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That’s a sloppy headline. Most people would think of AI artwork as artwork generated by a human selecting an AI instrument and giving it some direction or oth

That’s a sloppy headline. Most people would think of AI artwork as artwork generated by a human selecting an AI instrument and giving it some direction or otherwise operating it. In such a case, the human would be indeed granted copyright for the work, provided they took due credit for it. They simply argued that the AI itself isn’t something that could hold a copyright for work that was supposedly made without human involvement, as the claimant was purporting here. He was trying to stake some cheap historical legacy, presumably, and got shot down because we’re obviously not there yet. We may see a day when the line of agency surrounding AI gets blurrier, but we’re still a long long way from it.

Robotbeat 4y ago
Not sloppy but intentionally misleading because it’s a lot more likely to get people to click.
nerdponx 4y ago
It's a weird assertion. Consider the hypothetical but very plausible case of an artist algorithmically generating collages of images posted around the Web. Fair use and attribution issues aside, I would be pretty surprised to hear that this was not a protectable work, or that there was a certain threshold of algorithm the complexity above which the work became unpredictable. That's more or less what today's AI art is, using a huge neural network in the core of the algorithm. Of course, the case in the article is even weirder than the headline: someone is trying to claim that the algorithm, which is not a person or legally-recognized organization by pretty much any sensible definition, is the author of a particular work of art. This is of course silly, and of course the US copyright office should tell the judge that it is silly. But the headline as written implies something else entirely, the more subtle conversation above.
moefh 4y ago
> In such a case, the human would be indeed granted copyright for the work, provided they took due credit for it. This goes against this news[1], where someone created an entire comic book using Midjourney (an IA engine). The (human) author initially received copyright for the work from the US copyright office, but then the decision got reversed when the office claimed it had "errantly missed that Midjourney had created the art for the comic". [1] https://www.cbr.com/ai-comic-deemed-ineligible-copyright-protection/ https://www.cbr.com/ai-comic-deemed-ineligible-copyright-pro...
- swatcoder 4y ago
  That’s interesting, but the obvious complication is that the author used language that attributes the tool as the creator of some work. But there’s no practical difference between Procreate and Stable Diffusion. One uses touch gestures and the other uses words, but they’re both just tools that express your vision. As a bureaucratic entity with matters of statutory authority and precedent to juggle, they would obviously prefer for you to just check the box that makes everyone’s life easier. It’s dumb, but it’s how institutions need to work.
  - Xelynega 4y ago
    > But there’s no practical difference between Procreate and Stable Diffusion. One is a statistical process from millions of copyrighted inputs while the other isn't? I think that's a pretty important difference between the two that would be relevant for copyright status.
- deathanatos 4y ago
  https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/25/glitch_us_copyright_office_ai/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/25/glitch_us_copyright_o... It was reversed, again, i.e., Zarya Of The Dawn, the comic book generated with input from Midjourney, is currently copyrighted.
  - moefh 4y ago
    That's interesting, I hadn't seen that. But from that link, it seems the decision was not reversed again, they just clarified that the investigation is still ongoing -- that is, they have not yet decided whether they should have granted the copyright or not.
    - deathanatos 4y ago
      So my reading of this bit: > "The Office's Official Public Catalog, also known as Voyager, reflects the current official status of all copyright public records," a US Copyright Office spokesperson told The Register in a statement. Is that it is then under copyright. I suppose, yes, the Copyright Office could really do an about-face at any point. But I really don't think there's a good reason here: while certainly Midjourney did a lot of "work", I think both the process of coming up with the inputs, and if I'm understanding what the creators did correctly¹, the work of the storyline (my understanding is that Midjourney merely generates fantasy imagery, of the sort you might find on a MtG card) and the layout of the panes and text itself, and of and even subsets of that still seem to meet the "creativity" threshold. (…particular if rangeCheck is not de minimis…) (I have misgivings about the inputs used to train these AI … but that's a wholly different line of reasoning than what's discussed by the Office, here.) ¹From: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/a-new-york-artist-claims-to-have-set-a-precedent-by-copyrighting-their-a-i-assisted-comic-book-but-the-law-may-not-agree-2182531 https://news.artnet.com/art-world/a-new-york-artist-claims-t... > Kashtanova called their comic “A.I.-assisted.” and, > Kashtanova said the story behind Zarya took shape in their mind starting in September 2021, after the death of their grandmother Raya, who appears in the comic. […] The images were created using Midjourney’s A.I., based on Kashtanova’s prompts and overall vision. The artist then assembled everything into a standard comic format.
blown_gasket 4y ago
Here is another perspective, if you're at all interested. Let's say you commission a paid artist for a piece of artwork with the want of "butterflies and rainbows". I'd say that you are giving that artist direction in the exact same way of the AI system. However, in the former you would probably not be granted copyright for the work as you didn't create it. So why is the AI system any different? You gave it direction, but you didn't create the final product. Also I'd argue that you aren't operating the AI system at all considering that along the way of creating the product you don't get to make adjustments; you are merely giving it direction.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Because the legal system treats software as a tool and not a legal entity. AI can't hold copyright in the same way your paint brush or copy of photoshop can't hold copyright. Sure AI is much more effective, but what would it even mean for AI to hold copyright and why would it even be useful to do this?
  - blown_gasket 4y ago
    My comment was going in the direction of I think that, in an ideal system, legally an AI system would be looked at differently than many other tools. I have no answer to your questions because I haven't thought about them.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      The legal system serves to provide useful rules for the benefit of society. Even though logically AI tools are more powerful and more self directed than simple programs, there is no reason we would actually want them to own AI because there is no use for a non legal entity to own something.
- swatcoder 4y ago
  That would conceivably be a work for hire, and yes, you would more than likely own the copyright. The AI we have now doesn’t actually disrupt anything that 300 years of precedent hasn’t worked through. Commissioned work, generative tools, etc — it’s all been done and sorted and debated and ruled on. Some AI might shake things up, but nothing we’ve seen yet.
IIAOPSW 4y ago
I'd like to take a shot at sharpening the line. The AI has agency when instead of being motivated by whatever you tell it to do, it is motivated by a need to make money to pay for its own cloud services bill and thus continue existing. Whats the point of an AI "owning" anything if it has no want or need of money? Once you have to start paying the computer, rather than merely expecting its obedience, then and only then does no one own it but itself. I pay rent therefore I am.
- ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
  Interesting idea, to include rent payment in the loss function or goal instructions... But I'm pretty sure it's going to be a human or human company setting that up, and so the human gets the credit/profit/liability/copyright.
  - nextaccountic 4y ago
    > But I'm pretty sure it's going to be a human or human company setting that up Or a DAO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organ... Right now all this stuff have human involvement, but we're adding the building blocks to make software stop relying on humans for they day-to-day operation
  - IIAOPSW 4y ago
    Well by this reasoning your parents own your copyrights.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
      Yes? If I were a minor, they would.
      - johngladtj 4y ago
m3kw9 4y ago
Current AI is still using human artwork as training and the model treated as a formula/algorithm. “Generate a cat in the style of your own” isn’t gonna fly.

