Can You Copyright an AI Generated Book? 

Any time I hear about a company taking a fiction work and altering it just enough to copyright it anew I remember that old Beatles Song, Paperback Writer, from 1966. IP laws have been worked around since they were created. I find it fun to observe how creative people can get when facing such a challenge, even when I don't like what they did. Perhaps the Copyright office should ask Chat GPT to write the new copyright law.

I just found your YT today. First thought was, wow, I bet he would be fun to game with! The AI content is amazing. Thanks so much for all the effort you are putting into these vids.

WOW! I also was thinking heavily about Creative Commons or something like that. At least some alternative way of licensing. And I also think that copyright law and copyright in general will have to change. The paradigms shift in so many areas because of AI and copyright is one of the things that will not escape it as well. :)

The thing with pirating is that it creates social proof. Similarly how we offer permafree books and use those to capture a reader base and create validation in eyes of potential buyers. The interest and validation then can be used to funnel in the series. I use this method if I'm launching a series: offer free book and use it to promote like 3-5 books from the series (launch them at the same time). Then basically promote new books off that free book and the initial launch books. (Like you would do if you started a commerical RU-vid channel). Oh. And I make the permafree available for use in libraries and with teaching resources if the book series is aimed at little kids. Will intentionally make it about some problem they need to teach in class and give them free lesson plans around the book.

I am an older burgeoning writer/author. Never sought publication for my works as yet, but I would not hesitate to use ai to assist in the first draft of a book, so long as I was the only one to edit before publication.

I'm going to use AI to write the submission to the Copyright office, arguing for the right to copyright AI-assisted works. I'm sure I won't be the only one. AI will be speaking on behalf of itself. Wild times.

I agree with you, great video

Would the existing 'ready-mades' art works by the likes of Marcel Duchamp, et al, lose their 'copyrighted' status due to a lack of the artist's hands being involved in the actual manufacture of the found objects they arranged into a configuration and then called sculptures?

Is it possible to drop a book as a public domain? Or embrace the ai generated content and release it with no copyright knowing that others can’t copyright it either?

When an AI can "notice" where its latest output needs to be foreshadowed and decide the best scene for it, when it can appreciate character growth and connect wounds and flaws with choices, the climax, and the themes, we are in trouble. Just creating larger LLMs will not lead to emergent behaviour/realized strategy. ChatGPT's plugins and the way it's made from 16 LLMs working together are on this path. At the moment, after an AI finishes its output, it's not mulling over the conversation, just waiting. Future AI will be constantly reconsidering and popping out extra thoughts without user interaction. Imagine where saved chats down the right of the interface have badges indicating further thoughts about previous interactions, where the AI has had an idea about what was previously said. It will easily identify plagiarism and be able to fix it. What will be depressing is when an Amazon AI can take a reader's general prompt and create a masterpiece series on the fly.

If you look up Michael Anderle you will see he has done exactly what you're talking about. Created a world and opened it for other authors to build on. He's attributed to something like 2200+ books at this point, through his own publishing house. There's definitely something to it. Interestingly enough I've found that a bunch of these AI detectors have trigger saying text I wrote without using AI was AI generated. I think we're already reaching that point where detection is unreliable and wouldn't hold up in a copyright dispute.

I mean what is ghostwriting? Isn’t that basically what Ai is?

You should look up uniquenameosaurus who is anti copyright and started creating a fully public domain Web novel and comic.

Good to know. I feared my work might get stolen if I self-published them without a copyright claim.

People are already using Ai on the their written works and throwing a copyright on it. Nobody can tell if they written it themselves or used Ai. It's easy to bypass Ai detectors now. Just ask the kids in school lol.

Another good video. This is why I want my books to be free. Hopefully my books will speak for themselves and people will donate to me on their on volition, and hopefully places like youtube will pay me for the ad revenue that i hope to bring from the views. I do think even if my books are free i will still need to copyright them so others don't steal them and try to sell them instead.

The Grateful Dead encouraged people to record their concerts and distribute the tapes amongst fans. They were extremely successful by giving away their music.

I would love it if copyright was less restrictive and just give the original author royalty share for published "Fan fiction"

Yeah, guided by a human hand needs to be defined. Especially since this technology is being used to produce CP. I know you can't really talk about it on RU-vid but it is a concern that needs addressing.

You can't copyright ai produced content, and I don't think you should be able to. And you should be going over the content and improving it as the base content is usually mediocre. What you can probably copyright is the organised chapters in a book. This is all assuming you admit to using AI which I think the uniqueness of it being ai produced is over.

Each AI will eventually leave a high-tech maker's mark-- some kind of metadata behind the image/document itself that can't be copied out. AI isn't going anywhere, but neither is copyright or anything else that makes money.

Yes you can, your AI subscrption, your prompt, your result, your book, HELL YES YOU CAN !!!

The short answer is no, if your book is 100% AI generated, you cannot copyright it.

Official comment made.

Yeah if I write a book with AI, no one's going to know that I wrote it with AI. I'm never going to tell anyone that I used AI. Even if I use AI, everyone's going to think I wrote it. I don't need idiots dictating laws about stuff that they don't even know anything about.

