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Only the authored parts can be copyrighted, and only humans can author [0]. "For example, when an AI technology receives solely a prompt from a human and produ

by camgunz 8mo ago

Only the authored parts can be copyrighted, and only humans can author [0]. "For example, when an AI technology receives solely a prompt from a human and produces complex written, visual, or musical works in response, the 'traditional elements of authorship' are determined and executed by the technology—not the human user." "In other cases, however, a work containing AI-generated material will also contain sufficient human authorship to support a copyright claim. For example, a human may select or arrange AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way that 'the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.'" "Or an artist may modify material originally generated by AI technology to such a degree that the modifications meet the standard for copyright protection. In these cases, copyright will only protect the human-authored aspects of the work, which are 'independent of' and do 'not affect' the copyright status of the AI-generated material itself." IMO this is pretty common sense. No one's arguing they're authoring generated code; the whole point is to not author it. [0]: https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-05321/p-40 https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-05321/p-40

maxerickson 8mo ago
So if I want to publish a project under some license and I put a comment in an AI generated file (never mind what I put in the comment), how do you go about proving which portion of that file is not protected under copyright? If the AI code isn't copyrightable, I don't have any obligations to acknowledge it.
- bandrami 8mo ago
  You're looking at this as the infringer rather than the owner. How do you as a copyright owner prove you meaningfully arranged the work when you want to enforce your copyright?
  - maxerickson 8mo ago
    I was looking at it from the perspective of an owner who simply wants to discourage use outside of some particular license. There's close enough to zero enforcement of infringement, it's all self policing or violation.
- camgunz 8mo ago
  Copyright office says this has to be done case-by-case. My guess is they'd ask to see prompts and evidence of authorship.
simiones 8mo ago
> IMO this is pretty common sense. No one's arguing they're authoring generated code; the whole point is to not author it. Actually this is very much how people think for code. Consider the following consequence. Say I work for a company. Every time I generate some code with Claude, I keep a copy of said code. Once the full code is tested and released, I throw away any code that was not working well. Now I leave the company and approach their competitor. I provide all of the working code generated by Claude to the competitor. Per the new ruling, this should be perfectly legal, as this generated code is not copyrightable and thus doesn't belong to anyone.
- camgunz 8mo ago
  No software company thinks this, not Oracle, not Google, not Meta, no one. See: the guy they sued for taking things to Uber.
  - simiones 8mo ago
    The person I replied to said "No one's arguing they're authoring generated code; the whole point is to not author it.". My point was that people absolutely do think and believe strongly they are authoring code when they are generating it with AI - and thus they are claiming ownership rights over it.
    - camgunz 8mo ago
      (the person you originally replied to is also me, tl;dr: I think engineers don't think they're authoring, but companies do) The core feature of generative AI is the human isn't the author of the output. Authoring something and generating something with generative AI aren't equivalent processes; you know this because if you try and get a person who's fully on board w/ generative AI to not use it, they will argue the old process isn't the same as the new process and they don't want to go back. The actual output is irrelevant; authorship is a process. But, to your point, I think you're right: companies super think their engineers have the rights to the output they assign to them. If it wasn't clear before it's clear now: engineers shouldn't be passing off generated output as authored output. They have to have the right to assign the totality of their output to their employer (same as using MIT code or whatever), so that it ultimately belongs to them or they have a valid license to use it. If they break that agreement, they break their contract with the company.

by camgunz 8mo ago

maxerickson 8mo ago

So if I want to publish a project under some license and I put a comment in an AI generated file (never mind what I put in the comment), how do you go about proving which portion of that file is not protected under copyright? If the AI code isn't copyrightable, I don't have any obligations to acknowledge it.

bandrami 8mo ago
You're looking at this as the infringer rather than the owner. How do you as a copyright owner prove you meaningfully arranged the work when you want to enforce your copyright?
- maxerickson 8mo ago
  I was looking at it from the perspective of an owner who simply wants to discourage use outside of some particular license. There's close enough to zero enforcement of infringement, it's all self policing or violation.
camgunz 8mo ago
Copyright office says this has to be done case-by-case. My guess is they'd ask to see prompts and evidence of authorship.

simiones 8mo ago

> IMO this is pretty common sense. No one's arguing they're authoring generated code; the whole point is to not author it. Actually this is very much how people think for code. Consider the following consequence. Say I work for a company. Every time I generate some code with Claude, I keep a copy of said code. Once the full code is tested and released, I throw away any code that was not working well. Now I leave the company and approach their competitor. I provide all of the working code generated by Claude to the competitor. Per the new ruling, this should be perfectly legal, as this generated code is not copyrightable and thus doesn't belong to anyone.

camgunz 8mo ago
No software company thinks this, not Oracle, not Google, not Meta, no one. See: the guy they sued for taking things to Uber.
- simiones 8mo ago
  The person I replied to said "No one's arguing they're authoring generated code; the whole point is to not author it.". My point was that people absolutely do think and believe strongly they are authoring code when they are generating it with AI - and thus they are claiming ownership rights over it.
  - camgunz 8mo ago
    (the person you originally replied to is also me, tl;dr: I think engineers don't think they're authoring, but companies do) The core feature of generative AI is the human isn't the author of the output. Authoring something and generating something with generative AI aren't equivalent processes; you know this because if you try and get a person who's fully on board w/ generative AI to not use it, they will argue the old process isn't the same as the new process and they don't want to go back. The actual output is irrelevant; authorship is a process. But, to your point, I think you're right: companies super think their engineers have the rights to the output they assign to them. If it wasn't clear before it's clear now: engineers shouldn't be passing off generated output as authored output. They have to have the right to assign the totality of their output to their employer (same as using MIT code or whatever), so that it ultimately belongs to them or they have a valid license to use it. If they break that agreement, they break their contract with the company.