That isn’t what this article is about, ironically.
This particular lawsuit was about an attempt to assign copyright of an AI-produced work to the AI itself. Which obviously didn’t work because only legal persons can hold copyright. There was no ruling about whether “human creativity” is relevant, it’s just about whether an AI can be a rights-holder.
It’s not surprising you don’t know what the article is about, though, it’s a terribly written clickbait article that’s based on another terribly written clickbait article. You should look up the case that’s actually being talked about, Thaler v. Perlmutter. This Reuters article is a bit more just-the-facts about it. A key quote:
Thaler applied in 2018 for a copyright covering “A Recent Entrance to Paradise,” a visual artwork made autonomously by his Creativity Machine system. Thaler’s application named the system itself as the work’s creator.
It’s that last bit that makes this case basically irrelevant. Thaler didn’t claim copyright himself, he tried to argue that it belonged to his machine. Like a photographer trying to assign copyright to his camera.
Except he did. He claimed the AI was the author of the work and tried to use the work for hire clause to claim the copyright himself because he owned the machine that created it.
and explained the work had been “autonomously created by a computer algorithm running on a machine,” but that plaintiff sought to claim the copyright of the “computer-generated work” himself “as a work-for-hire to the owner of the Creativity Machine.”
The work is not copyrightable as it was produced without human input.
The Copyright Office denied the application on the basis that the work “lack[ed] the human authorship necessary to support a copyright claim,” noting that copyright law only extends to works created by human beings.
Like a photographer trying to assign copyright to his camera.
As far as I know that photographer tried to do the same thing here - claim copyright himself, not get his camera to claim the copyright. But again, there was no human input into creating the works and owning the camera is not enough for claim copyright.
He claimed the AI was the author of the work and tried to use the work for hire clause to claim the copyright himself because he owned the machine that created it.
That’s two separate steps. First claiming the AI holds the copyright as the author, then that it’s assigned to him because he “hired” the AI. The court said the AI can’t hold the copyright, so step one fails. Step two never comes into play as a result. Since Thaler specifically said that he wasn’t the author, that left the court with no choice but to shrug and say “guess that means there is no author, and therefore no one holds copyright.”
If Thaler had said “I am the author of the work and I used the AI as my tool to create it” that would have been an entirely different matter.
As far as I know that photographer tried to do the same thing here
There was no actual photographer, or if there was it’s a coincidence - I made that up as an analogy.
Ah, yes, I should have thought of that. I’ve actually referenced it in other discussions like this one. Sorry about the confusion.
That case does show how minimal the human involvement needs to be before a human can claim to be the “author”, if the photographer had intentionally allowed the monkey to take the camera then he could probably have claimed copyright over those photos. As I recall the case ended up hinging on the fact that he hadn’t wanted the monkey to steal the camera, so none of the photos that it took with them were a result of a decision that he had made.
PETA’s monkey selfie case was a separate one where they tried to argue that the monkey should be the copyright holder, and I think that one’s most closely analogous to Thaler’s case here. Both were doomed because neither monkeys nor AIs are legal persons.
That isn’t what this article is about, ironically.
This particular lawsuit was about an attempt to assign copyright of an AI-produced work to the AI itself. Which obviously didn’t work because only legal persons can hold copyright. There was no ruling about whether “human creativity” is relevant, it’s just about whether an AI can be a rights-holder.
It’s not surprising you don’t know what the article is about, though, it’s a terribly written clickbait article that’s based on another terribly written clickbait article. You should look up the case that’s actually being talked about, Thaler v. Perlmutter. This Reuters article is a bit more just-the-facts about it. A key quote:
It’s that last bit that makes this case basically irrelevant. Thaler didn’t claim copyright himself, he tried to argue that it belonged to his machine. Like a photographer trying to assign copyright to his camera.
Except he did. He claimed the AI was the author of the work and tried to use the work for hire clause to claim the copyright himself because he owned the machine that created it.
The work is not copyrightable as it was produced without human input.
As far as I know that photographer tried to do the same thing here - claim copyright himself, not get his camera to claim the copyright. But again, there was no human input into creating the works and owning the camera is not enough for claim copyright.
That’s two separate steps. First claiming the AI holds the copyright as the author, then that it’s assigned to him because he “hired” the AI. The court said the AI can’t hold the copyright, so step one fails. Step two never comes into play as a result. Since Thaler specifically said that he wasn’t the author, that left the court with no choice but to shrug and say “guess that means there is no author, and therefore no one holds copyright.”
If Thaler had said “I am the author of the work and I used the AI as my tool to create it” that would have been an entirely different matter.
There was no actual photographer, or if there was it’s a coincidence - I made that up as an analogy.
Oh, I thought you were referring to this incident:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute
Which has similar parallels to this case.
Ah, yes, I should have thought of that. I’ve actually referenced it in other discussions like this one. Sorry about the confusion.
That case does show how minimal the human involvement needs to be before a human can claim to be the “author”, if the photographer had intentionally allowed the monkey to take the camera then he could probably have claimed copyright over those photos. As I recall the case ended up hinging on the fact that he hadn’t wanted the monkey to steal the camera, so none of the photos that it took with them were a result of a decision that he had made.
PETA’s monkey selfie case was a separate one where they tried to argue that the monkey should be the copyright holder, and I think that one’s most closely analogous to Thaler’s case here. Both were doomed because neither monkeys nor AIs are legal persons.