La Court of Appeal inglese sulla creatività come artistic work di una graphic user interface

Si reclama il diritto di autore sul lavoro grafico sottostante (GUIs: graphical user interfaces), creato tramite uso di un software:

La corte di appello 20.11.2023, [2023] EWCA Civ 1354 – Case No: CA-2023-000920, THJ SYSTEMS LIMITED – OPTIONNET LLP Claimants copntro DANIEL SHERIDAN-SHERIDAN OPTIONS MENTORING CORPORATION ravvisa la creatività.

La ravvisa non però secondo la tradizionale concezione inglese dello “skill and labour” , come aveva fatto il giudice in primo grado: << I am satisfied that the work of creating the look and functionality of interface including the arrangements of the tables and graphs did involve the exercise of sufficient skill and labour for the result to amount to an artistic work>>. § 21

La ravvisa invece secondo il concetto del diritto UE , elaborato dalla sentenza Infopaq del 2009 da parte della Corte di Giustizia (<< “… original in the sense that it is its author’s own intellectual creation”>>, § 15):

<<23 In my judgment the Defendants are right that the judge did not apply the correct test, which I have set out in paragraph 16 above. This is not because of his reference to “functionality” in [214], which appears to be a slip of the pen having regard to what he went on to say in the last sentence of [215]. It is because the test he applied was that of “skill and labour”, which was the test applied by the English courts prior to Infopaq, including in Navitaire Inc v easyJet Airline Co Ltd [2004] EWHC 1725 (Ch), [2006] RPC 3 and Nova Productions Ltd v Mazooma Games Ltd [2006] EWHC 24 (Ch), [2006] RPC 14, and not the test of “author’s own intellectual creation” laid down by the Court of Justice. As can be seen from cases such as Football Dataco and Funke Medien, these two tests are not the same, and the European test is more demanding; although Painer establishes that even a simple portrait photograph may satisfy it in an appropriate case. In fairness to the judge, I should make it clear that he was not referred to any of the relevant case law on this question (although the Defendants cited BSA, they did so in relation to a different issue).

It follows that this Court must re-assess the originality of the R & P Charts applying the correct test. Before turning to consider the evidence, it is important to make five points. First, the test is an objective one. Secondly, the test is not one of artistic merit: section 4(1)(a) of the 1988 Act expressly provides that graphic works qualify as artistic works “irrespective of artistic quality”, and nothing in the case law of the CJEU suggests otherwise. Thirdly, the burden of proof lies on the Claimants. Fourthly, particularly given that we are concerned with graphic works, a key item of evidence is the works themselves. Fifthly, as counsel for the Defendants rightly emphasised, the functionality of the Software is irrelevant to this question. The enquiry concerns the visual appearance of the R & P Charts. Given the informative purpose of the R & P Charts, the visual appearance is primarily a matter of the layout of the R & P Charts.

It can be seen from the example of the R & P Charts reproduced above, particularly when enlarged, that the various component parts of the image have been laid out with some care. Mr Mitchell has designed the display so as to cram quite a large amount of information into a single screen. Moreover, he has made choices as to what to put where, including such matters as which commands to put into the ribbon and in what order. He also selected what fonts and colours to use.

When one turns to Mr Mitchell’s evidence, his statement that “the look and feel of it is my brainchild” was not challenged. Nor were his statements that “[e]verything is original” and “everything on there is my design” because, although he had sourced components from a library, he had put them “into various locations”. The cross-examiner used the analogy of building something from Lego bricks, and in my view the analogy is a good one. As the Court of Justice held in BSA at [48], “the national court must take account, inter alia, of the specific arrangement or configuration of all the components which form part of the graphic user interface”. Mr Mitchell did not enlarge upon the choices he had made, but he was not asked about this. Nor was it put to Mr Mitchell that the visual appearance of the R & P Charts was dictated by technical considerations, rules or other constraints which left no room for creative freedom. Nor did the Defendants adduce any evidence to contradict Mr Mitchell’s evidence, such as similar graphical user interfaces produced by third parties. As the judge observed, the evidence was limited, but nevertheless it was all one way.

