4 ms·

AIs are not human and therefore their output is a human authored contribution and only human authored things are covered by copyright. The work might hypothetic

AIs are not human and therefore their output is a human authored contribution and only human authored things are covered by copyright. The work might hypothetically infringe on other people's copyright. But such an infringement does not happen until a human decides to create and distribute a work that somehow integrates that generated code or text. The solution documented here seems very pragmatic. You as a contributor simply state that you are making the contribution and that you are not infringing on other people's work with that contribution under the GPLv2. And you document the fact that you used AI for transparency reasons. There is a lot of legal murkiness around how training data is handled, and the output of the models. Or even the models themselves. Is something that in no way or shape resembles a copyrighted work (i.e. a model) actually distributing that work? The legal arguments here will probably take a long time to settle but it seems the fair use concept offers a way out here. You might create potentially infringing work with a model that may or may not be covered by fair use. But that would be your decision. For small contributions to the Linux kernel it would be hard to argue that a passing resemblance of say a for loop in the contribution to some for loop in somebody else's code base would be anything else than coincidence or fair use.

ninjagoo 7mo ago
IANAL; this is what my limited understanding of the matter is. With that caveat: it is easy to forget that copyright is on output- verbatim or exact reproductions and derivatives of a covered work are already covered under copyright. So if the AI outputs Starry Night or Starry Night in different color theme, that's likely infringement without permission from van Gogh, who would have recourse against someone, either the user or the AI provider. But a starry-night style picture of an aquarium might not be infringing at all. >For small contributions to the Linux kernel it would be hard to argue that a passing resemblance of say a for loop in the contribution to some for loop in somebody else's code base would be anything else than coincidence or fair use. I would argue that if it was a verbatim reproduction of a copyrighted piece of software, that would likely be infringing. But if it was similar only in style, with different function names and structure, probably not infringing. Folks will argue that some things might be too small to do any different, for example a tiny snippet like python print("hello") or 1+1=2 or a for loop in your example. In that case it's too lacking in original expression to qualify for copyright protection anyway.
- inglor_cz 7mo ago
  Starry Night is public domain everywhere (van Gogh died 136 years ago and AFAIK there is no place on Earth that would have copyright that long). But your point still stands.
Lerc 7mo ago
>AIs are not human and therefore their output is a human authored contribution and only human authored things are covered by copyright. That is a non sequitur. Also, I'm not sure if copyright applies to humans, or persons (not that I have encountered particularly creative corporations, but Taranaki Maunga has been known for large scale decorative works)
- Sharlin 7mo ago
  Copyright applies to legal persons, that's why corporations can have copyright at all.
- direwolf20 7mo ago
  A "large scale decorative work" is the strangest euphemism for a dormant volcano I've ever heard.
  - Lerc 7mo ago
    Well obviously it's not doing any decorating right at the moment.
nitwit005 7mo ago
That you can't copyright the AI's output (in the US, at least), doesn't imply it doesn't contain copyrighted material. If you generate an image of a Disney character, Disney still owns the copyright to that character.
- fxtentacle 7mo ago
  Yes. And that’s why the rules say that the human submitting the code is responsible for preventing this case.
- NitpickLawyer 7mo ago
  > That you can't copyright the AI's output (in the US, at least), It's also not really clear if you can or cannot copyright AI output. The case that everyone cites didn't even reach the point where courts had to rule on that. The human in that case decided to file the copyright for an AI, and the courts ruled that according to the existing laws copyright must be filed by a person/human/whatever. So we don't yet have caselaw where someone used AIgen and claimed the output as written by them.
- metalcrow 7mo ago
  You can copyright AI output assuming there is a "reasonable" degree of human involvement. https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/this-company-got-a-copyright-for-an-image-made-entirely-with-ai-heres-how/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/this-company...
mcv 7mo ago
Didn't a court in the US declare that AI generated content cannot be copyrighted? I think that could be a problem for AI generated code. Fine for projects with an MIT/BSD license I suppose, but GPL relies on copyright. However, if the code has been slightly changed by a human, it can be copyrighted again. I think.
- RussianCow 7mo ago
  > Didn't a court in the US declare that AI generated content cannot be copyrighted? No, my understanding is that AI generated content can't be copyrighted by the AI. A human can still copyright it, however.
  - Sharlin 7mo ago
    It's obvious that a computer program cannot have copyright because computer programs are not persons in any currently existing jurisdiction. Whether a person can claim copyright of the output of a computer program is generally understood as depending on whether there was sufficient creative effort from said person, and it doesn't really matter whether the program is Photoshop or ChatGPT.
    - paradoxyl 7mo ago
      Just thinking out loud... why can't an algorithm be an artificial person in the legal sense that a corporation is? Why not legally incorporate the AI as a corporation so it can operate in the real world: have accounts, create and hold copyrights...
      - SpicyLemonZest 7mo ago
        Corporations are required to have human directors with full operational authority over the corporation's actions. This allows a court to summon them and compel them to do or not do things in the physical world. There's no reason a corporation can't choose to have an AI operate their accounts, but this won't affect the copyright status, and if the directors try to claim they can't override the AI's control of the accounts they'll find themselves in jail for contempt the first time the corporation faces a lawsuit.
friendzis 7mo ago
> Is something that in no way or shape resembles a copyrighted work (i.e. a model) actually distributing that work? Does a digitally encoded version resemble a copyrighted work in some shape or form? </snark> Where is this hangup on models being something entirely different than an encoding coming from? Given enough prodding they can reproduce training data verbatim or close to that. Okay, given enough prodding notepad can do that too, so uncertainty is understandable. This is one of the big reasons companies are putting effort into the so called "safety": when the legal battles are eventually fought, they would have an argument that they made their best so that the amount of prodding required to extract any information potentially putting them under liability is too great to matter.
- jillesvangurp 7mo ago
  > Does a digitally encoded version resemble a copyrighted work in some shape or form? </snark> Well that's different because an encoded image or video clearly intends to reproduce the original perfectly and the end result after decoding is (intentionally) very close to form of the original. Which makes it a clear cut case of being a copy of the original. The reason so many cases don't get very far is that mostly judges and lawyers don't think like engineers. Copyright law predates most modern technology. So, everything needs to be rephrased in terms of people copying stuff for commercial gain. The original target of the law was people using printing presses to create copies of books written by others. Which was hugely annoying to some publishers who thought they had exclusive deals with authors. But what about academics quoting each other? Or literary reviews. Or summaries. Or people reading from a book on the radio? This stuff gets complicated quickly. Most of those things were settled a long time ago. Fair use is a concept that gets wielded a lot for this. Yes its a copy but its entirely reasonable for the copy holder to be doing what they are doing and therefore not considered an infringement. The rest is just centuries of legal interpretation of that and how it applies to modern technology. Whether that's DJs sampling music or artists working in visual imagery into their art works. AI is mostly just more of the same here. Yes there are some legally interesting aspects with AI but not that many new ones. Judges are unlikely to rethink centuries of legal interpretations here and are more likely to try to reconcile AI in with existing decisions. Any changes to the law would have to be driven by politicians; judges tend to be conservative with their interpretations.
heavyset_go 7mo ago
Copyright Office's interpretation of US copyright laws says that AI is not human, thus not an attributable author for copyright registration, and output based on mere prompting is no one's IP, it can't be copyrighted[1]. When AI output can be copyrighted is when copyrighted elements are expressed in it, like if you put copyrighted content in a prompt and it is expressed in the output, or the output is transformed substantially with human creativity in arrangement, form, composition, etc. [1] https://newsroom.loc.gov/news/copyright-office-releases-part-2-of-artificial-intelligence-report/s/f3959c36-d616-498d-b8f9-67641fd18bab https://newsroom.loc.gov/news/copyright-office-releases-part...

