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The USPTO wants to know if artificial intelligence can own the content it creates
And it wants the public to weigh in
The US office responsible for patents and trademarks is trying to figure out how AI might call for changes to copyright law, and it's asking the public for opinions on the topic. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a notice in the Federal Register last month saying it's seeking comments, as spotted by TorrentFreak.
The office is gathering information about the impact of artificial intelligence on copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property rights. It outlines thirteen specific questions, ranging from what happens if an AI creates a copyright-infringing work to if it's legal to feed an AI copyrighted material.
It starts off by asking if output made by AI without any creative involvement from a human should qualify as a work of authorship that's protectable by US copyright law. If not, then what degree of human involvement "would or should be sufficient so that the work qualifies for copyright protection?"
Other questions ask if the company that trains an AI should own the resulting work, and if it's okay to use copyrighted material to train an AI in the first place. "Should authors be recognized for this type of use of their works?" asks the office. "If so, how?"
The office, which, among other things, advises the government on copyright, often seeks public opinion to understand new developments and hear from people who actually deal with them. Earlier this year, the office similarly asked for public opinion on AI and patents.
"if it's really a push button thing, and you get a result, I don't think there's any copyright in that."
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @12:11AM (2 children)
Because Soylent editors sure can't...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @12:16AM (1 child)
Can Soylent editors be replaced with Artificial Stupidity?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @12:44AM
Artificial stupidity is a learned attribute. I learned that in stupidity class 101, but failed the class with an F.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @12:18AM (1 child)
http://smbc-comics.com/comic/ai-4 [smbc-comics.com]
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Tuesday November 19 2019, @08:06AM
I have a terrible feeing of déjà vu.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @12:19AM (3 children)
by c0lo (156)
I mean, with the cheap means of creation, do the creation act need further support "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts"?
Shouldn't actually the question be "If AI can create, do we need to protect it at all?"
(grin)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by edIII on Tuesday November 19 2019, @12:46AM (1 child)
The biggest fucking question is how will that AI feel about us saying no?
There are two situations here:
1) The AI is not sentient, has no emotions, and is creating useful content for the rest of us. Those discussing whether or not the AI owns it are very similar to those who pour fake tea into cups and hand them to Mr. Bigglesworth.
2) The AI is sentient, and has some level of investment in the answer. Not only that, but other AI are ruthlessly pinging the RSS server looking for news about it.
Basically, if this question had any worth it all, it would instantly be obviated by much more important questions that answer it.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @12:59AM
3) The AI is subsentient, but has just enough smarts to launch nukes up your ass if you piss it off in ways you can't comprehend, because lazy people fed all their data into a machine learning algorithm that grew into an autonomous Lovecraftian abomination.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 19 2019, @02:41AM
(I can't stop noting that, even with the benefit of copyright, the act of creating originals seems to be hard)
Perhaps there's a method to this madness? Like, "repetitio mater studiorum"... and this is the stage of building the training set for the S/N editorial AI?
If so, magister aristarchus needs to get his input in, lest the editorial AI will start accepting more often his submissions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday November 19 2019, @12:51AM (12 children)
In my view there should be a whole lot less copyright than there is now, but then my views are probably considered a bit extreme as far as Intellectual Property laws go.
I am undecided about Patents, but I think Copyrights should be no longer than 10 years, then should be released to the public domain.
I can't see any reason at all why Mick Jagger's great-grandchildren should profit from his works (for instance). If they want to make a living out of music, they could write their own songs.
If the USPTO is asking for public comments, I guess the public comments they will listen to will be the ones from the industry bodies who profit the most from the current IP laws.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by deimtee on Tuesday November 19 2019, @07:30AM (11 children)
I think there is grounds for a type of protective copyright that lasts the life of an author. Not for everything but, for example, writers of series should be able to protect their universe from intruders.
Maybe separate the right to create derivative works from the right to control copies. After ten years you can make as many copies as you want, but if the author is still alive you can't publish Harry Potter and The Strange Banana.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday November 19 2019, @09:31AM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday November 19 2019, @04:16PM (1 child)
There should be a difference between literary and functional works. I was replying to PartTimeZombie's comment that copyright should be 10 years. The 'universe' protection, I think would probably require a new type of right, something applying to an entire corpus. (But it should be traded for a massive reduction in the length of copyright.)
I don't think an API should be covered by copyright at all. The code that implements it maybe, although I tend to think anything that escapes the first sale doctrine should also evade copyright. The actual API is more akin to a patentable mechanism than a literary work, though I think the bar for "not obvious to one skilled in the art" should be much higher. The main problem is that they are asking for the broad protection of a patent, with the lifespan and easy attainability of copyright. Just because you wrote a short story set on a beach, you don't get to say no-one else can write a short story set on a beach.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday November 20 2019, @12:36AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @06:51PM (1 child)
So you are suggesting that we put into law the motive for killing authors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @04:10AM
You say that like it's a bad thing.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday November 19 2019, @07:12PM (2 children)
I was never terribly interested in Harry Potter and have never read any of the books, or seen the movies, but Harry Potter and The Strange Banana sounds great.
Someone should get right on that.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @07:49PM (1 child)
Have you checked the "adult" section of the store? I'm pretty sure that one has already been made.
(Score: 3, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday November 19 2019, @10:19PM
That one may have been "Harry Potter orders a pizza".
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Tuesday November 19 2019, @07:50PM (2 children)
Disagree. They should be able to say "I am the original creator" and nothing more. If I'm a fan of Star Wars, why shouldn't I be able to write Star Wars novels? I don't think anyone would take me seriously since I'm not George Lucas. Harry Potter? I'm not J.K. Rowling. Why should fans not be able to write their own fandom stories? And if someone does a better job than the author, then why not let them publish?