It is plain that the degree of visual creativity which went into the R & P Charts was low. But that does not mean that there was no creativity at all. The consequence of the low degree of creativity is that the scope of protection conferred by copyright in the R & P Charts is correspondingly narrow, so that only a close copy would infringe: see Infopaq at [45]-[48]. (It is sometimes suggested that Painer at [95]-[98] is authority to the contrary, but all that passage establishes is that the protection conferred by copyright on portrait photographs as a category is not inferior to that enjoyed by other categories of works, including other kinds of photographs.) It does not mean that the R & P Charts are not protected by copyright at all, which would have the consequence that even an identical copy would not infringe.

I therefore conclude that, even though the judge applied the wrong test, he was correct to find that the R & P Charts were original. I would therefore dismiss the Defendants’ appeal, save that I would restrict the declaration made by the judge to the R & P Charts>>.

(notizia e link a Bailii da

Altro stop amministrativo alla tutela da copyright del disegno creato con AI

Da ringraziare Franklin Graves che su Linkedin dà notizia del provv. USCO-Review Board 5 settembre 2023, nel caso “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial” di Jason M. Allen (qui link al documento , da lui offerto).

Si tratta di una prima immagine creata con l’AI di Midjourney , poi ritoccata con Adobe Photoshop e Ggiapixel AI.

immmagine creata inizialmente (sx) e immgine finale dopo adobe Photoshop e Gigapixel AI (dx)

Ne aveva chiesto protezione senza menzionare la modalità creativa.

Anche l’organo amministrativamente gerarchico rigetta perchè l’opera creata da AI non contiene creatività umana nè l’istante, pur invitato, ha distinto ciò che è creato da AI e ciò che è da lui creato.

Il lavoro fatto dall’istante era questo:

<<Because the Work here contains AI-generated material, the Board starts with an analysis
of the circumstances of the Work’s creation, including Mr. Allen’s use of an AI tool. According
to Mr. Allen, the Work was created by 1) initially generating an image using Midjourney (the
“Midjourney Image”), 2) using Adobe Photoshop to “beautify and adjust various cosmetic
details/flaws/artifacts, etc.” in the Midjourney Image, and 3) upscaling the image using Gigapixel AI>>.

Decisum conseguente:

<<In his Second Request, Mr. Allen asserts a number of arguments in support of his claim.
He argues that his use of Midjourney allows him to claim authorship of the image generated by
the service because he provided “creative input” when he “entered a series of prompts, adjusted
the scene, selected portions to focus on, and dictated the tone of the image.” Id. at 4. As
explained in his correspondence, Mr. Allen created a text prompt that began with a “big picture
description” that “focuse[d] on the overall subject of the piece.” Allen Sept. Creation
Explanation. He then added a second “big picture description” to the prompt text “as a way of
instructing the software that Mr. Allen is combining two ideas.” Id. Next, he added “the overall
image’s genre and category,” “certain professional artistic terms which direct the tone of the
piece,” “how lifelike [Mr. Allen] wanted the piece to appear,” a description of “how colors
[should be] used,” a description “to further define the composition,” “terms about what style/era
the artwork should depict,” and “a writing technique that Mr. Allen has established from
extensive testing” that would make the image “pop.” Id. He then “append[ed the prompt] with
various parameters which further instruct[ed] the software how to develop the image,”7 resulting
in a final text prompt that was “executed . . . into Midjourney to complete the process” and
resulted in the creation of the Midjourney Image above. Id.8
In the Board’s view, Mr. Allen’s actions as described do not make him the author of the
Midjourney Image because his sole contribution to the Midjourney Image was inputting the text
prompt that produced it. Although Mr. Allen describes “input[ing] numerous revisions and text
prompts at least 624 times” before producing the Midjourney Image, Allen Sept. Creation
Explanation, the steps in that process were ultimately dependent on how the Midjourney system
processed Mr. Allen’s prompts. According to Midjourney’s documentation, prompts “influence”
what the system generates and are “interpret[ed]” by Midjourney and “compared to its training
data.”9 As the Office has explained, “Midjourney does not interpret prompts as specific
instructions to create a particular expressive result,” because “Midjourney does not understand grammar, sentence structure, or words like humans.”10 It is the Office’s understanding that,
because Midjourney does not treat text prompts as direct instructions, users may need to attempt
hundreds of iterations before landing upon an image they find satisfactory. This appears to be
the case for Mr. Allen, who experimented with over 600 prompts before he “select[ed] and
crop[ped] out one ‘acceptable’ panel out of four potential images … (after hundreds were
previously generated).” Allen Sept. Creation Explanation. As the Office described in its March
guidance, “when an AI technology receives solely a prompt from a human and produces
complex written, visual, or musical works in response, the ‘traditional elements of authorship’
are determined and executed by the technology—not the human user.” AI Registration
Guidance, 88 Fed. Reg. at 16,192. And because the authorship in the Midjourney Image is more
than de minimis, Mr. Allen must exclude it from his claim. See id. at 16,193. Because Mr. Allen
has refused to limit his claim to exclude its non-human authorship elements, the Office cannot
register the Work as submitted.>>