ninjagoo 7mo ago

IANAL; this is what my limited understanding of the matter is. With that caveat: it is easy to forget that copyright is on output- verbatim or exact reproductions and derivatives of a covered work are already covered under copyright. So if the AI outputs Starry Night or Starry Night in different color theme, that's likely infringement without permission from van Gogh, who would have recourse against someone, either the user or the AI provider. But a starry-night style picture of an aquarium might not be infringing at all. >For small contributions to the Linux kernel it would be hard to argue that a passing resemblance of say a for loop in the contribution to some for loop in somebody else's code base would be anything else than coincidence or fair use. I would argue that if it was a verbatim reproduction of a copyrighted piece of software, that would likely be infringing. But if it was similar only in style, with different function names and structure, probably not infringing. Folks will argue that some things might be too small to do any different, for example a tiny snippet like python print("hello") or 1+1=2 or a for loop in your example. In that case it's too lacking in original expression to qualify for copyright protection anyway.

inglor_cz 7mo ago
Starry Night is public domain everywhere (van Gogh died 136 years ago and AFAIK there is no place on Earth that would have copyright that long). But your point still stands.

Lerc 7mo ago

>AIs are not human and therefore their output is a human authored contribution and only human authored things are covered by copyright. That is a non sequitur. Also, I'm not sure if copyright applies to humans, or persons (not that I have encountered particularly creative corporations, but Taranaki Maunga has been known for large scale decorative works)

Sharlin 7mo ago
Copyright applies to legal persons, that's why corporations can have copyright at all.
direwolf20 7mo ago
A "large scale decorative work" is the strangest euphemism for a dormant volcano I've ever heard.
- Lerc 7mo ago
  Well obviously it's not doing any decorating right at the moment.

nitwit005 7mo ago

That you can't copyright the AI's output (in the US, at least), doesn't imply it doesn't contain copyrighted material. If you generate an image of a Disney character, Disney still owns the copyright to that character.

