Comment by anon84873628

6 months ago

Those software tools don't generate content the way an LLM does so they aren't particularly relevant.

It's more like if I hire a firm to write a book for me and they produce a derivative work. Both of us have a responsibility for guard against that.

Unfortunately there is no definitive way to tell if something is sufficiently transformative or not. It's going to come down to the subjective opinion of a court.

Copyright law is pretty clear on commissioned work, you are the holder, if your employee violated copyright and you failed to do your due diligence before publication, then you are responsible. If your employee violated copyright and fraudulently presented the work as original to you then you would seek compensation from them.

  • > Copyright law is pretty clear on commissioned work, you are the holder, if your employee violated copyright and you failed to do your due diligence before publication, then you are responsible.

    No, for commissioned work in the usual sense the person you commissioned from is the copyright holder; you might have them transfer the copyright to you as part of your contract with them but it doesn't happen by default. It is in no way your responsibility to "do due diligence" on something you commissioned from someone, it is their responsibility to produce original work and/or appropriately license anything they based their work on. If your employee violates copyright in the course of working for you then you might be responsible for that, but that's for the same reason that you might be responsible for any other crimes your employee might commit in the course of working for you, not because you have some special copyright-specific responsibility.

    • This is a common misconception.

      You mean the author. The creator of a commissioned work is the author under copyright law, the owner or copyright “holder” is the commissioner of the work or employer of the employee that created the work as a part of their job.

      The author may contractually retain copyright ownership per written agreement prior to creation, but this is not the default condition for commissioned, “specially ordered”, works, or works created by an employee in the process of their employment.

      The only way an employer/commissioner would be responsible (vicarious liability) for copyright infringement of a commissioned work or work produced by an employee would be if you instructed them to do so or published the work without performing the duty of due diligence to ensure originality.

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