Tutela di autore per le carte geografiche? Anche si

Trib. Milano n. 72/2023 del 20.01.2023 , RG 10372/2020, rel. Salina:

<<Ciò posto e ferma, quindi, la astratta tutelabilità ai sensi della Legge sul diritto d’autore delle rappresentazioni grafiche per cui è causa, la protezione invocata dall’odierno attore e, quindi, il riconoscimento in capo allo stesso, quale autore dell’opera, dei relativi diritti patrimoniali e non patrimoniali, non può prescindere, a ben vedere, da una valutazione, specifica ed in concreto, dei requisiti prescritti ex lege a questo fine.
In particolare, l’opera dell’ingegno meritevole di tutela autoriale deve essere connotata, non solo, da originalità e novità, ma, soprattutto, deve avere carattere creativo, essendo preclusa la suddetta tutela per opere che riproducono, in modo diretto o fortemente evocativo, un’opera altrui già esistente, ricorrendo, altrimenti, l’ipotesi di plagio.
In particolare, ai fini del riconoscimento ad una carta geografica della tutela approntata dalla citata L. n. 633/41, è richiesto che la rappresentazione grafica, planimetrica e/o topografica, sia eseguita, ad esempio, con emblemi figurativi dei vari paesi, con fusione di colori e di elementi decorativi, sì da presentare propri caratteri di originalità e, di creatività artistica.
Ma la parte che intende beneficiare di tale tutela ha, anzitutto, l’onere, alla luce del generale principio dettato dall’art. 2697 c.c., di allegare, descrivere ed illustrare i particolari grafici che attribuirebbero all’opera i sopra individuati caratteri e, quindi, di fornire la prova della loro sussistenza>>.

Sul caso de quo:

<<Non si evince, infatti, quali sarebbero gli elementi grafici, estetici, cromatici, anche in reciproca combinazione tra loro, nei quali troverebbe espressione il carattere creativo conferito dall’autore, e, per ciò, il contributo personale nell’esteriorizzazione dell’idea alla base delle opere.
Del resto, la composizione dei dati e degli elementi ivi riportati, al di là della sua
lacunosa allegazione in atti, non risulta comunque originale e, in ogni caso, tale da consentire di cogliere un apporto individualizzante dell’autore che valga a rendere dette rappresentazioni inedite rispetto a quelle di cui parte convenuta, come detto, ha dimostrato documentalmente l’esistenza.
Il grave deficit assertivo e probatorio delle argomentazioni svolte dall’attore in punto di creatività delle opere per cui è causa preclude inevitabilmente la tutelabilità autoriale dal medesimo invocata, non essendo sufficiente a sopperire ad una siffatta carenza la mera dicitura, su di esse apposta, “Copyright Consultec Delta di Cazzola Daniele @giugno 2002 tutti i diritti sono riservati”.
Infatti, si tratta di una sorta di autocertificazione, in quanto tale unilateralmente
predisposta e riportata sulle rappresentazioni grafiche de quibus dal loro stesso autore, la cui valenza, ai fini e per gli effetti che qui rilevano, non può, in ogni caso, prescindere dalla verifica, positiva ed in concreto, dei requisiti di creatività ed originalità necessariamente richiesti dalla disciplina sopra commentata, potendo, semmai, detta autoreferenziale dicitura rilevare su un diverso piano contrattuale estraneo, però, al thema decidendum del presente giudizio.
Parimenti priva di rilevanza, sotto i medesimi profili fin qui esaminati, può attribuirsi al riconoscimento del copyright rivendicato dall’attore così come operato dalla Regione  Emilia Romagna con il documento prodotto dal Cazzola sub all. n. 3, giacché, anche in questo caso, la tutela autoriale presuppone il riscontro, positivo ed in concreto, dei requisiti come sopra prescritti ex lege>>.