fxtentacle 7mo ago
Yes. And that’s why the rules say that the human submitting the code is responsible for preventing this case.
NitpickLawyer 7mo ago
> That you can't copyright the AI's output (in the US, at least), It's also not really clear if you can or cannot copyright AI output. The case that everyone cites didn't even reach the point where courts had to rule on that. The human in that case decided to file the copyright for an AI, and the courts ruled that according to the existing laws copyright must be filed by a person/human/whatever. So we don't yet have caselaw where someone used AIgen and claimed the output as written by them.
metalcrow 7mo ago
You can copyright AI output assuming there is a "reasonable" degree of human involvement. https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/this-company-got-a-copyright-for-an-image-made-entirely-with-ai-heres-how/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/this-company...

mcv 7mo ago

Didn't a court in the US declare that AI generated content cannot be copyrighted? I think that could be a problem for AI generated code. Fine for projects with an MIT/BSD license I suppose, but GPL relies on copyright. However, if the code has been slightly changed by a human, it can be copyrighted again. I think.

RussianCow 7mo ago
> Didn't a court in the US declare that AI generated content cannot be copyrighted? No, my understanding is that AI generated content can't be copyrighted by the AI. A human can still copyright it, however.
- Sharlin 7mo ago
  It's obvious that a computer program cannot have copyright because computer programs are not persons in any currently existing jurisdiction. Whether a person can claim copyright of the output of a computer program is generally understood as depending on whether there was sufficient creative effort from said person, and it doesn't really matter whether the program is Photoshop or ChatGPT.
  - paradoxyl 7mo ago
    Just thinking out loud... why can't an algorithm be an artificial person in the legal sense that a corporation is? Why not legally incorporate the AI as a corporation so it can operate in the real world: have accounts, create and hold copyrights...
    - SpicyLemonZest 7mo ago
      Corporations are required to have human directors with full operational authority over the corporation's actions. This allows a court to summon them and compel them to do or not do things in the physical world. There's no reason a corporation can't choose to have an AI operate their accounts, but this won't affect the copyright status, and if the directors try to claim they can't override the AI's control of the accounts they'll find themselves in jail for contempt the first time the corporation faces a lawsuit.

friendzis 7mo ago

> Is something that in no way or shape resembles a copyrighted work (i.e. a model) actually distributing that work? Does a digitally encoded version resemble a copyrighted work in some shape or form? </snark> Where is this hangup on models being something entirely different than an encoding coming from? Given enough prodding they can reproduce training data verbatim or close to that. Okay, given enough prodding notepad can do that too, so uncertainty is understandable. This is one of the big reasons companies are putting effort into the so called "safety": when the legal battles are eventually fought, they would have an argument that they made their best so that the amount of prodding required to extract any information potentially putting them under liability is too great to matter.

jillesvangurp 7mo ago
> Does a digitally encoded version resemble a copyrighted work in some shape or form? </snark> Well that's different because an encoded image or video clearly intends to reproduce the original perfectly and the end result after decoding is (intentionally) very close to form of the original. Which makes it a clear cut case of being a copy of the original. The reason so many cases don't get very far is that mostly judges and lawyers don't think like engineers. Copyright law predates most modern technology. So, everything needs to be rephrased in terms of people copying stuff for commercial gain. The original target of the law was people using printing presses to create copies of books written by others. Which was hugely annoying to some publishers who thought they had exclusive deals with authors. But what about academics quoting each other? Or literary reviews. Or summaries. Or people reading from a book on the radio? This stuff gets complicated quickly. Most of those things were settled a long time ago. Fair use is a concept that gets wielded a lot for this. Yes its a copy but its entirely reasonable for the copy holder to be doing what they are doing and therefore not considered an infringement. The rest is just centuries of legal interpretation of that and how it applies to modern technology. Whether that's DJs sampling music or artists working in visual imagery into their art works. AI is mostly just more of the same here. Yes there are some legally interesting aspects with AI but not that many new ones. Judges are unlikely to rethink centuries of legal interpretations here and are more likely to try to reconcile AI in with existing decisions. Any changes to the law would have to be driven by politicians; judges tend to be conservative with their interpretations.

heavyset_go 7mo ago

Copyright Office's interpretation of US copyright laws says that AI is not human, thus not an attributable author for copyright registration, and output based on mere prompting is no one's IP, it can't be copyrighted[1]. When AI output can be copyrighted is when copyrighted elements are expressed in it, like if you put copyrighted content in a prompt and it is expressed in the output, or the output is transformed substantially with human creativity in arrangement, form, composition, etc. [1] https://newsroom.loc.gov/news/copyright-office-releases-part-2-of-artificial-intelligence-report/s/f3959c36-d616-498d-b8f9-67641fd18bab https://newsroom.loc.gov/news/copyright-office-releases-part...