09:35 "...where authors have deliberately made their books free... have actually seen increased sales of their books." So, if all those sales are free, how do they put food on the table, a roof over their heads, and clothing on their backs?

A lot of the ways people want to use AI now, is like going to shop with a written shopping list, buying the products and then saying it is your original. This just now makes me think... AI now it is like buying something from Alibaba Marketplace in China, where you can get almost anything and customise it, because they already know what other people have made before. You send them a few sentences of the prioducts you want, they make it and ship it to. But then... if you want to copyright/trademark/patent it. Not going to happen. A lot of AI at present (ChatGPT, Mid-journey and such) is the digital equivalent the Chinese Alibaba Martkeplace for physical products, but for creative arts. They can copy and replicate anything that already exists, and add some personal touches. But they can no do much else unless you give them specific directions on what you want. They certainly will not offer up a 100% original item to you, that you can copyright, trademark and so on, with out a LOT of your original imput that will past the ests for copyright and patents etc. Hmmm... your PHOTOSHOP reference is not quite right I feel. If you open a blank canvas/document in Photoshop, you can get almost nothing and do not much with out importing another image as a starting point. Yes, you can make some clouds and such... but you need some kind of image to start with it. I have been using it for 25 years now... and clone, fill and all that is so good now, it saves many hours AND the skill you needed 20-25 years ago to just remove one item from an image/photo. With Photoshop, you take the photo or make the first part of the ART before it gets into Photoshop, which then helps you make it better or different. That is what I have been doing with Photoshop for 25 years. Using it as a tool to put all the parts of the final image together, including digital painting and so on. But it makes nothing by itself from a few words. With AI like ChatGPT, many people want to type 5-20 words and get a book as a result in a few minutes. "Would not exists with out my guidance an input", I understand the thought, but now I disagree. It takes your input and guidance, and looks at tens of thousands of similar bits of work, and makes some thing similar. And this IS why copyright and patents exist. Like Alibaba does for physical items. Unless... you have give it A LOT of input, and refine and modify and edit outside the AI program. And this is where, with KDP now asking about AI, and saying AI made or assisted, I see the difference. A LOT OF GUIDANCE: (yes the way you describe the AI writing is correct I think) I am on my third novel, but all this "copyright stuff" started happening when working on my second novel. So... it got me thinking. - I copied every prompt I used in my main ChatGPT prompt for the 2nd novel, and put it in a docx, to see the word count. - My (1980s style pulp fiction action novel) novel was 63,000 words after I completely finished it, which had a lot of my editing and so forth. - The number of words I typed and input into my main Chatgpt prompt/chat: 58,000! - Plus, I have a secondary chat going for research, brainstorming, questions, AND character names and bios, and all such things you research for a believable fiction book... that would easily be 30,000 words I typed. - AND, the 2 weeks of originally creating the 2 writing styles that I painstakingly crafted with 2 other Chats, that are each 750+ words. - AND I regularly update those writing styles, and feed them back in. For example, when it uses a phrase or idea too often. I did more work than ChatGPT did, but I COULD NOT get the same end result with out it. As I have said before on some of your uploads: If this was a movie, and not a novel, I am the director/producer/script writer/editor and so on, and ChatGPT is the production crew who make most of that happen according to my direction, input, feedback and so on. And it is an end result that I imagined and wanted, but could never do by myself. Now I can do it by myself, with ChatGPT but I still do the heavy lifting. *Disney and big companies on etc actually EXPLOITED copyright and forced the laws to change. Copyright and Patents were originally created to protect the smaller guy who made something from the big companies who would just come in, copy and replicate and use their scales of mass production to make it cheaper, and their huge influence in shops and retail and such to sell that product at a price cheaper than the original and so on. DISNEY has stolen so much from so many! Copyright can not protect small creators now, because the legals are just way too much! The post copyright world is when someone takes you AI created book from KDP, 100% copies/scans/digitizes it and re-uploads to KDP and you can do nothing. And, there are MANY popular social media accounts who do that for ANYTHING, and sell a product. Often the person they stole it from is in a different country, so they know they can not afford foreign legal fees. The fast retail world of clothing is now FULL of companies in China and such, just taking artwork from small artists in other countries, and pumping out tons of products with that design, and selling millions of dollars worth and the local artist in which ever country it is gets NOTHING. ** FUN FACT: the word "THE".. which as a kid, I wanted to try "copyright"and get 1c per day for any book, magazine or newspaper etc who used the word "THE"... LOL.. could not happen. Too common. So me being a billionaire teenager was shot down before I was a teenager! LOL** 1% or pirated works perhaps get the author more sales. Almost never happens. that is a fake fact. When people get free, 99% they never want to pay again. I do agree with the courts when they say, Ai did most the work, and so just like now with copyright, TM and patents of physical products... you can not patent something that already exists unless you add substantial changes, like shoe shapes/styles and such. Or a shovel, a glass, a vase and so on. ---> Keep up the good work with your videos on this subject. It certainly brings a lot of attention, thought, ideas and such to the AI writing world.

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Who cares. It's not like they can prove how you made it, or how much effort you put in.