Il collegio, poi, afferma che requisiti per la tutela sono pure l’originalità e la novità, oltre alla creatività (lo dà per scontato senza motivare, probabilmente perchè irrilevante al decidere). Solo che l’originalità è concetto sconosciuto in diritto di autore e che la novità è assai discussa, mancando agganci legislativi.

Incostituzionale il dovere di deposito di due copie fisiche dell’opera per il copyright usa

l’appello per il distr. of Columbia circuit 29 agosto 2023, No. 21-5203, Valancourt Books v. US copyright office, segnalato da molti e ad es. da  post MASTODON del prof. Lemley, afferma la incostituizionalità del dovere di depositare duplice copia fisica per violazione della disciplina degli espropri pubblici (cioè per assenza di indennizzo).

La disposizione è il § 407 del tit. 17 us code.

Notare che la corte differenzia il § 407 dal dovere di registrazione ex § 408 (che pur chiede due copie): al secondo seguono benefinici ben precisi (presunzione di titolarità e diritto di azione in giudizio contro violazioni dei diritto):
<<In that respect, the difference between Sections 407 and
408 is illuminating. Unlike with Section 407, authors receive
additional benefits if they deposit their works along with an
application and filing fee pursuant to Section 408, the statutory
provision governing copyright registration. See id. § 408.
Notably, registration is a precondition to bringing an
infringement action. Id. § 411(a). Registration can also
provide copyright owners with prima facie evidence of the
validity of their copyright, id. § 410(c), and access to additional
remedies if they prevail in an infringement suit, id. § 412>>.

Da noi v. gli artt. 103-106 l. aut.

Istruzioni brevi su come non violare un format di programma teatrale

App. Milano n. 1668/2023 del 25.05.2023, RG 2392/2021, rel. Orsenigo,  si sofferma sulle ragioni per cui il format azionato non può ritenersi plagiato.

<<8.1.1.) Tale motivo di appello è del tutto infondato.
Premesso che, come correttamente rilevato dal giudice di prime cure, la comparazione tra i due spettacoli aventi ad oggetto la storia della realizzazione della Cappella Sistina va effettuata guardando alle somiglianze tra i mezzi espressivi impiegati, in quanto è questo il profilo che può conferire il carattere della creatività e della novità all’idea di narrare una vicenda storico-artistica (e non, dunque, l’idea di fondo), dall’analisi della Brochure del 2010 nella quale risulta fissato il progetto di opera “Il Giudizio Universale – A spectacular show” (in particolare, doc. 22 fasc. di parte appellante) e dello spettacolo “Il Giudizio Universale – into the secrets of the Sistine Chapel”, quale risulta visionabile nella sua versione integrale riversata su CD (doc. 11 fasc. parte appellata), emergono differenze sostanziali tra le due opere.
Anzitutto, il primo profilo di diversità deve rinvenirsi nella presenza di dialoghi e parti recitate: invero, dalla Brochure del 2010 emerge l’assenza di dialoghi o di interazioni verbali, in quanto gli unici artisti presenti in scena sono acrobati e ballerini che, quindi, non recitano, ma eseguono coreografie, mentre nello spettacolo “Il Giudizio Universale – into the secrets of the Sistine Chapel” i dialoghi costituiscono l’elemento chiave dell’opera. A ciò si aggiunge anche
un’evidente dissomiglianza tra i due spettacoli dal punto di vista delle modalità espressive e delle modalità di spettacolarizzazione: difatti, lo show abbozzato nella Brochure del 2010 risulta essere un evento spettacolare da realizzarsi con acrobazie e coreografie, alternate ad effetti speciali aerei e pirotecnici (come il muro d’acqua, il fuoco, i fuochi d’artificio, gli acrobati e gli stuntman; si veda, a tal proposito, doc. 22 pagg. 8, 9, 13 e 16 fasc. primo grado parte appellante) e che avrebbe dovuto svolgersi nelle piazze all’aperto con l’uso di “un impianto scenico avvolgente” (cfr. doc. 33, pag. 3, fasc. primo grado parte appellante), mentre, al contrario, il nucleo rappresentativo dello spettacolo “Il Giudizio Universale – into the secrets of the Sistine Chapel”, che si svolge su un palco di teatro tradizionale, è costituito principalmente da giochi di luce e da proiezioni statiche a 270º della Cappella Sistina, con le quali gli attori hanno una costante interazione.
Ancora, un ulteriore profilo di differenziazione tra le due opere si individua nell’elemento spettacolare: dalla Brochure del 2010 emerge, infatti, che la finalità dello spettacolo è quello di intrattenere il pubblico, mentre la rappresentazione “Il Giudizio Universale – into the secrets of the Sistine Chapel” ha il precipuo scopo educativo, in quanto fondata sulla puntuale ricostruzione di una vicenda storica illustrata tramite immagini e dialoghi.
Da tali considerazioni, che evidenziano differenze sostanziali tra i due spettacoli, risultano condivisibili le valutazioni del Tribunale di Milano, che ha ritenuto impossibile ravvisare profili di sovrapponibilità quanto alle modalità rappresentative degli stessi>>.