You might be able to say that no one can write in that universe for profit for 10 years after initial publication. And, of course, copyright on the stories written for 10 years. I might go for that. But the rest? No. Let people have their freedom. Let individual creativity take flight instead of squashing it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @04:01AM (1 child)
So I can make cheap watches, stamp them with Rolex, or make handbags with Louis Vuitton on them, and as long as I don't claim to be the original, that's fine?
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Wednesday November 20 2019, @01:42PM
I think the name of who made the item is more important than the name of the item itself. Rolex is a company, so, no, you can't just slap Rolex on a watch. Louis Vuitton is a company, so no, you can't just slap Louis Vuitton on a bag.
In my Star Wars example, you can't claim to be Disney or George Lucas. You can't claim to be Terry Pratchett of Discworld if you write a Discworld novel. You can't claim to be the Shakespeare if you write another Romeo and Juliet play. But why can't we have more Star Wars stories, Discworld stories, and stories like Romeo and Juliet? (Hint: There are lots of Romeo and Juliet stories.)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Tuesday November 19 2019, @01:06AM (5 children)
Of the misuse of the term "Artificial Intelligence."
When most people hear "AI" they're thinking about something like HAL9000 or the Terminator.
Those don't actually exist. And won't for a very long time, if ever. That type of AI is more properly termed "Artificial General Intelligence" or "Strong AI."
We don't have that. What we have should more properly be termed "Expert Systems."
But those hawking their expert systems want to give the marketing illusion that they are a general intelligence, not just software (either directly written or "trained") to perform specific tasks.
When you use the term "expert system," the answers to the questions posed in TFS become pretty obvious.
Those who own/operate such expert systems likely have some IP rights to the agglomerations "created" by such systems, and any "piracy" is the responsibility of those same owner/operators.
That the USPTO would even engage in such a discussion just goes to show how incorrectly this stuff is interpreted based on a marketing term.
N.B.: The above comment [soylentnews.org] received a '+5 insightful' on 11 November when we had another article about the exact same notice to the Federal Register. [soylentnews.org] I expect at least that this time. Copypasta is hard work. Whew! ;)
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @05:59AM (1 child)
We have quantum computers becoming commercially available, I wouldn't bet your farm that someone hasn't built one capable of true AI.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday November 19 2019, @04:51PM
I'd bet the farm, six chickens and all rights to my life story that I'll be long dead before anything even approaching "strong AI" exists.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday November 19 2019, @01:54PM (2 children)
No. While expert systems surely still exist, most current AI systems are neural networks. The difference is, with expert systems you still have rules programmed by humans. With neural networks, you essentially fit a generic function with sufficiently many parameters to an example data set, and then extrapolate that fit to other data sets.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday November 19 2019, @05:05PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert_system.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday November 19 2019, @05:07PM
Expert systems aren't limited to rules-based system. Machine learning is used quite a bit as well.
The name, "expert system" refers to their focus on a very narrow set of specific tasks. Like self-driving, image recognition, etc. machine learning/neural nets are used quite a bit for these tasks.
Your comment proves the thesis of my initial comment, that there's quite a bit of confusion about what "AI" is. Thanks!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert_system. [wikipedia.org]
That'll teach me to preview before I submit. Oops.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @02:46AM
by jb (338)
Yet another question deals with possible copyright infringements by an AI.
A far more pertinent question would be can the author of an AI be held legally liable for the AI lodging a fraudulent DMCA (or equivalent in other jurisdictions) take-down notice?
If not, why not? Or if so, where do I sign up to join the posse?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @02:52AM
This [soylentnews.org] is an important question that didn't get any answer last time.
And thus, I still don't know what "panishing" is. (hint: have mod point to waste on "+Informative/Funny" mods).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by progo on Tuesday November 19 2019, @04:35AM (4 children)
As soon as that AI can prove itself to be a competent person able to enter contracts, in court.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday November 19 2019, @09:33AM (3 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday November 19 2019, @03:57PM (2 children)
The counter-example, someone with dementia/alzheimer's. Also, you have to be of a certain age, before you can legally sign a contract without a parent/guardian. You must be competent enough to sign a legal contract. "Artificial intelligence" is more like an idiot savant than a well rounded individual. Even then, the idiot savant would be much more capable than the AI. We're not even close to creating a "True Artificial Intelligence".
https://dailycaring.com/dementia-and-power-of-attorney-what-to-do-if-someone-cant-or-wont-sign-a-poa/ [dailycaring.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday November 20 2019, @12:33AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:28PM
True, but a person with Dementia, won't be making any of their own legal decisions. So, in essence the person who is making the legal decisions for the person with dementia, would be the one who owns the property rights. A monkey is smarter and has more freedom to make its' own decisions than an AI. AIs are literally, someone else's brain child. It'd be like saying, we're mass murderers, because every time we kill a bot in game, we're murdering someone. It has no basis in reality.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @12:20PM
someone made the a.i.?
a.i.s are digital?
if it can "feed" itself, walk about, especially into the patent office and make a claim by itself ... then probably "yes".
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @04:56PM
SCOTUS has already bestowed civil rights (And in the case of intellectual property, superior rights) on thin slices of dead tree in a filing cabinet. Why not a brick, a glass of water, some source code, some data, my dick.
There it is, I incorporate my dick, and it is therefore exempt from criminal liability for any action it takes on the stock market.