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> In 2021, the Canadian agency ISED (Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada) recommended three approaches to the question: > 1. Ownership belongs

> In 2021, the Canadian agency ISED (Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada) recommended three approaches to the question: > 1. Ownership belongs to the person who arranged for the work to be created. > 2. Ownership and copyright are only applicable to works produced by humans, and thus, the resultant code would not be eligible for copyright protection. > 3. A new "authorless" set of rights should be created for AI-generated works. It seems obvious to me that the answer should be #1. An artist who creates works out of random paint splatters (modern art!) didn't purposefully choose the locations of their paint marks. However, they still own the copyright because they arranged for the creation of the work. You would never argue that a piece like this is uncopyrightable.

Terr_ 2y ago
Using that analogy, you are stochastically sampling from other people's splat mark art, and guiding it towards something that resembles the prior work. I'd like to take a moment to emphasize that whether something is copyrightable and whether it is infringing are actually separate considerations. Both are social constructs the same as which side of the road one drives on, and it makes sense for us to define them in some way that is "fair", whatever that means.
martin-t 2y ago
They completely forgot a 4th option: it belongs to the people who have copyright on the training data. If I take someone's book, painstakingly replace all words with their synonyms and publish it as mine, I am getting sued. Same if I do some other mechanical transformation meant to obscure the true original work. There's no AI, there's just statistical models of existing work.
- chrismcb 2y ago
  If you take a bunch of books. Read then. Then write your own story with hints from each of the books, then who owns the copyright? Yes if you take a single work and replace every word with a synonym, that works be infringement. But that isn't what an ai does
  - martin-t 2y ago
    Let me reiterate, there is no AI, there are only statistical models. It doesn't matter if you make the math too complex for a human to make sense of or not, it's just a remix of existing copyrighted material. Your argument forgets why copyright even exists, it's some a law of nature, it's a rule created to protect people who invest time and effort into creating. AI even if it existed would not be a person, it would be code created by a person (or more likely a corporation) to serve its goals.
    - illiac786 2y ago
      I disagree, it does matter if the math is indistinguishable from human transformative work. What matters is the result, not the process. It’s hard to swallow with AI, but there is no other solution in my view. If we start using the process as a criteria for copyrighting, then we have chaos. Indeed, you cannot prove which process was used after the fact, especially not with AI. And the reverse is particularly problematic: anyone could then allege some human work is in fact AI and hence cannot be copyrighted. We’re breaking the copyright system if we focus on the process. Another example: if you ask an AI to create something “in the style of xxx”, then the result may be something that is infringing copyright, but so would be humans work producing tbd same output. In the end, what matters is the output, not the fact that it’s math or a human. We’re also just a bunch of atoms in the end, one could argue, very similar to a very complex mathematical model…
      - martin-t 2y ago