Il Tribunale di Washington conferma la negazione amministrativa di tutela autorale al dr. Stepah Thaler per opera creata tramite IA

Varie fonti notiziano circa  la sentenza 18 agosto 2023 , caso n° 22-1564 (BAH) del tribunale di  WEashington DC, Thaler v. SHIRA PERLMUTTER, che nega la tutela autorale a opera creata tramite intelligenza artificiale.

Si tratta della fase giudiziale successiva all’analogo rigetto amministrativo, su cui v. mio post  18.02.2022.

Ad es. v. questo link alla sentenza , offerto dal blog del prof. Eric Goldman

<<Copyright has never stretched so far, however, as to protect works generated by new forms of technology operating absent any guiding human hand, as plaintiff urges here. Human authorship is a bedrock requirement of copyright.
That principle follows from the plain text of the Copyright Act. The current incarnation of the copyright law, the Copyright Act of 1976, provides copyright protection to “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.” 17 U.S.C. § 102(a). The “fixing” of the work in the tangible medium must be done “by or under the authority of the author.” Id. § 101. In order to be eligible for copyright, then, a work must have an “author.”
To be sure, as plaintiff points out, the critical word “author” is not defined in the Copyright Act. See Pl.’s Mem. at 24. “Author,” in its relevant sense, means “one that is the source of some form of intellectual or creative work,” “[t]he creator of an artistic work; a painter, photographer, filmmaker, etc.” Author, MERRIAM-WEBSTER UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY, https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/author (last visited Aug. 18, 2023); Author, OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY, https://www.oed.com/dictionary/author_n (last visited Aug. 10, 2023). By its plain text, the 1976 Act thus requires a copyrightable work to have an originator with the capacity for intellectual, creative, or artistic labor. Must that originator be a human being to claim copyright protection? The answer is yes.2
The 1976 Act’s “authorship” requirement as presumptively being human rests on centuries of settled understanding. The Constitution enables the enactment of copyright and patent law by granting Congress the authority to “promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective
2 The issue of whether non-human sentient beings may be covered by “person” in the Copyright Act is only “fun conjecture for academics,” Justin Hughes, Restating Copyright Law’s Originality Requirement, 44 COLUMBIA J. L. & ARTS 383, 408–09 (2021), though useful in illuminating the purposes and limits of copyright protection as AI is increasingly employed. Nonetheless, delving into this debate is an unnecessary detour since “[t]he day sentient refugees from some intergalactic war arrive on Earth and are granted asylum in Iceland, copyright law will be the least of our problems.” Id. at 408.
writings and discoveries.” U.S. Const. art. 1, cl. 8. As James Madison explained, “[t]he utility of this power will scarcely be questioned,” for “[t]he public good fully coincides in both cases [of copyright and patent] with the claims of individuals.” THE FEDERALIST NO. 43 (James Madison). At the founding, both copyright and patent were conceived of as forms of property that the government was established to protect, and it was understood that recognizing exclusive rights in that property would further the public good by incentivizing individuals to create and invent. The act of human creation—and how to best encourage human individuals to engage in that creation, and thereby promote science and the useful arts—was thus central to American copyright from its very inception. Non-human actors need no incentivization with the promise of exclusive rights under United States law, and copyright was therefore not designed to reach them.
The understanding that “authorship” is synonymous with human creation has persisted even as the copyright law has otherwise evolved. The immediate precursor to the modern copyright law—the Copyright Act of 1909—explicitly provided that only a “person” could “secure copyright for his work” under the Act. Act of Mar. 4, 1909, ch. 320, §§ 9, 10, 35 Stat. 1075, 1077. Copyright under the 1909 Act was thus unambiguously limited to the works of human creators. There is absolutely no indication that Congress intended to effect any change to this longstanding requirement with the modern incarnation of the copyright law. To the contrary, the relevant congressional report indicates that in enacting the 1976 Act, Congress intended to incorporate the “original work of authorship” standard “without change” from the previous 1909 Act. See H.R. REP. NO. 94-1476, at 51 (1976).

