comment: >
  
  AI can make images on an exponential level and thus it doesn't need incentivizing. That's precisely why machines don't get copyright. They simply don't need to be incentivized.
  AI can generate 1440  images per minute. So that's 1440 random images every minute.
  There is no need to incentivize this level of production. So no need for AI to have copyright.
  AI users are not authors and have no standing to protect their AI outputs. They can't make any real money as anyone can take their outputs for free and run them through more AI processes.
  Even ToS from developers allow the developers to take the output.
  Also, invention of camera did replace certain professions such as lithography and brass etchings. However, artist just adapted (William Blake for instance).
  In my industry computers took over everything from the way we did packaging artwork in the 1980s. It was all done on CS10 board. We used Rotring Pens and PMT Cameras. Typographic firms died out due to digital fonts.
  So we just learn to use computers. Now CGI is replacing photography. Product shoots are all CGI these days and product photography is dying out.
  The problem with AI is even high level digital artists such as myself have no use for it. I already use computers to make art. AI can't have copyright and that's why it will die out just like product photography did.
  New tech doesn't always work out. Lazer discs anyone?
context: /u/4vrf (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
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  Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
  ^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >
  
  These are some good resources and I will look into them now. In terms of the mickey mouse thing, if the output has elements of something that is protected, then that is infringing and Disney can sue. I am talking about cases where the output does not have direct elements of copying >
  
  ...but that's the argument isn't it? The data the AI was trained on consisted of copyrighted elements. So is it more akin to an artist taking copyrighted images and putting together a collage for their own copyright, or is it entirely new?
  It's certainly nuanced. I think ultimately judges will rule that anything made via an AI that had copyrighted data in its training will result in the output not being eligible for copyright. >
  
  Intuitively I would argue that is entirely new as opposed to a collage. That is an interesting position in your last sentence. So it would be public domain then? Couple questions in that scenario: 
  
  
  How would they prove whether there was copyrighted data in the training? Some people might not know what a model that comes to them has been trained on in the past. 
  
  
  What would you say to the argument about influence? If I listen to George Carlin's stand up 5000 times and then create a stand up set of my own which is clearly influenced by his work but draws no direct copying, should I be able to copyright my set? >
  
  
  It diesn't matter that there is copyrighted data in the training set. It's covered by fair use. >
  
  As far as I heard, the "fair use" ruling was based on authors suing search engines for displaying copyrighted material (book previews/excerpts). It was ruled fair use because it didn't actually harm the sales, nor was it any real competition. AI art is direct competition at the expense of the artists, so it's substantially different.
  Currently it might fall into the fair use category, but that's more of a technical accident, and there are already lawsuits undergoing trying to change it. >
  
  The judge also ruled that it was transformative. >
  
  Yeah, I think there's no contest that the final result is transformative, and arguing that angle was a mistake (also calling it collage). But there's another angle about the right to include images in the training data in the first place. Copyrights can be very specific about what use cases are allowed, so it might be possible to have a clause that forbids inclusion in AI training sets, but allows use for human learning. >
  
  Don't you think a better analogy would be a commission?
  If I want a portrait painted of my partner for her birthday I can reach out to an artist and commission them. I give them a prompt "please paint a canvas of this woman, interpret her as a renaissance queen" I supply a reference photograph and the painter does their painting.
  I pay them for their work and they ship me the product.
  I own the painting.
  The painter stills owns the copyright to that painting.
  Even though I prompted the painter my involvement ended there.
  It's possible even to credit the photographer that supplied the reference image in the first place, but they wouldn't own copyright to the painting unless it was too artistically similar to the photo. Because it was reinterpreted into renaissance that's a slim chance. >
  
  I always assumed it was the commissioner who owned the copyright, like if I have a idea for a character in my head but suck at drawing so I just gave a description for someone to draw for me, wouldn’t I own the copyright to the character I made up?
  Or using your analogy if I commissioned a portrait of my partner, I wouldn’t want the painter making copies of her portrait to sell on the open market. >
  
  
  The condition of them using the reference image was to produce a single work, they would be in breach of contract if they violated this.
  
  I’m confused, if I control whether or not the work can be replicated, I essentially own it’s copyright (the right to copy) no?
  I always wanted a family portrait on canvass if I could one day afford to have one made, but never did I even consider that I had to stipulate in a contract that the painter could only make the one artwork, so anyone who didn’t have it in a contract could find the artist selling copies of their family portrait on the public market?
  That’s scary, I kind of not want to commission any art now, whether it’s my personal ideas or the people I care about, potentially losing control of my ideas and privacy because I’m not adept in copyright law, seems too high a price. >
  
  
  I’m confused, if I control whether or not the work can be replicated, I essentially own it’s copyright (the right to copy) no?
  
