Comment on Christie's First-Ever AI Art Auction Earns $728,000, Plus Controversy

• FatCrab@lemmy.one ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  The CO didn’t say AI generated works were copyrightable. In fact, the second part of the report very much affirmed their earlier decisions that AI generated content is necessarily not protected under copyright. What you are probably referring to is the discussion the Office presented about joint works style pieces–that is, where a human performed additional creative contributions to the AI generated material. In that case, the portions such that they were generated by the human contributor are protected under copyright as expected. Further, they made very clear that what constitutes creative contribution and thus gets coverage is determined on a case by case basis. None of this is all that surprising, nor does it refute the rule that AI generated material, having been authored by something other than a human, is not afforded any copyright protection whatsoever.

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  • Even_Adder@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    But they do, explicitly:

    Many popular AI platforms offer tools that encourage users to select, edit, and adapt AI- generated content in an iterative fashion. Midjourney, for instance, offers what it calls “Vary Region and Remix Prompting,” which allow users to select and regenerate regions of an image with a modified prompt. In the “Getting Started” section of its website, Midjourney provides the following images to demonstrate how these tools work.^136^

    Unlike prompts alone, these tools can enable the user to control the selection and placement of individual creative elements. Whether such modifications rise to the minimum standard of originality required under Feist will depend on a case-by-case determination.^138^ In those cases where they do, the output should be copyrightable. Similarly, the inclusion of elements of AI-generated content in a larger human-authored work does not affect the copyrightability of the larger human-authored work as a whole.^139^ For example, a film that includes AI-generated special effects or background artwork is copyrightable, even if the AI effects and artwork separately are not.

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    • FatCrab@lemmy.one ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Yes, this is what I said. Situations where a work can conceivably considered co-authored by a human, those components get copyright. However, whether that activit constitutes contribution and how is demarcated across the work is a case by case basis. This doesn’t mean any inpainting at all renders the whole work copyright protected–it means that it could in cases where it is so granular and directly corresponds to human decision making that it’s effectively digital painting. This is probably a higher bar than most expect but, as is not atypical with copyright, is a largely case by case quantitative/adjudicated vibes-based determination.

      The second situation you quoted is also standard and effectively stands for the fact that an ordered compilation of individually copyrighted works may itself have its own copyright in the work as a whole. This is not new and is common sense when you consider the way large creative media projects work.

      Also worth mentioning that none of this obviates the requirement that registrations reasonably identify and describe the AI generated components of the work (presumably to effectively disclaim those portions). It will be interesting to see a defense raised that the holder failed to do so and so committed a fraud on the Copyright Office and thus lost their copyright in the work as a whole (a possible penalty for committing fraud on the Office).

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      • Even_Adder@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        You’re moving the goalposts. Your original reply made no mention of co-authorship by a human, it was just one sweeping statement.

        AI art is not protected by copyright, yes. That isn’t a “should” but rather how it actually works in nearly all countries but a few, certainly including the US.

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