The human authorship requirement has also been consistently recognized by the Supreme Court when called upon to interpret the copyright law. As already noted, in Sarony, the Court’s recognition of the copyrightability of a photograph rested on the fact that the human creator, not the camera, conceived of and designed the image and then used the camera to capture the image. See Sarony, 111 U.S. at 60. The photograph was “the product of [the photographer’s] intellectual invention,” and given “the nature of authorship,” was deemed “an original work of art . . . of which [the photographer] is the author.” Id. at 60–61. Similarly, in Mazer v. Stein, the Court delineated a prerequisite for copyrightability to be that a work “must be original, that is, the author’s tangible expression of his ideas.” 347 U.S. 201, 214 (1954). Goldstein v. California, too, defines “author” as “an ‘originator,’ ‘he to whom anything owes its origin,’” 412 U.S. at 561 (quoting Sarony, 111 U.S. at 58). In all these cases, authorship centers on acts of human creativity.
Accordingly, courts have uniformly declined to recognize copyright in works created absent any human involvement, even when, for example, the claimed author was divine. The Ninth Circuit, when confronted with a book “claimed to embody the words of celestial beings rather than human beings,” concluded that “some element of human creativity must have occurred in order for the Book to be copyrightable,” for “it is not creations of divine beings that the copyright laws were intended to protect.” Urantia Found. v. Kristen Maaherra, 114 F.3d 955, 958–59 (9th Cir. 1997) (finding that because the “members of the Contact Commission chose and formulated the specific questions asked” of the celestial beings, and then “select[ed] and arrange[d]” the resultant “revelations,” the Urantia Book was “at least partially the product of human creativity” and thus protected by copyright); see also Penguin Books U.S.A., Inc. v. New Christian Church of Full Endeavor, 96-cv-4126 (RWS), 2000 WL 1028634, at *2, 10–11 (S.D.N.Y. July 25, 2000) (finding a valid copyright where a woman had “filled nearly thirty stenographic notebooks with words she believed were dictated to her” by a “‘Voice’ which would speak to her whenever she was prepared to listen,” and who had worked with two human co-collaborators to revise and edit those notes into a book, a process which involved enough creativity to support human authorship); Oliver v. St. Germain Found., 41 F. Supp. 296, 297, 299 (S.D. Cal. 1941) (finding no copyright infringement where plaintiff claimed to have transcribed “letters” dictated to him by a spirit named Phylos the Thibetan, and defendant copied the same “spiritual world messages for recordation and use by the living” but was not charged with infringing plaintiff’s “style or arrangement” of those messages). Similarly, in Kelley v. Chicago Park District, the Seventh Circuit refused to “recognize[] copyright” in a cultivated garden, as doing so would “press[] too hard on the[] basic principle[]” that “[a]uthors of copyrightable works must be human.” 635 F.3d 290, 304–06 (7th Cir. 2011). The garden “ow[ed] [its] form to the forces of nature,” even if a human had originated the plan for the “initial arrangement of the plants,” and as such lay outside the bounds of copyright. Id. at 304. Finally, in Naruto v. Slater, the Ninth Circuit held that a crested macaque could not sue under the Copyright Act for the alleged infringement of photographs this monkey had taken of himself, for “all animals, since they are not human” lacked statutory standing under the Act. 888 F.3d 418, 420 (9th Cir. 2018). While resolving the case on standing grounds, rather than the copyrightability of the monkey’s work, the Naruto Court nonetheless had to consider whom the Copyright Act was designed to protect and, as with those courts confronted with the nature of authorship, concluded that only humans had standing, explaining that the terms used to describe who has rights under the Act, like “‘children,’ ‘grandchildren,’ ‘legitimate,’ ‘widow,’ and ‘widower[,]’ all imply humanity and necessarily exclude animals.” Id. at 426. Plaintiff can point to no case in which a court has recognized copyright in a work originating with a non-human>>.

