TechSpot: “The US Copyright Agency is publishing a series of reports about the relationship between copyright and AI. Despite the complexity of the issue, the organization has already said that AI-based works with no human intervention cannot enjoy copyright protection at all. Movies and other complex works created through AI means cannot be copyrighted, except when these AI tools are used to further develop pre-existing content. The US Copyright Office (USCO) recently published its second report on copyright and artificial intelligence, dealing with the “copyrightability” of outputs generated by large language models and other AI systems. The report focuses on the level of human contribution to AI-made works, which is a crucial point in deciding if copyright can be applied to those works. The USCO received more than 10,000 comments about the issue, the vast majority of which said that existing copyright laws were adequate to be applied purely to AI outputs. However, participants had different opinions about generative AI outputs involving “some form” of human contribution. Copyrightability must be determined on a case-by-case basis, the report states, but new legal principles are needed to deal with AI-made content. If said content was generated by simply entering prompt texts into an AI service, authorship and copyright cannot be applied, USCO said…”

“The Report is being released in three Parts. Part 1 was published on July 31, 2024, and recommended federal legislation to respond to the unauthorized distribution of digital replicas that realistically but falsely depict an individual. The final, forthcoming Part 3 will address the legal implications of training AI models on copyrighted works, including licensing considerations and the allocation of any potential liability.”