AI-generated content – including artificial intelligence writer According to the US Copyright Office, image generation tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E 2 – if they meet certain criteria, can now be copyrighted.
So far, the Copyright Office has only considered human-generated works for copyright applications, however, shockingly, it will now consider AI-generated content as long as the majority of the work is also done by humans.
in a policy statement (opens in a new tab) Earlier this month, the office’s director, Shira Perlmutter, wrote: “For works containing AI-generated material, the office will consider whether the AI contribution is the result of ‘mechanical reproduction’ or the author’s ‘own original mental conception’, to which [the author] Visible form is given. ‘”
Copyrighted AI material
Perlmutter described that the analysis will be done on a “case-by-case” basis to assess whether a human is the true author of the content.
An example of a rejected application is an AI writer receiving prompts and generating new “complex written, visual or musical” content. On the other hand, “sufficient human authorship” may lead to acceptance of a copyright application. This may involve creative arrangements or further editing of AI-generated content, such that the AI content is only considered a template for further work.
The truth of the matter is that the world will continue to grapple with AI logistically, legally and ethically as interest in the technology continues to surge, and processes such as copyright protection will likely be subject to constant monitoring as further developments take place.
To help differentiate AI from human-generated content, machine-created watermarking efforts have been discussed, but so far this has proven cumbersome.