Considerazioni che nella sostanza valgono anche per il nostro art. 6 l. aut.

Diritto di autore su fiabe , anzi su una loro particolare modalità editoriale-rappresentativa

Appello Firenze n. 669/2023 del 03.04.2023, RG 1132/2022, rel. Nicoletti, sul tema in oggetto conferma la sentenza di 1 grado circa la tutela come opera dll’ingegno della innovativa  modalitàò edutoriale di rapprestnazione di fiabe tradizionali:

<<Il giudicante, poi, correttamente, dopo aver esemplificato i dati terminologici di
cui sopra, ha ritenuto che l’oggetto di causa non fosse l’idea, ma l’opera
compiuta. Infatti, ha affermato che “nel caso di specie, l’opera di cui si chiede la
protezione è rappresentata dai cofanetti della collana “Carte in tavola”. Ora, è pacifico
che il contenuto dei cofanetti sia costituito dalle fiabe tradizionalmente raccontate ai
bambini. Tuttavia, applicando i suesposti principi, occorre guardare non all’idea in sé,
al contenuto dell’opera, bensì alla sua forma espressiva. Dalla disamina delle opere, il
cui deposito cartaceo è stato autorizzato in sede istruttoria, emerge come il suo autore abbia voluto rappresentarle mediante una visione personale delle stesse: il cofanetto,
ciascuno avente ad oggetto una fiaba, è composto da una serie di schede sulla quali
da un lato vi è il racconto della storia e, dall’altro, il disegno corrispondente, così che
poi poggiando tutte le carte in sequenza emerge la rappresentazione in disegni
dell’intera fiaba. Ebbene, si ritiene che una tale rappresentazione delle tradizionali
fiabe per bambini sia caratterizzata da innovazione ed originalità, distinguendosi dai
differenti libri con immagini colorate, per essere stampato sui due lati di singole
schede.”.
La ricostruzione del Tribunale, quindi, è del tutto in linea con l’interpretazione
costante fornita dalla giurisprudenza della normativa di riferimento.
E’ poi condivisibile l’affermazione secondo cui l’opera “Carte in tavola” presenta
un contenuto creativo, rappresentato dal fatto che il Faglia ha inteso
rappresentare e narrare delle fiabe tramite una nuova metodologia comunicativa,
ovvero quella della sequenza di carte contenenti delle illustrazioni, che nella loro
successione raccontano la storia. Tale metodologia di racconto, infatti, si presenta
come innovativa rispetto alla tradizione, differenziandosi dalla narrazione tramite libri e manuali.
L’innovazione creativa determinata dalla differente metodologia narrativa,
pertanto, connota il Faglia quale autore dell’opera, in quanto tale legittimato a
richiedere il riconoscimento della paternità della stessa.

E’ poi irrilevante il fatto che altri soggetti siano gli autori del testo e delle
illustrazioni>>

E poi:

<<L’art.  4 della legge sul diritto di autore, infatti, prevede che “senza pregiudizio dei diritti esistenti sull’opera originaria, sono altresì protette le elaborazioni di carattere creativo dell’opera stessa, quali le traduzioni in altra lingua, le trasformazioni da una in altra forma letteraria od artistica, le modificazioni ed aggiunte che costituiscono un rifacimento sostanziale dell’opera originaria, gli adattamenti, le riduzioni, i compendi, le variazioni non costituenti opera originale.”.
In tale ambito può essere calata anche l’opera di cui si discute, rientrando nel
concetto di “trasformazione da un’altra forma letteraria o artistica” anche la
narrazione di fiabe tradizionali mediante carte illustrate, in relazione alle quali
l’aspetto di creatività va rinvenuto proprio nella modalità di rappresentazione
della storia.
Quello che viene tutelato nel caso in esame, infatti, non è una mera idea, come
afferma l’appellante, ma l’ideazione di una forma di rappresentazione delle storie avente carattere innovativo>>

interessante applicazione dell’art. 1304 cc, poi , da parte della Corte , avendo l’altro convenuto stipulato in precedenza una transazione con l’attore.

