[lukko]

Then the AI is performing a sort of collage of copyrighted work and the AI / prompt writer would not own the copyright to the derivative work. If a photographer stages a photo based on an existing photo, and it shares enough features with the original work, it likely would be copyright infringement.

[ROTMetro]

The court has already ruled that you can't own the derivative work anyways, because copyright law requires an individual artist. If I ask bob to make a picture for me, bob actually owns the copyright to start (but can assign it to me). I don't automatically get given copyright because I 'prompted' bob with what I wanted drawn (draw me a mouse). Copyright is given to the artist on the artists specific output.

If I ask an AI for a picture, there is no artist 'bob' to be assigned ownership under copyright law and therefor it's not copyrightable under existing law.

Funny how originally all these pro-AI art people were anti-copyright law but I can see them sometime soon lobbying for MORE restrictive copyright law (granting it in a larger pool or circumstances hence making more things copyrighted) so that they can overcome this.