The decision was made by a US court. Copyright means human involvement in the creation of pieces.
A piece of art created with artificial intelligence (AI) and without any human intervention cannot be protected by US law. So decided a federal court in Washington, USA.
Only works of art with human authors are protected by copyright, Judge Beryl Hoyle found Friday when he denied a request by computer scientist Stephen Thaler on behalf of the DABUS system. In his ruling, the judge acknowledged, “We are reaching new heights in copyright as artists have come to rely on AI as a tool,” which raises “difficult questions” for copyright law.
However, Howell did not consider this case to be this complex. Thaler, in 2018, applied for a copyright for the visual art work Modern Entrance to Heaven and it was denied, last year, by the Copyright Office, because the work had no human involvement. Ultimately, the scientist will appeal to the federal court, arguing that human authorship is not a concrete legal requirement and that paying copyright for artificial intelligence would be in line with the US Constitution which speaks of “promoting the advancement of science and the useful arts.”
This defeat comes on the heels of another by Thaler who wanted to see patents approved for inventions he claims were created by the Device for the Independent Creation of Unified Consciousness (DABUS). In addition to the US, Thaler has also filed patent applications in the UK, South Africa, Australia and Saudi Arabia, he says. Reuters.
Computer Scientist’s attorney, Ryan Abbott, has announced that he will appeal the copyright ruling. On Monday, the Copyright Office said in a statement that “the court reached the correct decision.”
The rise of AI-generated content has created a number of intellectual property issues. The Copyright Office had already denied an application by an artist who created images through the Midjourney system, although the artist argued that using the digital system was part of his creative process.
In the United States there are many legal procedures in this matter. The most common refers to the use of copyrighted material to create AI images, without the consent of the creators.
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