US rejects AI copyright for famous state fair-winning Midjourney art - eviltoast

Controversial AI art piece from 2022 lacks human authorship required for registration.

  • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I think you’re getting things mixed up here…

    I’m not arguing the output of an AI cannot ever be art, there are beautiful AI works out there, just as there are beautiful photos out there.

    What I am arguing is you can’t claim it to be your art.

    Prompting isn’t enough of a creative element to take ownership over the art an AI outputs, especially if you don’t own the training data used for the AI. As such, you cannot (nor should you be able to) claim copyright over it.

    If an artist takes requests and happens to pick your’s, you don’t automatically own the final piece just because they happened to use your prompt. The artist owns it, unless you pay them for that right.

    In the case of AI art, the work would become public domain, since AI cannot copyright their works (much like non-human animals).

    • kmkz_ninja@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      To what degree do you consider AI involvement to be the deal-breaker. My phone uses something arbitrarily akin to generative AI to sharpen photos. If I take a photo with my phone of something novel, should I be able to copywrite that photo?

      If I use an AI generated image and spend 24 hours manually tweaking and modifying it, do I have a right to copywrite?

      If I use an LLM to synthesize an idea that I then use to organically create art, is it lesser art?

      It all seems so arbitrary at this point. It’s like a typist in 2005 arguing that digital word processors shouldn’t be used to create copywritable art, as it takes significantly less work.

      • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        To what degree do you consider AI involvement to be the deal-breaker.

        In one sentence, when you’re editing the AI’s work rather than the AI editing your’s, you can’t claim the original work as your’s.

        My phone uses something arbitrarily akin to generative AI to sharpen photos. If I take a photo with my phone of something novel, should I be able to copywrite that photo?

        This being an example if the former… The AI is sharpening your photo that you took.

        If I use an AI generated image and spend 24 hours manually tweaking and modifying it, do I have a right to copywrite?

        Assuming it was transformative enough, I’m sure you could copyright your derivative work, but you couldn’t then directly copyright what the AI generated.

        If I use an LLM to synthesize an idea that I then use to organically create art, is it lesser art?

        No, because like an artist taking requests, the AI is providing the prompt. You’d be the one drawing the art piece, putting in the majority of the creative effort.

        It all seems so arbitrary at this point. It’s like a typist in 2005 arguing that digital word processors shouldn’t be used to create copywritable art, as it takes significantly less work.

        Excuse my French, but how in the flying fuck is that the same thing?

        Whether you write a document on a typewriter or keyboard, you’re still the one directly deciding what words go on that page, and in what order. Every creative decision it is possible to make, you make.

        When an AI writes for you based on prompts, you decide almost none of that. You give it a synopsis and it writes the whole script, essay, whatever for you.

        There’s a huge difference between those things! How is it so hard to grasp that?