[thot_experiment]

incorrect, AI generated imagery has weaker copyright protections as of right now, but there is limited precedent, this stuff will need to be argued up and down the courts before we know exactly how copyrightable it is (but it's absolutely not zero)

fwiw i think copyright should be greatly weakened in general, just correcting you on the facts

[bawolff]

> (but it's absolutely not zero)

I agree that nobody knows for sure until a court rules, but it absolutely could be zero, and there are reasonable arguments for it being zero, especially in the usa [uk maybe a different story] (e.g. non-human angent, is a prompt really a creative endeavor?).

[anigbrowl]

As of right now it isn't. Any legal fact is subject to change in the future pursuant to litigation or legislation.

[wokwokwok]

? Anything might happen in the future, but the current guidance is not ambiguous.

https://www.copyright.gov/ai/ai_policy_guidance.pdf

(It’s not copyrightable in the US)

> fwiw i think

Doesn’t really seem relevant, legally speaking, and unless there’s a specific precedent you’d care to share, you are not correcting the parent post, you are simply incorrect.

[wongarsu]

> It’s not copyrightable in the US

That's document is about guidance about works applying to be registered at the Copyright office. Which is a process made largely redundant in 1978 by automatic copyright assignment.

Now the Copyright Office may be of the opinion that copyright doesn't apply, but apart from registrations (or passing new regulations, which they didn't do) they can only give an expert's opinion. To decide how existing laws and regulations apply is the job of the courts.

[wokwokwok]

IANAL, but I’m confident that any assumption that the copyright office is “largely redundant” is not correct.

Of course, you’re welcome to your own opinion, but I urge anyone who believes this to be the case and you know, doing commercial work, to seek legal advice rather than depending on their assumptions about it.

See also -> https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#register

[EGG_CREAM]

That's not at all what that says. Did you read it? It specifically says that rh copyright office would have to judge whether the art is a mechanical reproduction, or whether it originated from a humans "own original mental conception" and thus "is necessarily a case-by-case inquiry." That's the definition of ambiguous.