3 ms·

Eh … the argument will likely be things created by Thing at the behest of Author is owned by the Author. It’ll take a few cases going through the courts, or an

Eh … the argument will likely be things created by Thing at the behest of Author is owned by the Author. It’ll take a few cases going through the courts, or an Act of Congress to solidify this stuff.

HappySweeney 7mo ago
Haven't there already been a few cases, each of which found that mechanically-produced works are not copywritable?
- senko 7mo ago
  no
- majorchord 7mo ago
  yes https://copyrightalliance.org/current-ai-copyright-cases-part-1/ https://copyrightalliance.org/current-ai-copyright-cases-par...
wongarsu 7mo ago
Just like we settled on photographers havin copyright on the works created by their camera. The same arguments seem to apply The US Copyright Office has published a piece that argues otherwise, but a) unless they pass regulation their opinion doesn't really matter, and b) there is way too much money resting on the assumption code can be copyrighted despite AI involvement.
- fragmede 7mo ago
  It's not settled. The monkey selfie copyright dispute ruled that a monkey that pressed the button to take a selfie, does not and cannot open the copyright to that photo, and neither does the photographer who's camera it was. How that extends to AI generated code is for the courts to decide, but there are some parallels to that case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...
  - charcircuit 7mo ago
    This filesystem driver was made by a human using AI, not a monkey.
  - wongarsu 7mo ago
    But with the monkey there are two levels of separation from the artist: the human makes the creative decision to hand the camera to a monkey, who presses the trigger, and the camera makes the picture. Compared to the single layer of separation of a photographer choosing framing and camera parameters, pressing the trigger and the camera taking the picture. Or the zero levels of separation when the artist paints the picture. A programmer writing code would be like the painter, and the programmer writing a prompt for Claude looks a lot like the photographer. The prompt is the creative work that makes it copyrightable, just like the artistic choices of the photographer make the photo copyrightable You could argue that the prompt is more like a technical description than a creative work. But then the same should probably be true of the code itself, and consequently copyright should not apply to code at all The copyright office's argument is that the AI is more like a freelancer than like a machine like a camera. Which you might equate to the monkey, who's also a bit freelancer like. But I have my doubts that holds up in court. Monkeys are a lot more sentient than AIs
  - KallDrexx 7mo ago
    The copyright office is pretty clear on this if you read: https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intelligence-Part-2-Copyrightability-Report.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intell.... There is case law surrounding the fact that just because you commission a work to another entity doesn't give you co-authorship, the entity doing the work and making creative decisions is the entity that gets copyright. In order for you to have co-authorship of the commissioned work you have to be involved and pretty much giving instruction level detail to the real author. The opinion shows many cases that its not the case with how LLM prompts work. The monkey selfie case is relevant also because since it also solidifies that non-persons cannot claim copyright, that means the LLM cannot claim copyright, and therefore it does not have copyright that can be passed onto the LLM operator.
  - michaelmrose 7mo ago

HappySweeney 7mo ago

Haven't there already been a few cases, each of which found that mechanically-produced works are not copywritable?

senko 7mo ago
no
majorchord 7mo ago
yes https://copyrightalliance.org/current-ai-copyright-cases-part-1/ https://copyrightalliance.org/current-ai-copyright-cases-par...

wongarsu 7mo ago

Just like we settled on photographers havin copyright on the works created by their camera. The same arguments seem to apply The US Copyright Office has published a piece that argues otherwise, but a) unless they pass regulation their opinion doesn't really matter, and b) there is way too much money resting on the assumption code can be copyrighted despite AI involvement.

fragmede 7mo ago
It's not settled. The monkey selfie copyright dispute ruled that a monkey that pressed the button to take a selfie, does not and cannot open the copyright to that photo, and neither does the photographer who's camera it was. How that extends to AI generated code is for the courts to decide, but there are some parallels to that case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...
- charcircuit 7mo ago
  This filesystem driver was made by a human using AI, not a monkey.
- wongarsu 7mo ago
  But with the monkey there are two levels of separation from the artist: the human makes the creative decision to hand the camera to a monkey, who presses the trigger, and the camera makes the picture. Compared to the single layer of separation of a photographer choosing framing and camera parameters, pressing the trigger and the camera taking the picture. Or the zero levels of separation when the artist paints the picture. A programmer writing code would be like the painter, and the programmer writing a prompt for Claude looks a lot like the photographer. The prompt is the creative work that makes it copyrightable, just like the artistic choices of the photographer make the photo copyrightable You could argue that the prompt is more like a technical description than a creative work. But then the same should probably be true of the code itself, and consequently copyright should not apply to code at all The copyright office's argument is that the AI is more like a freelancer than like a machine like a camera. Which you might equate to the monkey, who's also a bit freelancer like. But I have my doubts that holds up in court. Monkeys are a lot more sentient than AIs
- KallDrexx 7mo ago
  The copyright office is pretty clear on this if you read: https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intelligence-Part-2-Copyrightability-Report.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intell.... There is case law surrounding the fact that just because you commission a work to another entity doesn't give you co-authorship, the entity doing the work and making creative decisions is the entity that gets copyright. In order for you to have co-authorship of the commissioned work you have to be involved and pretty much giving instruction level detail to the real author. The opinion shows many cases that its not the case with how LLM prompts work. The monkey selfie case is relevant also because since it also solidifies that non-persons cannot claim copyright, that means the LLM cannot claim copyright, and therefore it does not have copyright that can be passed onto the LLM operator.
- michaelmrose 7mo ago