Controversial AI art piece from 2022 lacks human authorship required for registration.

  • NotAPenguin@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Why do photographers get copyright over their pictures then?
    They’re just pointing a camera at something and pressing a button.

    AI is a tool like any other.

    • Fisk400@feddit.nu
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      1 year ago

      Because photographs don’t require other people photographs to work. It just requires the labour of the engineers at Nikon and you payed them by buying the camera.

      Use an AI algorithm with no training set and see how good your tool is.

        • Fisk400@feddit.nu
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          1 year ago

          Then absolutely go ahead. That isn’t what the guy in the post did tough.

        • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 year ago

          I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to keep copyright then. Everything involved would have been owned by you.

          That is a big difference to how other generative models work though, which do use other people’s work.

          • drewdarko@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Because you would have to prove that the AI only learned from your work and it’s my understanding that there is no way to track what is used as learning material or even have an AI unlearn something.

            • Fisk400@feddit.nu
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              1 year ago

              The people that is stealing art designed their algorithm to not contain proof that they stole art. If they are legally required to prove what training data they used in order to get a copyright then they will design the AI around that. That would immediately disqualify most of the current AIs because they have all been fed stolen art but I am sure they have the tech and capital to start over. And you know, Fuck em.

      • randon31415@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Did you know that it is illegal to take a photograph of the Eiffel tower at night? France lacks the right of panorama, and the lighting system was designed by someone still living. So photographs do require violating copyright law sometimes.

        • Fisk400@feddit.nu
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          1 year ago

          no no. You are not REQUIRED to break other peoples copyright in order to produce something with a camera. It is something you CAN do if you want to. AI literally cant function without a library of other peoples photos.

          Someone else brought this up in this thread and it is the only circumstance should be able to copyright an AI artwork. If you own the copyright to every single piece of art in the training data. If I take 10.000 photos that are mine and feed them into an AI that produces more photos that are entirely based on my work then it should be copyrightable.

          • randon31415@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Everything in this world is owned by someone, either privately or by the government. (Well, astrophotography is an exception, but I did say ‘in this world’) You CANNOT take a photo without pointing it at something that is owned by someone. Is photography theft then?

            • Shazbot@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Let’s break down some of the confusion you’re experiencing.

              • When it comes to buildings there is indeed copyright on the building itself. The question is did you get a usage license from the owner to photograph the building for your purposes? For example if I were to get a written usage license for the lighting of the Eiffel Tower at night, and a location permit from the city I would be able to photograph it. This is common in commercial photography with contracts known as property releases.
              • Theft in regards to photography usually means taking photographs of classified or trade secrets. General photographing of buildings in public spaces would not qualify as theft but copyright violation as per the previous example.

              If you want to learn more you can google “photography usage rights” or “photography license agreement” and deep dive the untold number of blog posts about it. You can check out this blog post for a crash course if you need good starting point.

              If books are more your fancy there’s Nancy Wolff’s The Professional Photographer’s Legal Handbook and the American Society of Media Photographer’s Professional Business Practices in Photography; both are pretty old but a very easy to understand. John Harrington’s Best Business Practices for Photographers also goes into detail and is more recent, but very broad in what it covers. Technically, there’s the demo for fotobiz X which will let you make a sample contract from their templates.

              I’m sure you’ll find more resources but these books were my go-tos when I was working as a photographer. If you feel like socializing you check out your local APA (American Photographic Artists) or ASMP (American Society of Photographic Artists) chapters. Not sure if membership is still a requirement for attending events but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

            • Fisk400@feddit.nu
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              1 year ago

              Owning something and owning the copyright to something isn’t the same. You cant just make insane claims about something and expect me to engage with it. You are fully capable of taking photos that you own with the current copyright framework or photographers wouldnt be a profession and nothing would have pictures of anything.

              • randon31415@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                And, as you said, you are fully capable of taking images that you own with the current copyright framework and creating legal AI images. If you don’t see the parallel between the two concepts and instead revert to insults and name calling, well, then I think I’ll just invoke “don’t feed trolls” and move on.

                • Fisk400@feddit.nu
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                  1 year ago

                  What insults and name calling? Shit, If I had known that you were this fragile I wouldn’t have bothered to respond properly and just called you removed.

    • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Because the human element is in everything they had to do to set up the photograph, from physically going to the location, to setting up the camera properly, to ensuring the right lighting, etc.

      In an AI generated image, the only human element is in putting in a prompt(s) and selecting which picture you want. The AI made the art, not you, so only the enhancements on it are copywritable because those are the human element you added.

      This scenario is closer to me asking why can’t I claim copyright over the objects in my photograph, be

      This scenario is closer to me asking why I can’t claim the copyright of the things I took a photograph of, and only the photograph itself. The answer usually being because I didn’t make those things, somebody/something else did, I only made the photo.

      Edit: Posted this without realising I hadn’t finished my last paragraph. Oops

      • NotAPenguin@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        It’s honestly pretty much the same with ai, there’s lots of settings, tweaking, prompt writing, masking and so on… that you need to set up in order to get the result you desire.