  If you have a contract which states please produce one painting from this reference and they produce two (or more, or even one and a half) they have violated the contracted.
  But the painter still owns the copyright, so if your painting rips and you send it to a different painter and ask them to make a fresh copy they would be in breach of the first painters copyright. You send it to the original to remake.
  There is always a contract when you commission something, and most artists aren't out there selling portraits of other people's families. Your fear is unfounded. >
  
  That's not correct. A new painting is a new painting. The new artist implicitly owns that new copyright. 
  The copyright can also transfer if the artist signs it away. >
  
  
  A new painting is a new painting.
  
  Go paint Mickey Mouse and see how that works out for you.
  
  The copyright can also transfer if the artist signs it away.
  
  That's a contract. >
  
  Trademark law is different
  A contract is able to transfer property, including intellectual property >
  
  That's correct, but as your article points out, for less than a year left. 
  Trademark law would still apply. That's why I brought it up. 
  More in context with the original commissioned painting, the painting is a licensed production of the original photograph, where the copyright begins. Just like mickey, all new creations of mickey still belong to Disney. The new painting would extend from that original copyright, and the first painting wouldn't have domain over it. This would be the default situation according to copyright law, and contracts could be drafted to transfer ownership of any intellectual properties if that was desired by any of the parties. >
  
  
  The only choice left is the user
  
  You forgot one option.
  Public domain.
  The idea that all of culture should be divied up and turned into sellable assets is a very recent one. A century ago, most cultural items were not owned, they were just there.
  Corporations have continuously and relentlessly expanded copyright to secure more profit, but we don't have to follow them. >
  
  In the EU employees own copyright and corporate ownership is restricted. >
  
  So a company with sufficient computing power could start generating and storing trillions of random images and they would own the copyright to all of them? >
  
  Two works that are independently created can both be legitimately copyrighted even if their content is very similar, at least in the USA - see this work for details.
  cc u/4vrf >
  
  Awesome resource thank you! >
  
  You're welcome :).
  This article is IMHO the best introduction to AI copyright issues. For a deeper dive, see the many links in this post of mine. >
  
  
  The point of copyright is to incentivize creative expression
  
  Sure, it's fun what people can get those AI algorihms to churn out. And there is some creativity involved, and a certain skill. I can dig the entutiasm as long as AI is new and sort of fringe, kind of like the internet was once, before it took over our entire culture.
  But what if we end up with sweatshops with thousands of underpaid workers churning out illustrations at insane deadlines? 
  Compared to the time before the web, hand drawn artwork has been in a massive decline. I think it would be a bit sad with a world where what little there is left of this got taken over by algorihms.
  I think AI art should be in the Public Domain, to give traditional art at least some breathing room. I think this would be best for creative expression overall.
  This doesn't stop you from use AI art commercially, of course. You can still make a card game, for instance, with AI illustrations. But other people can use your illustrations too. >
  
  Would you say your view only applies to AI imagery?
  Let's say there was an AI number generator and I told it to give me a number between 1800 and 2764. That's my prompt, and the generator gives me 2422. Do I own that number, just because I prompted the machine to give it to me?
  What about Chat GPT, would I be able to say I was the author of something I didn't write? Would that really be an honest way of referring to it? I wouldn't be the author, I'd be the prompter. >
  
  Looking at the responses you seem to be very confused about your own metaphor. 
  The camera isn't the AI in this scenario, it is the site that hosts the AI. 
  AI is the artist that produces the image. Or simply put the person taking the photo. 
  You are just a commissioner. >
  
  What's your definition of a tool? 
  What's your definition of an artist? 
  For most people an AI will be a tool >
  
  In this situation ai is "an artist" because, like a human, it interprets the request, makes "creative" choices and learns. You as a commissioner can only see the art, accept it or not and tell the ai if you want something different. Think of artists and their sponsors in the old times, it worked exactly like that. 
  If you're looking for "a tool" in this equation, the tool is everything that allows ai to make the image. Yes, it does mean that the images in its database are tools (something which us artists call "references" altough you could rightfully argue ai's use of them is often particularly malicious). 
  I understand it is hard to call ai an artist because it is obviously not sentient, it doesn't know artistic expression. Yet calling the commissioner an artist is even more absurd. An artist is someone who "does things" and not someone who "asks for things to happen". From my personal perspective of an artist, I have more in common with the ai despite its lack of sentience than with the commissioner and all of his humanity. 
  Now, the lines get blurry, depending on your involvement with the ai's structure. A person who types in a request like "draw me a sheep" in an already existing ai is the furthest from an artist there is. But somebody who writes the code, personally assembles ai's "references" (even better, what is they draw them themselves?)? Now that's something to think about. >
  
  
  In this situation ai is "an artist" because, like a human, it interprets the request, makes "creative" choices and learns. You as a commissioner can only see the art, accept it or not and tell the ai if you want something different. Think of artists and their sponsors in the old times, it worked exactly like that. 
  
