on/with promotes the argument that a human is sufficiently involved in the process (some times!) to warrant a claim to ownership of the copyright. If they trained the AI then I think it would be a no-brainer in favour of the human being a creative input into the creation of the work. Just my personal opinion.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  A distinction without a difference, since this was just someone who was hoping to be the beneficial owner of an AI with an enforceable copyright interest. Recall the failure of the photographer who allowed monkeys to play with his camera equipment, leading one of them to take a selfie photo that became famous. The photographer asserted copyright on the basis that he had brought his camera there, befriended the monkeys, and set his equipment up in such a way that even a monkey could use it and get a quality image, but his claim to authorship was rejected and so he was unable to realize any profit from selling the photo - although I'm sure he made it up on speaking tours telling the story of how he got it. To be sure, AI created art is done in response to a prompt provided by a human, but unless that human has done all the training and calculation of weights, they can't claim full ownership on the output from the model. There's a stronger case where a human supplies an image prompt and the textual input describes stylistic rather than structural content.
  - iudqnolq 4y ago
    "Is an AI-created work copyrighted and owned by the AI?" and "Is an AI-created work copyrighted and owned by a human?" and " Is an AI-created work copyright infringement?" are three separate questions. Just because the answer is no to the first doesn't mean the answer is no to the second, and the third is ever more distinct. That's why this is an open question educated lawyers make guesses about.
lbotos 4y ago
Advisedwang summarizes it below, but here is the key line from the ruling: https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/a-recent-entrance-to-paradise.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/... "the author of the Work was identified as the “Creativity Machine,” with Thaler listed as the claimant alongside a transfer statement: “ownership of the machine.” USCO is maintaining that computers/AI cannot hold copyright, only humans can. If Thaler were to submit again with his own name, I wholeheartedly expect that they would accept it as long as they have no reason to believe it's been previously copyrighted or is not "sufficiently creative". Is that copyright legitimate? Someone would have to then challenge it in court!
visarga 4y ago
Doesn't seem to apply to Stable Diffusion and Dall-E because there is substantial human work involved - picking and evolving the prompt and selecting the best result. Sometimes it's also collaging and masking. Maybe it could apply to making "variations" where you just have to click a button. But you still have to choose the subject image on which you do variations, and to pick the best one or scrap the lot. It's completely different from a monkey stealing your camera and shooting some pictures. AI art depends on the intent and taste of the human, except when it's an almost copy of a training set example, but that can be filtered by software. And if we look up from art, there are other fields that stand to benefit from AI image generation. For example illustration for educational contents, or ideas for products - shoes, clothes, cars, interior designs, maybe even cosplay costume design, it could be used to quickly create training data on a very specific topic, or to create de-biasing datasets (super balanced and diverse by design). A specially tuned version could function as a form of mood-inducing therapy - or Rorschach test. As a generative model of images it is of interest for AI research. So copyright gotta be weighed against all the other interests.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  What if you were to... I dunno, create a community that lets in any anonymous person and talks about art. Generate Stable Diffusion prompts from their conversations. Then add an upvote system, so that rather than having an individual pick particular results, the best results generally filter to the top. You could even have the "upvotes" be based on dwell-times or something like that.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  > a monkey stealing your camera It's really not different, because while everyone remembers it that way, the photographer went to great lengths to facilitate the monkey selfie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...

_1 4y ago

Wasn't there an issue a few years back about a photo taken by a monkey was non-copyrightable?

toomuchtodo 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...
henryfjordan 4y ago
Yes and the ruling GP is citing is basically about that scenario but with a computer instead of a monkey. The monkey pressed the buttons on the camera without human direction, and so was the "author". Since the monkey is not a human, no copyright existed. In this case, the human claims the computer had no input at all, it did it by itself, hence no copyright. However we all know that computers can't do things by themselves in the same way as a monkey. The USCO accepts whatever explanation you give them though, so they had to go by the stated facts. In any case where the human operator of the computer actually does want copyright of the images, all they have to do is say "I setup the computer to generate the images" and they will own the copyright.
- jackblemming 4y ago
  “I setup the monkey to take the picture”