        A photographer can take shitty pictures and you can make shitty stuff with AI but you can also use both tools to make what you want and put lots of work into it.

        • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          The difference is it’s not you making the art.

          The photographer is the one making the photo, it is their skill in doing ehat I described above that directly makes the photo. Whereas your prompts, tweaking, etc. are instructions for an AI to make the scenery for you based on other people’s artwork.

          I actually have a better analogy for you…

          If I trained a monkey to take photos, no matter how good my instructions or the resulting photo are, I don’t own those photos, the monkey does. Though in actuality, the work goes to the public domain in lieu as non-human animals cannot claim copyright.

          If you edit that monkey’s photo, you own the edit, but you still don’t own the photo because the monkey took it.

          The same should, does currently seem to, apply to AI. It is especially true when that AI is trained on information you don’t hold copyright or licensing for.

          • stoneparchment@possumpat.io
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            1 year ago

            Actually… If an animal you own/trained makes art… you did get to have the copyright to the art, until recently with these same legal developments. Now it’s less clear.

            I also agree more with the other posters interpretation in general. We copyright art made by random chance emergent effects (Polluck et al.), process based art (Morris Louis et al.), performance art (so many examples… Adrian Piper comes to mind), ephemeral art, math art, and photography, as the poster says. None of those artists are fully in control of every aspect of the final project- the art makes itself, in part, in each example.

            If a human uses a math equation for the geometric output of a printer, and they tweak the variables to get the best looking output, we consider that art by law. Ai is exactly the same.

            It’s funny, I find that illustrators hate ai art, but “studio” artists (for lack of a better term) usually adore it

            • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              Actually… If an animal you own/trained makes art… you did get to have the copyright to the art, until recently with these same legal developments. Now it’s less clear.

              If you’re referring to Wikimedia’s infamous Monkey Selfie Dispute, which is the case I’m most aware of, then the reason its less clear is because its hard to determine the sufficient amount of human creativity required to render a human copyright over an animals work.

              I’d argue that last bit doesn’t apply to the AI, because while you do provide inspiration in terms of your prompting, tweaking, etc., it is ultimately always the AI that interprets those prompts and creates the artwork. Supervising an AI is not the same thing as setting up and taking a photograph, or drawing a painting.

              We copyright art made by random chance emergent effects (Polluck et al.), process based art (Morris Louis et al.), performance art (so many examples… Adrian Piper comes to mind), ephemeral art, math art, and photography, as the poster says. None of those artists are fully in control of every aspect of the final project- the art makes itself, in part, in each example.

              If you’re going to cite artists, it would be a good idea to at least link their work for context for those who aren’t in the know… As I don’t know these artists, I can’t make an informed response, so I’ll move on.

              If a human uses a math equation for the geometric output of a printer, and they tweak the variables to get the best looking output, we consider that art by law. Ai is exactly the same.

              There’s a big difference between a human designing a math formula to output a desired geometry, and a human instructing an AI to do the same.

              By having the AI do the artistic work, it’ll always be the one making the artistic choices based on your instruction, and therefore the art is not yours to own.

          • SkySyrup@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Actually, that’s a really good analogy, and it helped me think about this in a different way.

            What if the monkey is the camera in this situation, and the training the monkey part is like designing the sensor on the camera. You can copyright the sensor design(AI Model), and the photo taken using the sensor (output), so the same should apply to AI art, shouldn’t it?

            • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              You’re losing the analogy here because these things aren’t analogous. You can only copyright what comes out of the sensor because you took the photograph. Not everything that comes out of a camera sensor is copyrightable, such as photos taken by non-humans.

              There’s a fundemental difference between a tool that functions directly as a consequence of what you do, and an independent thing that acts based on your instruction. When you take a photo, you have a direct hand in making it - when you direct an AI to make art, it is the one making the art, you just choose what it makes.

              • SkySyrup@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                When you take a photo, you have a direct hand in making it - when you direct an AI to make art, it is the one making the art, you just choose what it makes.

                I understand what you mean, but you’re still directing the Camera; you’re placing it, adjusting the shot, perfecting lighting etc. Isn’t AI art the same? You have a direct hand in making what you want; through prompting, controlnet, Loras and whatever new thing comes along.

                • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  The camera simply puts what you see through the viewfinder into a form that can be stored, you’re the one who decides everything about the shot.

                  Whereas no matter how good your prompting is, it is ultimately the AI who interprets your parameters, who creates the images for you. It is the one doing the artistic work.

                  Do you not notice the difference? As I said in my last reply, your camera is a tool that functions directly as a consequence of what you do. An AI acts independently of you based on your instruction. It is not the same thing.

                  Also, I absolutely agree with @Eccitaze

    • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The scene isn’t copyrighted, anyone could go to the scene (theoretically) and take their own photo from a different angle. What’s copyrighted is the expression that went into staging the shot.

      An AI tool is the one doing the creative expression when generating its images is the argument. The prompt is where the creative expression of the user ends, and copyrighting just a phrase seems ridiculous. I tend to agree with these sort of arguments, especially when models like this are often trained on other people’s copyright work.