        > Indeed, you cannot prove which process was used after the fact, especially not with AI. Citation needed. > anyone could then allege some human work is in fact AI and hence cannot be copyrighted I didn't say that. I said the copyright should belong to the original author. If some new work is provably based on old work to a substantial degree, it's plagiarism. Same as now. Indeed, the tool used does not matter in this case. And we know today's LLMs produce code based on copyrighted original work because they readily admit they scraped everything available to them, regardless if it was proprietary, copyleft or public domain. Older versions literally produced entire functions copy-pasted from GPL-licensed Quake code. They "patched" that now to be less blatant (mix more) but it does not make it right or legal. --- Now imagine a rogue employee of Google trains an LLM on all of Google's proprietary code (and only Google's code) and releases it publicly under, say, Apache 2.0. Can you imagine Google saying it's OK and not suing? What if that person also got his friends from Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and Amazon to pool their companies' source codes? Would that be enough mixing? Clearly the LLM would only be regurgitating code that belongs to one of these companies. What if instead somebody scraped only AGPL code and released the model under Apache 2.0? Clearly whatever comes out of the model is in its entirety based on work that is licensed under AGPL and therefore also has to be licensed under AGPL.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
chrismcb 2y ago
Copyright implies creativity. The creator owns the copyright, expect for in works for hire. But the thing has to be created. An ai doesn't have creativity so it can't own a copyright. You could argue that the person who created the prompt owns the copyright. And you may have a valid point based on how much creativity is required.
- badsectoracula 2y ago
  TBH i do not see "prompts" to be copyrightable. For one, they're incredibly short (e.g. most image generators will output something for "a green field" - who owns that prompt?). For another, they're incredibly reliant on pretty much everything else around the system: the same prompt can produce wildly different results based on different algorithms, models, weights, etc. And let's not forget that not everything uses a "prompt". Prompts are really just a UI (with a bad UX IMO, it just happens to be impressive at a first glance to "talk with the computer"), trying to copyright a prompt is akin to trying to copyright a series of clicks and keypresses in an image editor to produce some effect (and just like a "prompt", you'd easily get different results depending on where you apply that effect, what program/version you are using, etc).
  - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
    > trying to copyright a prompt is akin to trying to copyright a series of clicks and keypresses in an image editor to produce some effect But, isn't that copyrightable? Like, if I draw a pixel art sprite, that's just a series of clicks.
    - badsectoracula 2y ago
      No, the copyrightable part is the pixel art sprite, not the way you made it.
      - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
        ...I don't see how this is different from saying "the copyrightable part is the AI-generated image, not the way you made it". You might argue "well you didn't make the AI image", but if not for me doing something it wouldn't exist, so we're back to discussing process.
moomin 2y ago
1) is an utter minefield, though. If you create an artwork using Adobe Photoshop, you have the copyright. If you use Minecraft, apparently Microsoft own it. So where does the prompt engineer lie? No-one knows.
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago
  Microsoft owns the copyright to everything created in Minecraft?! That's news to me. Is it in the Terms of Service or something? I would very much hope that wouldn't hold up in court.
  - moomin 2y ago
    It’s mentioned in the article, there’s case law.
    - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
      I read the article again, what am I missing? I'm sorry, I know I must be skipping over something somehow but I don't know what!
      - moomin 2y ago
        That's my reading of the following: A case before the High Court (roughly analogous to the US Supreme Court) determined that images produced in a video game were the property of the game developer, not the player -- even though the player manipulated the game to produce a unique arrangement of game assets on the screen.
        Wowfunhappy 2y ago
        Ah—I wonder if that would really apply to something like Minecraft though. See, I do agree with the court if you're playing through a linear game like Portal or Uncharted. Yes, technically the exact frames are unique to your playthrough, but the creativity came from the game developer. Minecraft is something very different.

