Ideas are not protected by copyright, nor are facts. You need to have a very specific and 'creative' / 'substantial' expression of an idea for copyright to apply.
The output of an LLM can be easily be such, but usually not.
Ideas are not protected by copyright, nor are facts. You need to have a very specific and 'creative' / 'substantial' expression of an idea for copyright to apply.
The output of an LLM can be easily be such, but usually not.
I'll link to a previous comment of mine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48968156
> You need to have a very specific and 'creative' / 'substantial' expression of an idea for copyright to apply. The output of an LLM can be easily be such, but usually not.
This is incomplete with current US law. You need the above (the typical copyright qualifiers) AND evidence of substantial human involvement in the creation.
Minimally directing an autonomous agent does not qualify.
Just to be clear, what you're referring to is the current US standard for whether a work is copywritable, not whether training on data and "regurgitating existing ideas" is fair-use. The latter is what the GP comment was about:
> There needs to be a royalty payment based on if the AI regurgitates existing ideas. That is probably the correct way to legislate this. If anything a human does can instantly be copied by an LLM, and then sent to all its subscribers, things need to change
Correct. I just wanted to clarify the statement that parent made, as it seems like lots of people have a misassumption about the copyrightability of autonomous in the United States.
Expect it will be clarified and/or changed by law given how much money is at stake, but the current state is what the current state is.
If I were developing key IP with agents, I'd be very careful to document my human contribution.
> … very specific …
That phrase is doing a lot of work. In the US, any writing is automatically protected by copyright. (This comment, for example.) Whether the author can claim infringement is a can of worms: legal costs, fair use … but your “very specific” phrasing makes it sound like there’s a prescription for exactly what is protected by copyright - there is not.
> Ideas are not protected by copyright.
The expression of the idea is, however. Same with facts. The fact that I live at a specific street address is not protected. My sentence construction explaining my specific street address is protected.
> The output of an LLM …
… is not protected, not matter its shape. The US Copyright Office has declared as much.