The 2nd report published by the US Copyright Office on January 29, 2025, lists a few fair-use terms and other decisions on Copyrightability related to AI-generated content. It primarily answers ownership concerns raised by authors, artists, and other creative entities in 2024 and narrates how this may affect the media and technology industries.
Assistive Use of AI Does Not Void Copyright Protection
The report leads with a particular example, stating that when someone uses any AI tools for creative purposes, like enhancing human expression, the resultant content won't become non-copyrightable.
The particular example further clarifies that such uses of computer-assisted tools have long been in practice within the creative process.
Activities like color correction, detail sharpening, de-blurring, etc., are fair use, including song ideation or creating an outline for literary works. However, fair use applies till the AI output does not eclipse human-authored work.
Purely AI-generated Outputs Aren't Copyrightable
All of the existing law provisions don't deem any wholly AI-generated material copyrightable, textual, visual, or otherwise. Earlier, the office had refused to copyright images generated autonomously by a computer running on machine learning or artificial intelligence.
The report also adds that prompts do not grant sufficient human control in the output within the existing AI tools and machines. Herein, the said tools are known to "fill gaps" in the prompts and "generate multiple outputs" around similar prompts.
Additionally, any revised or multiple prompts-based outputs would also not be considered worthy, all because they do not add any degree of control any bit.
Still, the office report does mention that any AI tool or its equivalent offering some degree of human control on the output might have grounds for copyrightability.
Prompt-Based AI Outputs Can Be Copyrightable IF …
The US Copyright Office also distinguished prompts as either ordinary or expressive inputs. For example, hand-drawn illustrations used for creating an AI image would be ruled as an expressive input.
Next, if the output carries perceptible differences drawn from the expressive input, the particular portion may be copyrightable. Moreover, the scope of protection would be analogous to that in a derivative work. So, any copyrights for such output would remain limited to perceptible human expression.
Modified or Rearranged AI Outputs Can Be Copyrightable IF …
Any previously written works and creative manifests, including webinar-based works containing AI-generated content, may be copyrightable only when the output has sufficiently creative arrangement or modification.
Their statement justifies their earlier decision of making Zarya of the Dawn copyrightable, which is an 'arrangement of AI-gen images with human-authored text in a comic book form.'
Similarly, any AI-gen output whose tool may offer control over the output through iterative or interactive processes could be copyrightable, but there is a catch.
The output must meet the minimum standard of originality - beyond the selection, coordination, and arrangement of a few elements.
Are Legislation Changes Underway on Copyright Law?
The office did not endorse requests of commenters and applicants who sought copyright protection for AI-generated content via legislative changes. Adding to the topic, the office stated that AI model developers already gain significant incentives and that making legislative adjustments may crowd out or devalue human-created content.
Lastly, international competition cannot be considered a basis for creating legislative changes to protect these works, as the laws of other countries also follow a similar general practice.
Will There Be A Third Report by the US Copyrights Office on AI Content?
The sources also indicate that a third report would likely be published, but there is no particular timeline stated by the department. Still, the clarity offered by the second report seems sufficient to address the concerns brewing within the media and technology industries and among numerous professionals/creative entities.
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