As the agency overseeing the copyright registration system, the [Copyright] Office has extensive experience in evaluating works submitted for registration that contain human authorship combined with uncopyrightable material, including material generated by or with the assistance of technology.

[–] reabsorbthelight@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

How does this work in practice? Someone would have to prove that it's AI generated, which isn't straight forward.

Also, I'm not clear this protects the release of code centered a trade secret or under NDA.

So while the court ruled it's public domain. Could it still be prevented from release? Like a Microsoft employee couldn't just dump sections of the AI code to the internet I imagine.

https://www.upcounsel.com/patents-trademarks-copyrights-and-trade-secrets

Competitive advantage: Trade secrets can cover information that would not qualify for patents or copyright but still has economic value.

I would imagine dumping Microsoft code to the internet would be sued under NDA

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The answer is that it's messy and that I'm not qualified to say where the line is (nor, I think, is anyone yet). The generated parts are not copyrightable, but you can still have a valid copyright by bringing together things that aren't individually copyrightable. For example, if I make a manga where Snow White fights Steamboat Willie, I've taken two public domain elements and used them to create a copyrightable work.

So it's not like the usage of AI inherently makes a project uncopyrightable unless the entire thing or most of it was just spat out of a machine. Where's the line on this? Nobody (definitely not me, but probably nobody) really knows.

As for courts ever finding out, how this affects trade secret policy... Dunno? I'm sure a Microsoft employee couldn't release it publicly, because as you said, it'd probably violate an NDA. If there were some civil case, the source may come out during discovery and could maybe be analysed programmatically or by an expert. You would probably subpoena the employee(s) who wrote the software and ask them to testify. This is just spitballing, though, over something that's probably inconsequential, because the end product is prooooobably still copyrightable.

This kind of reminds me of the blurry line we have in FOSS, where everyone retains the copyright to their individual work. But if push comes to shove, how much does there need to be for it to be copyrightable? Where does it stop being a boilerplate for loop and start being creative expression?

[–] vala@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 17 hours ago

Is letting an LSP auto complete for you "assistance of technology"?

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world -1 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

It begins by asking “whether the `work' is basically one of human authorship, with the computer [or other device] merely being an assisting instrument, or whether the traditional elements of authorship in the work (literary, artistic, or musical expression or elements of selection, arrangement, etc.) were actually conceived and executed not by man but by a machine.” [23]

In the case of works containing AI-generated material, the Office will consider whether the AI contributions are the result of “mechanical reproduction” or instead of an author's “own original mental conception, to which [the author] gave visible form.” [24]

The answer will depend on the circumstances, particularly how the AI tool operates and how it was used to create the final work.[25] This is necessarily a case-by-case inquiry.

That's the rest of what you posted. I guess you just didn't read it, right? Even if it comes right after and is part of the same paragraph. What a joke.

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

I clarified this a bit in a follow-up comment, but my first comment was simplifying for the sake of countering:

[it's not in the public domain] because the actual human work that went into creating it was done by the owner of the AI Model and whatever they trained on.

Their claim that the copyright for AI-generated works belongs to the model creator and the authors of the training material – and is never in the public domain – is patent, easily disprovable nonsense.

Yes, I understand it's more nuanced than what I said. No, it's not nuanced in their favor. No, I'm not diving into that with a pathological liar (see their other comments) when it's immaterial to my rebuttal of their bullshit claim. I guess you just didn't read the claim I was addressing?