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May. 16th, 2023 03:41 pm* Here's hoping the heat is over. Every time I blink the ten day forecast changes drastically.
* Last night the forecast was either for massive thunderstorms and flash floods or... none of that. The Sky went grey for a bit. Had some lightening and isolated showers, but the sky never broke into the big storm that was possible.
* IANAL but, if the OTW is open to works that cannot be copyrighted, how can they defend them against plagiarism or commercial exploitation?
We envision a future in which all fannish works are recognized as legal and transformative and are accepted as a legitimate creative activity. We are proactive and innovative in protecting and defending our work from commercial exploitation and legal challenge.
It has always been the stance of the OTW that fan creations are theirs, even if they don't have the rights to the world and the names... the transformative work is theirs. But, if people are posting bot output... if works with no transformativeness because there is no human authorship are put in the same bucket as works they defend, doesn't this weaken AO3's stance and ability to enforce things?
There is no current case law on specifically text-based bot output... but I think the guidance of the copyright office and the copyright office's ruling to deny copyright to midjourney art used for a comic makes the current stance pretty clear.
(People keep bringing up this the lack of specifically case law on specifically text based works and I think they are missing that the copyright office has been consistent on human authorship being key since even before the so called 'ai boom')
"We conclude that Ms. Kashtanova is the author of the Work’s text as well as the selection, coordination, and arrangement of the Work’s written and visual elements," reads the copyright letter. "That authorship is protected by copyright. However, as discussed below, the images in the Work that were generated by the Midjourney technology are not the product of human authorship."
Basically, the writing and the putting of the images in that order was done by a human and that gets copyright, but not the individual images themselves. And this... makes sense to me. If I write a story with long passages of Shakespeare in between scenes because I am weaving the story of Othello and a coffee shop meet cute together to create something new... I have copyright over what is mine, but not over the Othello passages.
If we put work that has no proper authorship, no copyright, in the same bucket as works the AO3 claims to protect the rights of... isn't that a big fucking problem? Especially if AO3 doesn't know which is which? What happens when AO3 goes to bat for a work that turns out to not be transformative? If Ao3 was mislead about the work that is one thing, but if they openly invite computer generated content and treat it the same as human stuff, that's a problem.
Some people claim that fanworks are on rocky legal ground, if that is true, doesn't this kick away some of the rocks because suddenly AO3 doesn't care if there is a transformative element? And yes, only humans can make stuff that is transformative.
* Last night the forecast was either for massive thunderstorms and flash floods or... none of that. The Sky went grey for a bit. Had some lightening and isolated showers, but the sky never broke into the big storm that was possible.
* IANAL but, if the OTW is open to works that cannot be copyrighted, how can they defend them against plagiarism or commercial exploitation?
We envision a future in which all fannish works are recognized as legal and transformative and are accepted as a legitimate creative activity. We are proactive and innovative in protecting and defending our work from commercial exploitation and legal challenge.
It has always been the stance of the OTW that fan creations are theirs, even if they don't have the rights to the world and the names... the transformative work is theirs. But, if people are posting bot output... if works with no transformativeness because there is no human authorship are put in the same bucket as works they defend, doesn't this weaken AO3's stance and ability to enforce things?
There is no current case law on specifically text-based bot output... but I think the guidance of the copyright office and the copyright office's ruling to deny copyright to midjourney art used for a comic makes the current stance pretty clear.
(People keep bringing up this the lack of specifically case law on specifically text based works and I think they are missing that the copyright office has been consistent on human authorship being key since even before the so called 'ai boom')
"We conclude that Ms. Kashtanova is the author of the Work’s text as well as the selection, coordination, and arrangement of the Work’s written and visual elements," reads the copyright letter. "That authorship is protected by copyright. However, as discussed below, the images in the Work that were generated by the Midjourney technology are not the product of human authorship."
Basically, the writing and the putting of the images in that order was done by a human and that gets copyright, but not the individual images themselves. And this... makes sense to me. If I write a story with long passages of Shakespeare in between scenes because I am weaving the story of Othello and a coffee shop meet cute together to create something new... I have copyright over what is mine, but not over the Othello passages.
If we put work that has no proper authorship, no copyright, in the same bucket as works the AO3 claims to protect the rights of... isn't that a big fucking problem? Especially if AO3 doesn't know which is which? What happens when AO3 goes to bat for a work that turns out to not be transformative? If Ao3 was mislead about the work that is one thing, but if they openly invite computer generated content and treat it the same as human stuff, that's a problem.
Some people claim that fanworks are on rocky legal ground, if that is true, doesn't this kick away some of the rocks because suddenly AO3 doesn't care if there is a transformative element? And yes, only humans can make stuff that is transformative.