  I think the fact that your using quotations around the things the AI is doing speaks for itself. Because they're not a genuine description of the AIs process. 
  
  If you're looking for "a tool" in this equation, the tool is everything that allows ai to make the image. Yes, it does mean that the images in its database are tools (something which us artists call "references" altough you could rightfully argue ai's use of them is often particularly malicious). 
  
  A tool is an object used by an agent to achieve a goal. So under my view an AI is just a tool. I think once an AI achieve sentience it becomes an agent and is an artist, absent sentience it's not. 
  Can't I just say what your saying about AI about a camera? IE taking a photo isn't art, the camera is the artist and the tools are the components of the camera.
  Also I don't believe the use of is not malicious. What about it is malicious?
  
  understand it is hard to call ai an artist because it is obviously not sentient, it doesn't know artistic expression. Yet calling the commissioner an artist is even more absurd. An artist is someone who "does things" and not someone who "asks for things to happen". From my personal perspective of an artist, I have more in common with the ai despite its lack of sentience than with the commissioner and all of his humanity. 
  
  You don't think your intention to create is more similar to the commissioner compared to the AI? 
  
  Now, the lines get blurry, depending on your involvement with the ai's structure. A person who types in a request like "draw me a sheep" in an already existing ai is the furthest from an artist there is. But somebody who writes the code, personally assembles ai's "references" (even better, what is they draw them themselves?)? Now that's something to think about.
  
  The lines are blurry as fuck which is why the topic is so good. I don't see why your involvement matters at all. You could choose to use a certain brand of brush because of a particular tendency to result in a certain aesthetic style, it doesn't make you not an artist to have not created the brush. 
  To be completely honest I could talked into thinking a person who commissions a work of art is actually the artist. Or maybe both or even neither. >
  
  
  I think the fact that your using quotations around the things the AI is doing speaks for itself. Because they're not a genuine description of the AIs process. 
  
  That is because we DON'T have the accurate language to describe what AI really does. We use old terms created for older times. This is why, in full truth, none of the parties (the commissioner or the ai) are "the artist".
  
  IE taking a photo isn't art, the camera is the artist and the tools are the components of the camera.
  
  The camera doesn't learn or create an image. AI does. AI makes the photograph, brouses for views and chooses the ones it deems best. You only tell it to take the photo, you're not its author. 
  
  You don't think your intention to create is more similar to the commissioner compared to the AI? 
  
  Intention is just a thought. Many people look up to the sky and say "I'd like to write a book" or look at a pretty view and think "I'd like to paint it". That does not make them artists. Some even see the view and ask an artist to draw it for them. 
  Intention to create is not creation. Creation is an entirely different process, sometimes even unrelated to intention (for example, when it's literally your job and you need money to survive). Inspiration is not creation. You can come up with a brilliant book idea but the one who writes it down has done the actual work. And that is what makes him the legal author. 
  Out of curiosity, may I ask, how much experience do you have in the arts? (Except AI, that is.) Ever took up writing? Tried writing a novel? Sculpted a figure? >
  
  Nobody should own the copyright, as the body of work that the art is based on is publicly accessible, and the machine generating it is not a person. AI art should be in the public domain immediately. >
  
  US 17 § 102 b  
  "In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work."
  That's it. It doesn't matter what you think. The law is the law.
  Prompts are a "method of operation" as part of a "process" (Software function)
  AI outputs are random "discovery" which users just accept .
  I doesn't matter in the form which it is described. So even illustrations can be methods of operation.
  Nobody cares whether you change you mind or not. You just didn't understand the law.
  Judges know the law.
  Case law: Lotus v Borland (Prompts are methods of operation) and Navitaire v Easyjet (complex commands do not qualify as literary works).
  AND it doesn't even touch on the fact copyrighted works are used in datasets without written exclusive licenses to pass on any copyright to the end user through the title chain.
  There is no copyright in AI outputs. Get used to it. It's already Law.
  You don't get copyright from pushing buttons on a vending machine either despite inputting personal choices. AI is a vending machine. AI users are consumers. Not artists. (Change my mind ;)) >
  