Terr_ 2y ago

Using that analogy, you are stochastically sampling from other people's splat mark art, and guiding it towards something that resembles the prior work. I'd like to take a moment to emphasize that whether something is copyrightable and whether it is infringing are actually separate considerations. Both are social constructs the same as which side of the road one drives on, and it makes sense for us to define them in some way that is "fair", whatever that means.

martin-t 2y ago

They completely forgot a 4th option: it belongs to the people who have copyright on the training data. If I take someone's book, painstakingly replace all words with their synonyms and publish it as mine, I am getting sued. Same if I do some other mechanical transformation meant to obscure the true original work. There's no AI, there's just statistical models of existing work.

chrismcb 2y ago
If you take a bunch of books. Read then. Then write your own story with hints from each of the books, then who owns the copyright? Yes if you take a single work and replace every word with a synonym, that works be infringement. But that isn't what an ai does
- martin-t 2y ago
  Let me reiterate, there is no AI, there are only statistical models. It doesn't matter if you make the math too complex for a human to make sense of or not, it's just a remix of existing copyrighted material. Your argument forgets why copyright even exists, it's some a law of nature, it's a rule created to protect people who invest time and effort into creating. AI even if it existed would not be a person, it would be code created by a person (or more likely a corporation) to serve its goals.
  - illiac786 2y ago
    I disagree, it does matter if the math is indistinguishable from human transformative work. What matters is the result, not the process. It’s hard to swallow with AI, but there is no other solution in my view. If we start using the process as a criteria for copyrighting, then we have chaos. Indeed, you cannot prove which process was used after the fact, especially not with AI. And the reverse is particularly problematic: anyone could then allege some human work is in fact AI and hence cannot be copyrighted. We’re breaking the copyright system if we focus on the process. Another example: if you ask an AI to create something “in the style of xxx”, then the result may be something that is infringing copyright, but so would be humans work producing tbd same output. In the end, what matters is the output, not the fact that it’s math or a human. We’re also just a bunch of atoms in the end, one could argue, very similar to a very complex mathematical model…
    - martin-t 2y ago
      > Indeed, you cannot prove which process was used after the fact, especially not with AI. Citation needed. > anyone could then allege some human work is in fact AI and hence cannot be copyrighted I didn't say that. I said the copyright should belong to the original author. If some new work is provably based on old work to a substantial degree, it's plagiarism. Same as now. Indeed, the tool used does not matter in this case. And we know today's LLMs produce code based on copyrighted original work because they readily admit they scraped everything available to them, regardless if it was proprietary, copyleft or public domain. Older versions literally produced entire functions copy-pasted from GPL-licensed Quake code. They "patched" that now to be less blatant (mix more) but it does not make it right or legal. --- Now imagine a rogue employee of Google trains an LLM on all of Google's proprietary code (and only Google's code) and releases it publicly under, say, Apache 2.0. Can you imagine Google saying it's OK and not suing? What if that person also got his friends from Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and Amazon to pool their companies' source codes? Would that be enough mixing? Clearly the LLM would only be regurgitating code that belongs to one of these companies. What if instead somebody scraped only AGPL code and released the model under Apache 2.0? Clearly whatever comes out of the model is in its entirety based on work that is licensed under AGPL and therefore also has to be licensed under AGPL.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

chrismcb 2y ago

Copyright implies creativity. The creator owns the copyright, expect for in works for hire. But the thing has to be created. An ai doesn't have creativity so it can't own a copyright. You could argue that the person who created the prompt owns the copyright. And you may have a valid point based on how much creativity is required.

badsectoracula 2y ago
TBH i do not see "prompts" to be copyrightable. For one, they're incredibly short (e.g. most image generators will output something for "a green field" - who owns that prompt?). For another, they're incredibly reliant on pretty much everything else around the system: the same prompt can produce wildly different results based on different algorithms, models, weights, etc. And let's not forget that not everything uses a "prompt". Prompts are really just a UI (with a bad UX IMO, it just happens to be impressive at a first glance to "talk with the computer"), trying to copyright a prompt is akin to trying to copyright a series of clicks and keypresses in an image editor to produce some effect (and just like a "prompt", you'd easily get different results depending on where you apply that effect, what program/version you are using, etc).
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago
  > trying to copyright a prompt is akin to trying to copyright a series of clicks and keypresses in an image editor to produce some effect But, isn't that copyrightable? Like, if I draw a pixel art sprite, that's just a series of clicks.
  - badsectoracula 2y ago
    No, the copyrightable part is the pixel art sprite, not the way you made it.
    - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
      ...I don't see how this is different from saying "the copyrightable part is the AI-generated image, not the way you made it". You might argue "well you didn't make the AI image", but if not for me doing something it wouldn't exist, so we're back to discussing process.

moomin 2y ago

1) is an utter minefield, though. If you create an artwork using Adobe Photoshop, you have the copyright. If you use Minecraft, apparently Microsoft own it. So where does the prompt engineer lie? No-one knows.

Wowfunhappy 2y ago
Microsoft owns the copyright to everything created in Minecraft?! That's news to me. Is it in the Terms of Service or something? I would very much hope that wouldn't hold up in court.
- moomin 2y ago
  It’s mentioned in the article, there’s case law.
  - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
    I read the article again, what am I missing? I'm sorry, I know I must be skipping over something somehow but I don't know what!
    - moomin 2y ago
      That's my reading of the following: A case before the High Court (roughly analogous to the US Supreme Court) determined that images produced in a video game were the property of the game developer, not the player -- even though the player manipulated the game to produce a unique arrangement of game assets on the screen.
      - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
        Ah—I wonder if that would really apply to something like Minecraft though. See, I do agree with the court if you're playing through a linear game like Portal or Uncharted. Yes, technically the exact frames are unique to your playthrough, but the creativity came from the game developer. Minecraft is something very different.