A rule against copyrighting AI art will be unworkable.
I’ve generally been against giving AI works copyright, but this article presented what I felt were compelling arguments for why I might be wrong. What do you think?
The moment that copyright is granted to AI art is the moment that the war against corporations loses. Getty images is just going to generate endless images, copyright them all, and sue any small artist that starts having an independent thought
Agreed. I believe in a strong public domain and militantly protected fair use; AFAIC, all unaltered AI output should be considered public domain. Direct human authorship (or “substantially transformative” modification) is the benchmark for where copyright should apply.
True, but that assumes that the people filing copyright lawsuits know the law and are acting in good faith. And that the recipient does, too.
If I’m an artist living paycheck-to-paycheck and I get a copyright-related cease-and-desist, I probably won’t have the money or time to fight it even if I know that it’s wrong.
Yeah. In a world where lawyers cost money, corporations can and will squash small artists without hesitation, with cease and desists, DMCA takedowns via youtube and similar platforms, and by threatening lawsuits they won’t even have to persue because most people can’t afford to fight it.
Even companies often can’t afford to fight bigger companies. Like, the makers of Kimba the White Lion had a very clear case that Disney plagiarized them in making The Lion King (if you go on youtube you can find shot-for-shot scene comparisons, it’s bonkers) but couldn’t afford to fight it at all. And that was a company - individual artists have no chance vs disney & etc.
All of the discussion over copyright of AI is a complete waste of time. Given only a bit of human editing AI art is indistinguishable from art made in entirety by a person. It will be nothing but a “feel good” law that does nothing to help the artists AI has displaced. We should be focusing directly on helping artists or others maintain their livelihood.
That’s a single line needed that clarifies that derivative works originally created by AI are not copyrightable, to make it explicit and distinct from the ability to claim copyright on non-transformative works made from public domain content. AI created works cannot be copyrighted (and that should include things like software) and derivative works should now be considered non-copyrightable as well. The onus should be shifted to the creator to prove that their work is transformative in order to claim copyright over the work.
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The moment that copyright is granted to AI art is the moment that the war against corporations loses. Getty images is just going to generate endless images, copyright them all, and sue any small artist that starts having an independent thought
Agreed. I believe in a strong public domain and militantly protected fair use; AFAIC, all unaltered AI output should be considered public domain. Direct human authorship (or “substantially transformative” modification) is the benchmark for where copyright should apply.
That’s not how copyright works. It’s perfectly legal to create exactly the same image that someone else made… as long as you didn’t copy their image.
True, but that assumes that the people filing copyright lawsuits know the law and are acting in good faith. And that the recipient does, too.
If I’m an artist living paycheck-to-paycheck and I get a copyright-related cease-and-desist, I probably won’t have the money or time to fight it even if I know that it’s wrong.
Yeah. In a world where lawyers cost money, corporations can and will squash small artists without hesitation, with cease and desists, DMCA takedowns via youtube and similar platforms, and by threatening lawsuits they won’t even have to persue because most people can’t afford to fight it.
Even companies often can’t afford to fight bigger companies. Like, the makers of Kimba the White Lion had a very clear case that Disney plagiarized them in making The Lion King (if you go on youtube you can find shot-for-shot scene comparisons, it’s bonkers) but couldn’t afford to fight it at all. And that was a company - individual artists have no chance vs disney & etc.
All of the discussion over copyright of AI is a complete waste of time. Given only a bit of human editing AI art is indistinguishable from art made in entirety by a person. It will be nothing but a “feel good” law that does nothing to help the artists AI has displaced. We should be focusing directly on helping artists or others maintain their livelihood.
That’s a single line needed that clarifies that derivative works originally created by AI are not copyrightable, to make it explicit and distinct from the ability to claim copyright on non-transformative works made from public domain content. AI created works cannot be copyrighted (and that should include things like software) and derivative works should now be considered non-copyrightable as well. The onus should be shifted to the creator to prove that their work is transformative in order to claim copyright over the work.