The USCO is now seeking public input on the issue of copyright of AI-assisted works:
A couple of interesting points raised in the articles:
…several cases have hinted at where the boundaries may fall. For example, the office said in February that the (human-made) text and layout arrangement from a partially AI-generated graphic novel were copyrightable, but the work’s Midjourney-generated images weren’t. On the other hand, a Federal judge recently rejected an attempt to register AI-generated art which had no human intervention other than its inciting text prompt.
From the Ars piece:
In 1884, the defendant in Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony claimed that photographs could not be subject to copyright because a photo is “a reproduction on paper of the exact features of some natural object or of some person.” They argued that a photo is the work of a machine and not a creative expression. But the court ruled that photos can be copyrighted because they are “representatives of original intellectual conceptions of [an] author.”
The question today is: What action in using a machine learning tool counts as the “original intellectual conception of an author?”
Legal newbie here: so how exactly does the “public input” process work?
Does the Copyright Office select “top comments” to debate and incorporate into copyright guidelines? Shouldn’t this technically be done though elected representatives, or can the USCO’s findings form the basis of a bill?
Non lawyer here obviously, but I have been paying attention to this for work related reasons along with own legal counsel.
His take is that at the moment, this is all pretty much unsettled law and that companies are attempting to put “stakes in the ground” for things like for monetization and/or to protect potential IP.
His take also is that the important law being argued/determined/established is occurring at the moment anyway on the music side with for example Ed Sheeran’s lawsuits around allegedly infringing on Marvin Gaye.
On the technology side in addition to AI, there have been similar though not to date significant/major attempts to enforce this type of thing with Linux and all the various distros which as much as anything, so far haven’t amounted to anything definitive mostly due to Linus Torvalds dictates.
OTOH our counsel has always felt that AT&T and Berkley who own the various parts of FREE BSD (which Apple used as the basis for OSX) actually have significant pursuable claims, but have chosen not to pursue them for unknown reasons, but nevertheless have made those assertions in their various licensing agreements so that they could/might assert in the future.
PS: The music artist Grimes (not a fan but that’s not the point) has been way out in front on a lot of this including AI derived works using her voice and music with a unique proposed copyright and revenue sharing arrangement, though again to date, our counsel is unaware of any actual takers.
The thing is, NeXT used to pay significant licensing fees to AT&T for Unix, and Apple continued them back when it was still distributing OPENSTEP 4.2 — one of the big changes for Rhapsody as it was initially named was the switch to a BSD which did not require licensing fees (by the time the dust had settled from the various lawsuits).
Any claim that BSD would make would have to first reverse their initial license grant:
and during one lawsuit, AT&T caused 3 files to be removed, and a number of others changed — what is left which wasn’t bought by Novell? Further, initial development was done back during a time when AT&T was operating under a consent decree which forbade them from profiting on anything other than telecommunications.
Moreover, Apple explicitly is certified as a Unix distributor by The Open Group (which bought the Unix trademark from Novell) — though it is interesting that AT&T is not a member:
Yes I remember that, and I think that some of those have or are about to expire and/or have a murky current status.
That uncertainty is also allegedly some of the impetus behind incorporating more of IOS in to Mac OS and gradually removing the various BSD bits behind.
And FWIW, even Apple’s own developers have either been unaware or unclear on the status of the use of BSD when we ask, other than to say “we are moving away from it…”
PS: I remember also though I can’t find a link now, that Apple for at least a few years after they acquired Next listed various aspects of the licensing tangles of BSD as business risk in their statements to investors.
the U.S. Copyright Office issued a notice of inquiry (NOI) in the Federal Register on copyright and artificial intelligence (AI). …The Office will use the record it assembles to advise Congress; inform its regulatory work; and offer information and resources to the public, courts, and other government entities considering these issues.
So it looks like, yes indeed, these comments will be consultative for future legislation. Furthermore, it looks like this particular inquiry is targeted at the general public:
So far this year, the Office has held four public listening sessions and two webinars. This NOI builds on the feed back and questions the Office has received so far and seeks public input from the broadest audience to date in the initiative.
So it looks like now is the time for our voices to be heard?
All of us who feel strongly on AI as @dstrauss now have an outlet (other than our little corner of the internet ) to expound our frustrations and propose new and sane regulations!
So does he or his firm plan on making a submission to the USCO? I assume that companies are going to exert outsize influence over time anyways via lobby groups. This could be the one time regular folk get a chance to seriously affect the legal foundation.
Yes to all that including that IOS was originally a pared down Mac OS with the important addition of touch functionality.
My point is that with both IOS and Mac OS they are moving from other OS tech that they licensed to their own in house developed stuff and that IOS is simply much farther ahead and that being 100% their own “stuff” is a stated goal by Apple’s own engineers
They are doing the same on the chip side where there M and A series chips are by far the most divergent and unique of the ARM based designs. And also why they bought a big chunk of Intel’s 5G modem IP as well.
) to expound our frustrations and propose new and sane regulations!