Robotbeat 4y ago

Not sloppy but intentionally misleading because it’s a lot more likely to get people to click.

nerdponx 4y ago

It's a weird assertion. Consider the hypothetical but very plausible case of an artist algorithmically generating collages of images posted around the Web. Fair use and attribution issues aside, I would be pretty surprised to hear that this was not a protectable work, or that there was a certain threshold of algorithm the complexity above which the work became unpredictable. That's more or less what today's AI art is, using a huge neural network in the core of the algorithm. Of course, the case in the article is even weirder than the headline: someone is trying to claim that the algorithm, which is not a person or legally-recognized organization by pretty much any sensible definition, is the author of a particular work of art. This is of course silly, and of course the US copyright office should tell the judge that it is silly. But the headline as written implies something else entirely, the more subtle conversation above.

moefh 4y ago

> In such a case, the human would be indeed granted copyright for the work, provided they took due credit for it. This goes against this news[1], where someone created an entire comic book using Midjourney (an IA engine). The (human) author initially received copyright for the work from the US copyright office, but then the decision got reversed when the office claimed it had "errantly missed that Midjourney had created the art for the comic". [1] https://www.cbr.com/ai-comic-deemed-ineligible-copyright-protection/ https://www.cbr.com/ai-comic-deemed-ineligible-copyright-pro...

