Hi everyone,
To follow up on the group presentation regarding whether AI generative work is copyrightable, I am posting that the US Copyright Office released registration guidelines on AI generative work just two days ago. In a recent case, the US Copyright Office canceled the registration of an illustration generated from prompts using the AI, stating that the images generated by Midjourney were not original works of authorship protected by copyright(see below). However, the applicant’s text and unique arrangement of the book’s elements could still be protected.
(U.S. Copyright Office, Cancellation Decision re: Zarya of the Dawn (VAu001480196) at 2 Feb. 21, 2023.)
While generative AI System has become increasingly popular and GPT-4 was released a few days ago, copyright in this context remains controversial. The US Office will consider whether the work is the result of human activity or mechanical reproduction. According to the guideline, applicants who use AI technology must identify the authors and provide a brief statement in the “Author Created” field that describes the authorship contributed by a human. AI-generated content that is more than de minimis should be explicitly excluded from the application. It will be interesting to see how this area of law develop as more cases and guideline emerge.
[Guideline document]
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/16/2023-05321/copyright-registration-guidance-works-containing-material-generated-by-artificial-intelligence
[Related Articles]
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-copyright-office-says-some-ai-assisted-works-may-be-copyrighted-2023-03-15/
https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/16/ai_art_copyright_usco/
