Comment by elil17
5 months ago
I don't think this is the correct interpretation. I think they mean that if you make something without AI and then modify that with AI, that's covered. Likewise, if you start from an AI output and modify it, that's covered.
But the pure output of a generative model cannot be copyrighted, regardless of how complex the prompt is (note that the prompt itself could be copyrighted).
> But the pure output of a generative model cannot be copyrighted, regardless of how complex the prompt is
If that’s how the court interpreted it, then the software industry is hosed, since that’d mean none of the generated code running in production right now is under any sort of copyright or otherwise protection, lol.
I doubt that much software is entirely AI-generated with no human review or testing, it’s probably more like integrating some public domain snippets you found online into your code (which doesn’t invalidate copyright on the rest of it, or the way it’s put together) or having some files auto-generated by a script (like a C header containing a lookup table for a simple mathematical function, the table isn’t copyrightable itself maybe but the software as a whole still is)
Never mind that.
If a deterministic machine transformation from a copyrightable prompt results in an uncopyrightable image, what do you think a compiler is doing to source code?
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> human review or testing
Review and testing do not confer a copyright the work reviewed or tested
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>If that’s how the court interpreted it, then the software industry is hosed, since that’d mean none of the generated code running in production right now is under any sort of copyright or otherwise protection, lol.
Correct, the jurisprudence there hasn't changed.
I'm not sure this is really true, since copyright applies to distribution.
If you have a substantial amount of backend code (as with most SaaS projects) you're never actually distributing the code, and copyright is never at play. Computer generated artifacts are already in this boat and are protected by virtue of being trade secrets not by copyright.
This could maybe be true of shipping javascript to the browser, which presumably is not going to qualify as a trande secret, but I don't think that's where most companies derive value.
The idea that copyright applies solely to distribution is a popular myth, but it has no support in the actual copyright law. The core exclusive rights in copyright are (in the US, 17 USC § 106):
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(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
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OTOH, distributing copies created in violation of copyright is a good way to cause legally-cognizable harms to the copyright holder that will increase the potential damage award when you are found liable for copyright infringement, and it also makes it much more likely that someone will notice the infringement in the first place. But its not where the law, on its own terms, begins to apply. Doing any of those without permission (unless it falls into one of the exceptions to copyright protection, like fair use) is a violation of copyright.
>I'm not sure this is really true, since copyright applies to distribution.
Do you mean that a work has to be published prior to registration? What do you mean by "copyright applies to distribution"?
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“I can stop on an ant, and I can stomp on a flower, so look out, elephants”
What constitutes a modification? Here’s a reverse Sorities Paradox situation.
Let’s say I use an AI prompt to generate an image with 24-bit color, and then I manually change the RGB value of a single pixel from (255,255,255) to (254,255,255).
Does that constitute a modification and would then allow the image to be copyrighted? If not, where is the line?
This is how I understood the original decision a while back - that there had to be some additional element of human involvement post-"gen", though to what extent is still a bit unclear to me.
What's the threshold? Can the person just slap an LUT on an SDXL image in Photoshop and call it a day?