syzygy wrote: ↑Mon Dec 26, 2022 6:35 pmLet's consider a program that uses an NN to generate an image in response to a textual prompt.
The following persons might try to claim a copyright:
- the programmer;
- the person training the NN;
- the artists on whose works the NN is trained;
- the operator who enters the textual prompt.
And the claimed copyright might cover the following things:
- the source code;
- the NN weights;
- the generated images.
My answer:
* the source code and the NN weights belong to the programmer (or the person/company who commissioned the programmer's work).
* the generated images belong to the person/company that commissioned them (assuming they're using the software legally)
* the artist on whose work the NN was trained has no rights to anything unless the system produces a work of art that is similar to one of his own works. Under British law (don't know the rest of the world - sorry), the similarity between the original work and the derived work would have to be strong
Only the programmer will have a copyright on the source code he writes (and this extends to the compiled object code).
The NN weights are not copyrighted. Just numbers not encoding any expression.
The numbers are parameters in an expression - and constant parameters are part of the program.
The generated images presumably do not contain any expression coming from the programmer.
As far as I understand, typical AI image generators produce images that do not contain any expression contained in the training material.
Would be a very interesting case if it happened!
So the programmer, the person training the net, and the artists have no copyright on the generated images.
The operator MIGHT be able to claim a copyright on the generated image, namely if he is able to control the expression in the image (not its abstract content) through the textual prompt. In this case, the operator is an author using the AI as a tool. But the AI image generators I have been reading about do not seem to work as a tool but independently come up with expression of the more abstract concept/idea represented by the textual input, in which case there is no copyright of the operator.
I don't agree with this: if a rich man's instructions to a hired artist were, "Paint something that will look good on that wall", he's still commissioning the art, and he's still the owner of it and its copyright.
If there were doubt, he need only make a tiny change to the work of art to remove that doubt.
E.g. a photographer will typically have a copyright on a photo he takes because he uses his camera as a tool and is able to control at least some of the expression in the photo. However, if he has the original idea to give his camera to a monkey and let the monkey take a picture, then this original idea does not control the expression in the picture, and he won't have a copyright.
Hmmm... if he rewards the monkey with bananas for good work, then isn't he then commissioning the photograph?
This is different in the UK. According to s. 9(3) of the UK Copyright Act, "In the case of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work which is computer-generated, the author shall be taken to be the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work are undertaken". According to s. 178, a "computer-generated” work is "generated by computer in circumstances such that there is no human author of the work". It is not entirely clear to me who is the person "by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work are undertaken", but I would guess it is the operator. So if an AI-generated image shows at least a tiny bit of originality, then the operator would seem to have a copyright on it, in the UK. (However, this provision might be in violation of the Berne Convention. I don't know if it has been tested in court.)
Good old Britain - ahead of the game (sometimes!).
