[quadragenarian]

That makes sense to me, and good point about Adobe/Dell.

So then any AI would not create art spontaneously right? It would always require a user to prompt it in some way. So wouldn't it be correct to say that all AI art is actually be authored by a human and as such copyrighted to that human?

[jonathanstrange]

Copyright covers the prompt, it's not even clear why it should be relevant for the output of the AI software based on that prompt.

[spyder]

That's like saying copyright covers the mouse clicks and mouse movements in Photoshop but not the output pixels.

[jonathanstrange]

You might find that strange and disagree with it with a flawed analogy but I've merely reported the official stance of the US Copyright Office and legal precedents. See, for instance, this overview with further references:

https://www.sidley.com/en/insights/newsupdates/2025/02/us-co...

"Prompts Are Generally Insufficient to Make AI Output Copyrightable"

If you don't trust this summary, read the US Copyright Office report for yourself. The gist of the position is that prompts are not specific enough and do not lead to deterministic output.

On a side note, I find it weird that even on HN people automatically assume you're only expressing a personal opinion, yet in all fairness I should have included some references from the start.