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AI-produced art is still human-made, as a person does the job of engineering a prompt and selecting from the generated images. The copyrightability of such work

by ummonk 4y ago

AI-produced art is still human-made, as a person does the job of engineering a prompt and selecting from the generated images. The copyrightability of such work is unlikely to ever seriously be in question.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ska 4y ago
That's not so obviously clear cut. Can the model produce identical output from the same simple prompt?
- MintsJohn 4y ago
  But that's exactly what happens, AI isn't randomness, it's a set of predefined calculations. The randomness is in the seed/starting point. For e.g Stable Diffusion it is given/user input, resulting in perfect reproducibility.
  - ska 4y ago
    I should have been clearer - that was rhetorical to point out that if you and I use the same prompt and pick the same resultant image, it's harder to claim either of us have copyright. This is a gray area. The tools themselves could introduce some stochastic aspect so that outputs are never identical, also. None of this leads to an obviously clear cut legal position wrt copyright.
    - salawat 4y ago
      Your (and the other person's) set pf inputs drive a mathematical function that derives the same output. If we were all honest, we'd give up the idea of copyright altogether where ML is concerned. You can't get much closer to "It's just math, man" than what it is currently.
      - ummonk 4y ago
        Vector art is just math, yet you can get copyright on it.
      - ska 4y ago
        I think we are saying the same thing, roughly. Of course, "it's just math, man" isn't precisely a legal argument, either.
indymike 4y ago
This is what I would like to believe… but needs to be proven before I stake my business on it.
mr_toad 4y ago
It might be hard to argue that a prompt is original enough to be covered by copyright. Shorter, simpler prompts might be ruled unoriginal.
sacado2 4y ago
This is not as obvious as you may think. This is closely related to the "monkey selfies" copyright claim issues. The court didn't seem to agree with the photographer who said "I own the copyright of those pictures because I configured the camera by myself and put it there, the monkey only pushed the button."
- ummonk 4y ago
  The court didn't rule on the monkey selfies copyright claim. The copyright owner just ran out of money to pay for a lawyer and gave up fighting against Wikimedia.

by ummonk 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ska 4y ago

That's not so obviously clear cut. Can the model produce identical output from the same simple prompt?

MintsJohn 4y ago
But that's exactly what happens, AI isn't randomness, it's a set of predefined calculations. The randomness is in the seed/starting point. For e.g Stable Diffusion it is given/user input, resulting in perfect reproducibility.
- ska 4y ago
  I should have been clearer - that was rhetorical to point out that if you and I use the same prompt and pick the same resultant image, it's harder to claim either of us have copyright. This is a gray area. The tools themselves could introduce some stochastic aspect so that outputs are never identical, also. None of this leads to an obviously clear cut legal position wrt copyright.
  - salawat 4y ago
    Your (and the other person's) set pf inputs drive a mathematical function that derives the same output. If we were all honest, we'd give up the idea of copyright altogether where ML is concerned. You can't get much closer to "It's just math, man" than what it is currently.
    - ummonk 4y ago
      Vector art is just math, yet you can get copyright on it.
    - ska 4y ago
      I think we are saying the same thing, roughly. Of course, "it's just math, man" isn't precisely a legal argument, either.

indymike 4y ago

This is what I would like to believe… but needs to be proven before I stake my business on it.

mr_toad 4y ago

It might be hard to argue that a prompt is original enough to be covered by copyright. Shorter, simpler prompts might be ruled unoriginal.

sacado2 4y ago

This is not as obvious as you may think. This is closely related to the "monkey selfies" copyright claim issues. The court didn't seem to agree with the photographer who said "I own the copyright of those pictures because I configured the camera by myself and put it there, the monkey only pushed the button."

ummonk 4y ago
The court didn't rule on the monkey selfies copyright claim. The copyright owner just ran out of money to pay for a lawyer and gave up fighting against Wikimedia.