Copyright Cannot Be Used To Protect Art Made By AI, Says A US Federal Judge:
In a recent court ruling, United States District Judge Beryl Howell supported the U.S. Copyright Office’s position that artworks made only by artificial intelligence are not qualified for copyright protection.
This decision came at a time when people were becoming more worried that creative AI could take the place of human artists as well as writers.
The Hollywood Reporter said that United States District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell decided on Friday that AI-made art can’t be protected by copyright.
She was in charge of a case in opposition to the US Copyright Office, which had denied Stephen Thaler a copyright for a picture made by AI using the Creativity Machine program he’d made.
Thaler Had Tried Several Times To Get A Title For The Picture, But Each Time He Was Turned Down:
Thaler tried many times to copyright the picture “as a work-for-hire to the ownership of the Creativity Machine,” which would’ve named the author as the work’s maker and Thaler as the artwork’s owner, but he was always turned down.
After the Office’s ultimate rejection last year, Thaler filed the Office, saying that its decision was “arbitrary, capricious, and was not in accordance alongside the law,” but Judge Howell didn’t agree.
In her ruling, Judge Howell penned that copyright has never been given to a work “without any guiding human hand” and that “human authorship is a fundamental requirement of copyright.”
Concerns Have Grown About The Possibility That AI Will Take Over Scriptwriting:
Since the Hollywood writer’s strike began more than 100 days ago, worries have grown about the possibility that AI will take over scriptwriting.
Intellectual property laws, on the other hand, have always said that copyrights can only be given to things that were made by people. The judge brought up past cases that showed that to be true, like the one with the monkey picture.
In comparison, Judge Howell said that a case where a woman put together a book from notes she’d filled with words she thought a spiritual “voice” had told her to write was worthwhile of copyright.
People Are Getting Close To New Boundaries In Copyright:
Judge Howell did admit, though, that we are “approaching new frontiers within copyright,” where artists will employ AI to make new work.
She added that this would raise “challenging questions about how much human input was necessary” to protect art made by AI, since AI models are often taught by looking at already-made art. Stephen Thaler is going to take the case to court.
His lawyer, Ryan Abbot of Brown Neri Smith & Khan LLP, stated, “We respectfully disagree with the court’s interpretation of the Copyright Act,” according to Bloomberg Law, which additionally reported that the US Copyright Office said it thought the court’s ruling was the right one.
Howell Didn’t Agree, And He Pointed Out How Important People Are As Writers Under Copyright Law:
Howell didn’t agree, and he pointed out how important it is for copyright law that writers are real people. She brought up cases such as Burrow-Giles Lithographic Company v. Sarony, which backed up the idea that human-made ideas should be protected.
In another case, it was shown that even a picture captured by an animal couldn’t be protected by copyright. Howell talked about how copyright encourages people to be creative.
She said that patents and copyrights were made to protect property and encourage creativity and invention, which is good for science and the arts.
Earlier This Year, Sarah Silverman As Well As Two Other Authors Filed A Lawsuit Against OpenAI And Meta:
Nobody knows how things will turn out with US copyright law as well as artificial intelligence, but there have been a lot of court cases lately.
For example, Sarah Silverman as well as two other authors sued OpenAI as well as Meta earlier this year because of how their models scraped data.
In another lawsuit, programmer as well as lawyer Matthew Butterick says that Microsoft, GitHub, as well as OpenAI stole software by scraping data.
This decision comes at a time when lawyers are still talking about AI companies that use protected material for training.
Many California Artists Have Filed Copyright Infringement Lawsuits:
Many cases have been made in California by artists who say that copyright rights have been violated. This could force artificial intelligence firms to take apart their language models.
This decision changes the topic to artificial intelligence and copyright. Even though AI-made work might not be protected by copyright, it shows how important human creation is to intellectual property.