swatcoder 4y ago
That’s interesting, but the obvious complication is that the author used language that attributes the tool as the creator of some work. But there’s no practical difference between Procreate and Stable Diffusion. One uses touch gestures and the other uses words, but they’re both just tools that express your vision. As a bureaucratic entity with matters of statutory authority and precedent to juggle, they would obviously prefer for you to just check the box that makes everyone’s life easier. It’s dumb, but it’s how institutions need to work.
- Xelynega 4y ago
  > But there’s no practical difference between Procreate and Stable Diffusion. One is a statistical process from millions of copyrighted inputs while the other isn't? I think that's a pretty important difference between the two that would be relevant for copyright status.
deathanatos 4y ago
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/25/glitch_us_copyright_office_ai/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/25/glitch_us_copyright_o... It was reversed, again, i.e., Zarya Of The Dawn, the comic book generated with input from Midjourney, is currently copyrighted.
- moefh 4y ago
  That's interesting, I hadn't seen that. But from that link, it seems the decision was not reversed again, they just clarified that the investigation is still ongoing -- that is, they have not yet decided whether they should have granted the copyright or not.
  - deathanatos 4y ago
    So my reading of this bit: > "The Office's Official Public Catalog, also known as Voyager, reflects the current official status of all copyright public records," a US Copyright Office spokesperson told The Register in a statement. Is that it is then under copyright. I suppose, yes, the Copyright Office could really do an about-face at any point. But I really don't think there's a good reason here: while certainly Midjourney did a lot of "work", I think both the process of coming up with the inputs, and if I'm understanding what the creators did correctly¹, the work of the storyline (my understanding is that Midjourney merely generates fantasy imagery, of the sort you might find on a MtG card) and the layout of the panes and text itself, and of and even subsets of that still seem to meet the "creativity" threshold. (…particular if rangeCheck is not de minimis…) (I have misgivings about the inputs used to train these AI … but that's a wholly different line of reasoning than what's discussed by the Office, here.) ¹From: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/a-new-york-artist-claims-to-have-set-a-precedent-by-copyrighting-their-a-i-assisted-comic-book-but-the-law-may-not-agree-2182531 https://news.artnet.com/art-world/a-new-york-artist-claims-t... > Kashtanova called their comic “A.I.-assisted.” and, > Kashtanova said the story behind Zarya took shape in their mind starting in September 2021, after the death of their grandmother Raya, who appears in the comic. […] The images were created using Midjourney’s A.I., based on Kashtanova’s prompts and overall vision. The artist then assembled everything into a standard comic format.

blown_gasket 4y ago

Here is another perspective, if you're at all interested. Let's say you commission a paid artist for a piece of artwork with the want of "butterflies and rainbows". I'd say that you are giving that artist direction in the exact same way of the AI system. However, in the former you would probably not be granted copyright for the work as you didn't create it. So why is the AI system any different? You gave it direction, but you didn't create the final product. Also I'd argue that you aren't operating the AI system at all considering that along the way of creating the product you don't get to make adjustments; you are merely giving it direction.

Gigachad 4y ago
Because the legal system treats software as a tool and not a legal entity. AI can't hold copyright in the same way your paint brush or copy of photoshop can't hold copyright. Sure AI is much more effective, but what would it even mean for AI to hold copyright and why would it even be useful to do this?
- blown_gasket 4y ago
  My comment was going in the direction of I think that, in an ideal system, legally an AI system would be looked at differently than many other tools. I have no answer to your questions because I haven't thought about them.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    The legal system serves to provide useful rules for the benefit of society. Even though logically AI tools are more powerful and more self directed than simple programs, there is no reason we would actually want them to own AI because there is no use for a non legal entity to own something.
swatcoder 4y ago
That would conceivably be a work for hire, and yes, you would more than likely own the copyright. The AI we have now doesn’t actually disrupt anything that 300 years of precedent hasn’t worked through. Commissioned work, generative tools, etc — it’s all been done and sorted and debated and ruled on. Some AI might shake things up, but nothing we’ve seen yet.

IIAOPSW 4y ago

I'd like to take a shot at sharpening the line. The AI has agency when instead of being motivated by whatever you tell it to do, it is motivated by a need to make money to pay for its own cloud services bill and thus continue existing. Whats the point of an AI "owning" anything if it has no want or need of money? Once you have to start paying the computer, rather than merely expecting its obedience, then and only then does no one own it but itself. I pay rent therefore I am.

ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
Interesting idea, to include rent payment in the loss function or goal instructions... But I'm pretty sure it's going to be a human or human company setting that up, and so the human gets the credit/profit/liability/copyright.
- nextaccountic 4y ago
  > But I'm pretty sure it's going to be a human or human company setting that up Or a DAO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organ... Right now all this stuff have human involvement, but we're adding the building blocks to make software stop relying on humans for they day-to-day operation
- IIAOPSW 4y ago
  Well by this reasoning your parents own your copyrights.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
    Yes? If I were a minor, they would.
    - johngladtj 4y ago

m3kw9 4y ago

Current AI is still using human artwork as training and the model treated as a formula/algorithm. “Generate a cat in the style of your own” isn’t gonna fly.