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AI-Created Art Isn’t Copyrightable, U.S. Judge Says in Ruling That Could Give Hollywood Studios Pause (www.hollywoodreporter.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[–] 39 points 3 years ago (6 children)

We already knew that. This is just upholding an obvious decision that was really already established long before AI was on the scene. If a human didn't create it, it can't be copyrightable.

The problem that the courts haven't really answered yet is: How much human input is needed to copyright something? 5%? 20%? 50%? 80%? If some AI wrote most of a script and a human writer cleaned it up, is that enough? There is a line, but the courts haven't drawn that yet.

Also, fuck copyrights. They only benefit the rich, anyway.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Copyrights don't just benefit the rich, in fact they severely limit what big companies can do with what you create. On the other hand, the current copyright term in most places (70 years after the author's death) is just ridiculous, and simply guarantees that you will not live to see most content you saw as a kid move into the public domain, while the current owners continue to make money that the original author will never see.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Copyrights don’t just benefit the rich, in fact they severely limit what big companies can do with what you create.

    If a big company chose to copy what you created, and you tried to fight it in court, they would bury you in a years-long legal battle that would continue until you ran out of money, quit, or they themselves declared it not worth the money to defend.

    Robert Kearns patented the intermittent windshield wiper, which all of the car companies stole, and he sued Ford. From Wikipedia: The lawsuit against the Ford Motor Company was opened in 1978 and ended in 1990. Kearns sought $395 million in damages. He turned down a $30 million settlement offer in 1990 and took it to the jury, which awarded him $5.2 million; Ford agreed to pay $10.2 million rather than face another round of litigation.

    Copyrights. Only. Benefit. The. Rich.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    Counterexample: the many cases of large companies (Best buy, Cisco, Skype etc) being sued over violations of the GNU GPL. The original authors of the code often get awarded millions in damages because a large company stole their work.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago

    But where do you draw the line between "a human did it using a tool" and "it wasn't created by a human?"

    Generative art exists, and can be copyrighted. Also a drawing made with Photoshop involves a lot of complex filters (some might even use AI!)

    I agree on the "fuck copyright" part that said.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    The problem that the courts haven't really answered yet is: How much human input is needed to copyright something? 5%? 20%? 50%? 80%? If some AI wrote most of a script and a human writer cleaned it up, is that enough?

    Or perhaps even coming up and writing a prompt is considered enough human input by some.

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