U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear dispute over copyrights for AI-generated material
2026-03-02 18:13 UTC
Replies (13)
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@grue@lemmy.world 2026-03-02 20:46
ITT: people misunderstanding the issue being ruled on (or rather, not being ruled on by letting the lower court decision stand). If he had applied for copyright over the image generated using “AI” as a tool, it (edit: probably^2^) would have been granted, with him listed as the human author. But that’s not what he wanted. He’s apparently Hell-bent on trying to get the work registered in the name of the “AI” system itself as the author, to so that he can claim that the government recognized the “AI” as a sentient being that can own property hold a copyright^1^ on its own behalf. This is not the broad ruling against AI slop copyrightability that people think it is. It’s a ruling against “AI” personhood. (^1^ Copyright isn’t a property right, BTW) (^2^ He explicitly claimed he gave no creative contribution and that the work was created completely autonomously, and the court’s ruling included excluding that from being copyrightable. It is if he hadn’t done that – if he had claimed he had directed it via prompts or whatever – that I think they would have granted the copyright to him as the human author. It turns out that he changed his mind and did make that argument on appeal, but the court explicitly ignored and did not rule on it because it wasn’t raised in his initial complaint.)
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@mrmaplebar@fedia.io 2026-03-02 20:04
Why would anyone think that they could copyright something that they didn't make? Maybe you can trademark the prompt or whatever, but in the end of the day, you didn't make shit, so why would you own the copyright? In the immortal words of everyone ever, pick up a fucking pencil.
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@Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 2026-03-02 19:08
Seems reasonable. This case is substantially similar to previous cases that were taken up by the supreme court - in particular a finding over whether a selfie generated by a monkey was copyrightable - and the lower court decisions are in line with the previous precedents set by the supreme court. So they're effectively just saying "Our opinion hasn't changed."
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@FaceDeer@fedia.io 2026-03-02 21:24
Ah, this is Thaler v. Perlmutter. I seem to have picked up a reputation in these parts as being "pro-AI", so I'm not sure how my view will be interpreted, but Thaler is basically a loon. This case is not really over whether *AI art* can be copyrighted. It's about whether AI itself can *hold* copyright. ie, Thaler isn't arguing "I hold the copyright to this piece of art." He's arguing "*my AI* holds the copyright to this piece of art." Since AI is not a legal person - it's neither human nor a corporation - this is basically an open and shut case. There is no entity capable of holding copyright in this case. Since Thaler himself is explicitly disclaiming that *he* holds the copyright, that means the work in question has no copyright holder. Which puts it into the public domain. This specific piece in this specific circumstance, not *all* AI-generated pieces. It's a commonly misinterpreted case.
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@FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 2026-03-02 18:13
If you want to call yourself an artist, do the work yourself, Stephen. You limpdick, no talent ass clown.
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@magnetosphere@fedia.io 2026-03-02 19:56
Supreme Court Tells AI Enthusiast To Get Wrecked
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@tidderuuf@lemmy.world 2026-03-02 18:33
Gonna be fun times in courts as anyone can claim something was generated by AI even if an artist claims they created it. I wonder if this will end up limited to art or can be expanded to other copyrighted works.
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@dan@upvote.au 2026-03-02 20:34
What if the drafts were created using AI too? Code is often in a source control system of some sort, which tracks changes to the code (who changed it, when it was changed, and a description of what was changed). It's similar to having a lot of drafts. I don't think that could prove that a human wrote it, though. I think in cases like this, the author could prove they created the code/story/art/whatever by having a deep understanding of the material. That's how Michael Jackson defended against lawsuits saying he copied someone else's song - he described his songwriting process and could hum/beatbox every instrument in the track.
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@tabular@lemmy.world 2026-03-02 23:50
If the training data for "drafts" and "hand written notes" exists then one can train an AI on it, and generate it the same way. Do some artists share such things?
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@Grimy@lemmy.world 2026-03-02 21:32
In the same way Disney owns the copyright of what their workers made.
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@LodeMike@lemmy.today 2026-03-02 20:15
Law or something
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@AceFuzzLord@lemmy.zip 2026-03-02 20:25
With enough money, I guarantee anybody could have their copyright stolen from right under their noses.
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@FaceDeer@fedia.io 2026-03-02 21:26
That's not what this case was about.