> Trying to assign copyright to an AI is techno-futurist bullshit by trying to give legal presence to a piece of software.
I don't quite get this argument. Companies already have legal personhood and can own copyrights, can't they? So if a company's AI creates a copyrightable artifact, who wouldn't it be intellectual property of the company?
But typical contracts have the employee immediately assign copyright to the company, such that they never hold it. So I just don't see where the line is.
In the extreme case, what if I am CEO of a company that has no other employees, and it's just me, pressing Enter once a day on a script named keep_creating_stuff.py, with the script generating shitloads of IP that is presumably mine for a microsecond before being automatically assigned to the company. What's the legal interpretation of that?
An employment contract where you agree to assign copyrights to them for any works you create doesn't make uncopyrightable works you create somehow become copyrightable.
But there's the rub, right? If "you create" it, then it is copyrightable - so what is it that is this act of creation?
As posed elsewhere in this thread mentioned, how come taking out my phone and pressing the camera button with no authorial intent whatsoever is considered to be creative, whereas setting up a camera in a particular ___location and fully determining its settings, but letting an animal depress the button is considered to not be creative?
Part of the reason that this is on my mind is that I recently watched "Flash of Genius" [0] and found the legal arguments there about what merits an invention versus being obvious entirely silly. Essentially the movie (and my experience) shows that it all boils down to who has more time and money to spend on the legal system. I'm not saying that I have a clear solution myself, but I would really love to have something that is more than just "I know it when I see it".
I don't quite get this argument. Companies already have legal personhood and can own copyrights, can't they? So if a company's AI creates a copyrightable artifact, who wouldn't it be intellectual property of the company?