19

Generative AI can create images. Assume that these images are totally original.

Would that mean that we would have the full rights to the images created by the AI? Could we use these images in a product that we sell?

UPDATE

"AI Art" is possible thanks to Latent Diffusion Models, the most popular being DALL-E, Craiyon, Latitude Voyage, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion.

As of this writing, only Stable Diffusion is open source. Here is their declaration admitting that all work created with the tool grants all rights to the user of the tool (assuming you don't do illegal things).

enter image description here

Cybernetic
  • 467
  • 4
  • 11

2 Answers2

34

Per a decision of the US Copyright Office last month, AI generated images are not subject to copyright. That means you can use the generated images for any purpose you want1, but so can anyone else. However, the specific usage of a given image might be protected - so if you put a caption on the image and arrange it in the form of a comic (as the artist in that example did), that specific text and arrangement can be protected, but the underlying image can't be.

Laws may differ elsewhere in the world, but that's the current stance in the US.

1 Subject to any appropriate laws, including any copyright laws which the new image itself may violate. Just because the image isn't protected itself doesn't mean that it can't infringe on someone else's copyrights. See the other answer for more details.

Bobson
  • 857
  • 5
  • 12
11

The new work would not be protected by copyright law in the US. A different concern would be whether a created image might leave you liable in a copyright-infringement lawsuit. Although the output might be unique in that it algorithmically mashes two protected images into a new image, you might get sued for copying those underlying works. The input might just be text, not an image file, but that text is used by the program to search for relevant images, then copies the files (without permission). A person who unleashes a content-copying program on the internet is not immunized from an infringement lawsuit because "it wasn't me, it was my program". This is an issue that is being addressed in the courts right now (see this complaint).

On the other hand, if an image is created in a different manner, analogous to how you might verbally describe a desired image to a human artist, then there is literally no copying, and probably no legal infringement. I say "probably no infringement" because the output could end up resembling a protected work, so even if there was no actual copying, there could be legal infringement when the result is "strikingly similar" to a protected work.

user6726
  • 217,973
  • 11
  • 354
  • 589