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AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted, rules a US Federal Judge (www.theverge.com)

submitted 1 year ago by L4s to c/technology

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AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted, rules a US Federal Judge::United States District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell found that AI-generated artwork can’t be copyrighted, putting to rest a lawsuit against the US Copyright Office over its refusal to copyright an AI-generated image.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Howell wrote that copyright has never been granted to work that was “absent any guiding human hand,”

Plaintiff develops and owns computer programs he describes as having “artificial intelligence” (“AI”) capable of generating original pieces of visual art, akin to the output of a human artist.

If he developed the program, that sure sounds like a "guiding human hand" to me. I think his real mistake was trying to claim it as a work for hire with the AI as the author, rather than it just being a tool.

[–] Hildegarde 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Copyright protects creative expression. Inventions are covered by patents. The guiding human hand would need to file with the patent office rather than the copyright office to protect their art algorithm.

When the copyright office sees the output of the art algorithm, they see an image that is not copyrightable due to a lack of human expression, a prompt that is uncopyrightable due to it being a factual list of things the image should contain, and an AI that is not even governed by their laws.

The ruling is unsurprising.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes, the protection of the software and the images it creates are separate, but that's missing the point. What protections the software does or doesn't have are irrelevant to the question of whether or not the images are covered. By developing the software, he determines how it functions, which influences the final product that it outputs. That would still be the case even if the software weren't covered by IP of any kind at all.

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