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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

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.
      - badsectoracula 2y ago
        I already explained why it is different in my original post: the prompts are UI (and IMO a bad one at that). UI interactions are not copyrightable - you could copyright some sort of program/script akin to automation, but what would be copyrightable is the program/script itself, not the actions it takes. You doing "something" doesn't mean that "something" is copyrightable - or that it should be (if anything, less things should be).
        Wowfunhappy 2y ago
        I don't mean to go in circles, but I think that applies to pixel art! You made the pixel art via a series of UI interactions, nothing more and nothing less. You said that for pixel art "the copyrightable part is the pixel art sprite," but then couldn't I say the copyrightable part of an AI-generated image is the generated image? Again, both of these creations were made via UI interactions! If UI interactions aren't copyrightable, then practically no digital art is copyrightable, because all of it can be recreated by a series of UI interactions. I'm not understanding how a digital drawing and an AI drawing are different under your framework.
        badsectoracula 2y ago
        > You said that for pixel art "the copyrightable part is the pixel art sprite," but then couldn't I say the copyrightable part of an AI-generated image is the generated image? Again, both of these creations were made via UI interactions! No, because AI-generated images are machine output which isn't considered copyrightable. This isn't unique to AI-generated images, or even AI-generated output, but anything machine generated. That you did something to cause the machine to generate that output doesn't really mean anything since after all machines do not generate outputs by themselves, they need some human input - even if that input is to press a "Start doing things" button. (if anything this isn't even unique to machine generated stuff, not all things are copyrightable - for example in many countries bitmap fonts are not copyrightable) > If UI interactions aren't copyrightable, then practically no digital art is copyrightable, because all of it can be recreated by a series of UI interactions. I'm not understanding how a digital drawing and an AI drawing are different under your framework. It isn't my framework, it is how things happen right now (if it was up to me, copyrights would be even more lax than they are right now - e.g. i see things like youtubers having to fear DMCA claims and twitch.tv streams getting muted as something that should never happen). Digital art is copyrightable because it is the direct result of human work, AI-generated art is not because a machine made it - even if it was on a human's "request". You can use the AI-generated art as part of human work (f.e. draw some mustache on a generated face :-P) and that would be copyrightable. Think of AI generated content (not just art, what i write applies to anything generated) like the result of `for (int i=0; i < pixel_count; i++) pixels[i] = random();` - claiming that the result of that is copyrightable makes no sense - and the laws, at least so far, seem to agree with this. In addition if you compile a C program that is just the line above (plus a bit of scaffolding to interface with the OS) you could probably claim copyright on the program itself (if you wrote it) but you couldn't claim copyright on the actions of opening a terminal, running the C compiler and then running the program. If you add some extra parameters to the program to control the randomness spread per RGB channel and X,Y coordinates, like -say- `the_program -rrnd 32..64 -grnd 100..200 -brnd 0..64 -yrrnd 0..100 -ygrnd 100..200` or something like that you wouldn't claim copyright to the parameters `-rrnd 32..64 -grnd 100..200 -brnd 0..64 -yrrnd 0..100 -ygrnd 100..200` pretty much like you wouldn't claim copyright to parameters like `-ffast-math -O3 -march=native` etc to GCC or Clang -- and yet those are the equivalent to a "prompt".
deleted 2y ago
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ziml77 2y ago
> The creator owns the copyright, expect for in works for hire. The exception is actually more narrow than it sounds too. Work for hire requires that the work be made as part of employment or that the work was both commissioned for a handful of carveouts and there was a contract in place agreeing that it is considered a work for hire. So if you commission a piece of art for yourself, the owner of the copyright is the artist. Also my understanding is that while the artist can transfer copyright, they can at any point take it back from you.

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.
    - badsectoracula 2y ago
      I already explained why it is different in my original post: the prompts are UI (and IMO a bad one at that). UI interactions are not copyrightable - you could copyright some sort of program/script akin to automation, but what would be copyrightable is the program/script itself, not the actions it takes. You doing "something" doesn't mean that "something" is copyrightable - or that it should be (if anything, less things should be).
      - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
        I don't mean to go in circles, but I think that applies to pixel art! You made the pixel art via a series of UI interactions, nothing more and nothing less. You said that for pixel art "the copyrightable part is the pixel art sprite," but then couldn't I say the copyrightable part of an AI-generated image is the generated image? Again, both of these creations were made via UI interactions! If UI interactions aren't copyrightable, then practically no digital art is copyrightable, because all of it can be recreated by a series of UI interactions. I'm not understanding how a digital drawing and an AI drawing are different under your framework.
        badsectoracula 2y ago
        > You said that for pixel art "the copyrightable part is the pixel art sprite," but then couldn't I say the copyrightable part of an AI-generated image is the generated image? Again, both of these creations were made via UI interactions! No, because AI-generated images are machine output which isn't considered copyrightable. This isn't unique to AI-generated images, or even AI-generated output, but anything machine generated. That you did something to cause the machine to generate that output doesn't really mean anything since after all machines do not generate outputs by themselves, they need some human input - even if that input is to press a "Start doing things" button. (if anything this isn't even unique to machine generated stuff, not all things are copyrightable - for example in many countries bitmap fonts are not copyrightable) > If UI interactions aren't copyrightable, then practically no digital art is copyrightable, because all of it can be recreated by a series of UI interactions. I'm not understanding how a digital drawing and an AI drawing are different under your framework. It isn't my framework, it is how things happen right now (if it was up to me, copyrights would be even more lax than they are right now - e.g. i see things like youtubers having to fear DMCA claims and twitch.tv streams getting muted as something that should never happen). Digital art is copyrightable because it is the direct result of human work, AI-generated art is not because a machine made it - even if it was on a human's "request". You can use the AI-generated art as part of human work (f.e. draw some mustache on a generated face :-P) and that would be copyrightable. Think of AI generated content (not just art, what i write applies to anything generated) like the result of `for (int i=0; i < pixel_count; i++) pixels[i] = random();` - claiming that the result of that is copyrightable makes no sense - and the laws, at least so far, seem to agree with this. In addition if you compile a C program that is just the line above (plus a bit of scaffolding to interface with the OS) you could probably claim copyright on the program itself (if you wrote it) but you couldn't claim copyright on the actions of opening a terminal, running the C compiler and then running the program. If you add some extra parameters to the program to control the randomness spread per RGB channel and X,Y coordinates, like -say- `the_program -rrnd 32..64 -grnd 100..200 -brnd 0..64 -yrrnd 0..100 -ygrnd 100..200` or something like that you wouldn't claim copyright to the parameters `-rrnd 32..64 -grnd 100..200 -brnd 0..64 -yrrnd 0..100 -ygrnd 100..200` pretty much like you wouldn't claim copyright to parameters like `-ffast-math -O3 -march=native` etc to GCC or Clang -- and yet those are the equivalent to a "prompt".

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ziml77 2y ago

> The creator owns the copyright, expect for in works for hire. The exception is actually more narrow than it sounds too. Work for hire requires that the work be made as part of employment or that the work was both commissioned for a handful of carveouts and there was a contract in place agreeing that it is considered a work for hire. So if you commission a piece of art for yourself, the owner of the copyright is the artist. Also my understanding is that while the artist can transfer copyright, they can at any point take it back from you.