Perhaps all documents should be watermarked “grammar improved by Microsoft Word” or “Animation effects provided by Keynote” or have films watermarked with “Auto

Perhaps all documents should be watermarked “grammar improved by Microsoft Word” or “Animation effects provided by Keynote” or have films watermarked with “Automatic Color Correction provided by DaVinci.” It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton: “Ghostwritten by Barbara Feinman.” If we want to watermark GPT, fine — then let’s watermark absolutely everything not directly and personally created by the claimed creator. But we’re getting into interesting legal territory here — work for hire agreements would be in jeopardy because authorship of something under work for hire is owned by then company, not the contractor. There’s also a First Amendment issue — requiring companies and individuals to watermark creative works or disclose uncredited authors amounts to compelled speech that doesn’t serve a public interest high enough to provide an exception to First Amendment protections. The unintended (or perhaps subversively intended) consequences of requiring watermarks can be astounding. Journalists could potentially be compelled to reveal sources for instance because the content they’ve created was partially provided by someone else. It’s a stretch, but then again, the gymnastics courts and prosecutors routinely employ make such scenarios plausible (albeit unlikely.)