Authors risk losing copyright if AI content is not disclosed, US guidance says
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As generative AI technologies like GPT-4 and Midjourney have rapidly gotten more sophisticated and their creative use has exploded in popularity, the US Copyright Office has issued guidance today to clarify when AI-generated material can be copyrighted.
Guidance comes after the Copyright Office decided that an author could not copyright individual AI images used to illustrate a comic book, because each image was generated by Midjourney-not a human artist. In making its decision, the Copyright Office committed to upholding the longstanding legal definition that authors of creative works must be human to register works. Because of this, officials confirmed that AI technologies can never be considered authors.
This wasn't the only case influencing new guidance, but it was the most recent. Wrestling with the comic book's complex authorship questions helped prompt the Copyright Office to launch an agency-wide initiative to continue exploring a wider range of copyright issues arising as the AI models that are used to generate text, art, audio, and video continue evolving.