  If AI is just a process then how is that different from a camera? By that logic wouldn't a camera be like a vending machine? 
  The AI spits out an image. That is what I am saying should be protected. Not the process of the software. The image. Its not a process or a system. It is tangible, like a photograph. 
  In a vending machine the outputs are already in there. Not true of the AI and not true of the camera. 
  Hypo I made elsewhere in the thread: Let's say that I come up with a 2 sentence prompt. It is okay, and I worked on it for 30 minutes. Then I generate 100,000 works. I just sit there at my computer for 3 days generating things that are like what I want but not perfect. Finally I come upon the perfect work. It's exactly what I have been looking for. I use it as my band's album cover, and the record goes triple platinum. My band becomes famous and people are wearing t shirts of the album cover. In this scenario, I don't really care too much about protecting the 2 sentence prompt, it's the image that I really want to protect. Is the work I spent for 3 days generating never-before-seen images and selecting the exact right one not worth anything? At the very minimum my hypo shows that your statement "AI outputs are random "discovery" which users just accept" is not universally true, right? Thanks for engaging, look forward to having my mind changed :) >
  
  Your premise is flawed.
  Pressing a button on a camera isn't the thing that gives rise to copyright. It "fixes" the image into a tangible media but that's just one aspect. There needs to be the "personality" of the author present within the work to meet a "threshold of originality"  
  Or else buying a train ticket from a vending machine would give copyright to a train ticket which is absurd. You press buttons and input personal preferences into a ticket machine. Same for buying trainers using an online website or ordering a Pizza.  
  AI spits out a "train ticket" so to speak.  
  AI is autonomous software. Software use is divided up in to the actual code which can rise to the threshold of originality, the Input from the user which is utilitarian (method of operation) and cannot have copyright and then the final separate output which is disconnected from the user and cannot have the personality of the user anywhere within it. AI uses autonomous randomness to produce a "best guess" based on user input. None of it is "fixed" in the process. Eventually the AI produces the final image. Not the user.  
  That's not authorship in Copyright law. >
  
  I'm a bit confused at the way you are separating the two. In the camera example, you say that the fixation occurs when the button is pressed. I agree. In the AI example fixation occurs when the algo generates an image. Don't see the difference. 
  It is true that none of it is fixed in the process, just like how in the camera none of it is fixed in the process of shutters and mirrors. But there comes a point where it is fixed in the camera and same is true for AI. 
  You say that the AI's output is disconnected from the user and cannot have the personality of the user anywhere within it. Why is that true for the AI but not the camera? In the AI, the output is a product of the user's prompts. In the camera, the image is a product of the user's choices about light and color and exposure. I see these choices as being the same as the user's choices about prompts. What am I missing or wrong about? Genuinely curious, and I appreciate your input. >
  
  Well the AI is generating the image. Not you.
  As I may have mentioned, typing "Mickey Mouse" or copy pasting an image or Harry Potter book text into a user interface is not "fixation" into a tangible media as define by copyright law. In fact the law very specifically says that transitory fixation, temporary RAM  use is not the required definition of "fixation". (Note: AI devs are using that excuse to train models. They claim images are not stored "fixed")
  It's insane to ask a question of a chatbot and expect to be the author of the answer a chatbot gives.
  Photography is vastly different. It was invented by Painters (Camera obscure) who used to "cheat" by projecting an image on their canvas. They would "fix" the image using paint and they still have opportunity to apply their own personality using brush stokes. Impressionist painting emerged as a protest to "photographic" looking paintings.
  So a studio photographer is much more likely to have copyright as they set the scene, use a tripod,  Adjust lighting and shadows etc. Photography as been called "painting with light". The more of these "intellectual creative choices" the photographer makes the stronger and more obvious the copyright is. In contrast holding your camera out of the window with your eyes closed doesn't give rise to copyright. In front of a judge you may have to demonstrate your creative process. Saying you pressed the button isn't enough for a judge.
  So it's insanity to claim to be the author of something someone else made. Even if that someone was an autonomous robot. >
  
  
  The point of copyright is to incentivize creative expression,
  
  However what you're suggesting would do the exact opposite. Being able to create pictures cheaply and have ownership of them would mean that it's not economically profitable for actual artists to exist. That means that no new artstyle would be created. Perhaps the compositions would be slightly more creative for a very short timeframe due to being open to the larger public - but soon after art would end up becoming more stale than it ever has been. >
  
  Thats debatable. Making it so that things that are generated by the AI not protected discourages an entire generation of would-be artists from going into the field because they are unable to monatize their work. 
  Also - the way I am interpreting it, your argument is like saying that the invention of the photo made painters obsolete (didn't happen). There is always space for older artistic mediums. Just because people can generate portraits doesn't mean that photographers will stop taking them.