Otherwise AI becomes a glorious copyright-laundering machine, use something that you want to copy to train an AI, then ask that AI to replicate the stuff it was trained on. Of course it will make a perfect copy, but who is the creator of that intellectual work? The AI itself not for sure, but the original author of the stuff that the AI copied.
An no, it doesn't matter if the AI doesn't copy exactly but does a bit of shuffling of stuff, if not you are arguing that it's not cheating if you copy the homework of your classmate but you rearrange some words to make it not identical...
[–] archontes 1 day ago
[–] Micrococonut 18 hours ago
[–] archontes 14 hours ago
I am also of the opinion that AI weights aren't copyrightable, as they're the result of an automatic process. "Open source" weights are a laughable non-sequitur.
I am not generally of the opinion that we need to expand copyright in order to protect a status quo.
From copyright.gov "Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed"
What rights does copyright provide?
Reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords.
Prepare derivative works based upon the work.
Distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership or by rental, lease, or lending.
Perform the work publicly if it is a literary, musical, dramatic, or choreographic work; a pantomime; or a motion picture or other audiovisual work.
Display the work publicly if it is a literary, musical, dramatic, or choreographic work; a pantomime; or a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work. This right also applies to the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work.
Perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission if the work is a sound recording.
Training an AI isn't on this list. An AI may produce infringing outputs, but training an AI isn't a violation of copyright.
"Copyright laundering" is a nonsense idea. Copyright is not designed to prevent people or machines from producing things in a style or similar things. It protects against exact reproduction or reuse, and that only to the extent that the form is separable from function. If the form is inseparable from function, the expression cannot be copyrighted at all.
Let's assume "shuffling stuff" as you describe it would solidly place a work into the "derivative works" category.
Fine, the AI has produced a derivative work. The original copyright holder has a claim on that work if it were to be distributed, sold, displayed, or performed.
Does the AI hold a copyright? No. Only humans can hold copyrights. Does the prompter hold a copyright? No. A human has to perform the transformative work, not merely arrange for a machine to do it. AI outputs are not copyrightable.
But how you "feel" about it isn't a useful measure. It being like "cheating off someone's homework" isn't useful, either. Hell. Copyright is carefully crafted to allow "cheating off someone's homework" provided that the result doesn't reproduce elements of the original exactly.