Guidelines dell’US Copyright Office sulle creazioni tramite intelligenza artificiale

Anna Maria Stein su IPKat ci informa che l’Ufficio USA ha emesso guidelines sull’oggetto: Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence.

Si legge  nelle stesse:

<<As the agency overseeing the copyright registration system, the Office has extensive
experience in evaluating works submitted for registration that contain human
authorship combined with uncopyrightable material, including material generated by
or with the assistance of technology. It begins by asking “whether the ‘work’ is basically
one of human authorship, with the computer [or other device] merely being an assisting
instrument, or whether the traditional elements of authorship in the work (literary,
artistic, or musical expression or elements of selection, arrangement, etc.) were actually
conceived and executed not by man but by a machine.” 23 In the case of works containing
AI-generated material, the Office will consider whether the AI contributions are the result of “mechanical reproduction” or instead of an author’s “own original mental conception,
to which [the author] gave visible form.” 24 The answer will depend on the circumstances,
particularly how the AI tool operates and how it was used to create the final work.   This is necessarily a case-by-case inquiry.

If a work’s traditional elements of authorship were produced by a machine, the work lacks
human authorship and the Office will not register it .  For example, when an AI technology
receives solely a prompt from a human and produces complex written, visual, or musical
works in response, the “traditional elements of authorship” are determined and executed
by the technology—not the human user. Based on the Office’s understanding of the
generative AI technologies currently available, users do not exercise ultimate creative
control over how such systems interpret prompts and generate material. Instead, these
prompts function more like instructions to a commissioned artist—they identify what the
prompter wishes to have depicted, but the machine determines how those instructions are
implemented in its output. For example, if a user instructs a text-generating technology
to “write a poem about copyright law in the style of William Shakespeare,” she can expect
the system to generate text that is recognizable as a poem, mentions copyright, and
resembles Shakespeare’s style. 29 But the technology will decide the rhyming pattern, the
words in each line, and the structure of the text. 30 When an AI technology determines
the expressive elements of its output, the generated material is not the product of
human authorship.31 As a result, that material is not protected by copyright and must be
disclaimed in a registration application.

In other cases, however, a work containing AI-generated material will also contain
sufficient human authorship to support a copyright claim. For example, a human may
select or arrange AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way that “the resulting
work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.” 33 Or an artist may modify
material originally generated by AI technology to such a degree that the modifications
meet the standard for copyright protection. 34 In these cases, copyright will only protect
the human-authored aspects of the work, which are “independent of ” and do “not affect”
the copyright status of the AI-generated material itself>>.

Contraffazione musicale (negata) dal distretto sud di New York

Mark Jaffe dà notizia di South. Distr. of New York 24 marzo 2023, Case 1:21-cv-04047-VM, EMELIKE NWOSUOCHA c. DONALD MCKINLEY GLOVER II,
JEFFEREY LAMAR WILLIAMS ed altri.

Interessante esame delle questioni proprie delle liti su copyright musicale nella sentenza in esame: questioni sempre ostiche per chi non conosce teoria o almeno tecnica musicale.

Il problema di solito -e pure qui- è quello di individuare le parti non originali di una composizione, le quali non sono proteggibili.

In generale:

<<Thus, “copyright protects only that which is original,” and “does not protect ideas, only their expression.” McDonald, 138 F. Supp. 3d at 455. “This principle excludes from copyright the raw materials of art, like colors, letters, descriptive facts, and standard geometric forms, as well as previous creative works that have fallen into the public domain,” and “[i]t likewise excludes the basic building blocks of music, including tempo and individual notes.” Id. at 454 (collecting cases). Further, “words and short phrases, including titles and slogans, rarely if ever exhibit sufficient originality to warrant copyright protection,” and “[l]onger phrases are also not protectable if they are common or cliché.” Id. Similarly, “common rhythms, song structures, and harmonic progressions are not protected” and “[t]hemes fall into the category of uncopyrightable ideas.” Id. at 454-55. Still, “a work may be copyrightable even though it is entirely a compilation of unprotectible elements,” because “the original way in which the author has selected, coordinated, and arranged the elements of his or her work” is protectible. Knitwaves, Inc. v. Lollytogs Ltd. (Inc.), 71 F.3d 996, 1003-04 (2d Cir. 1995) (internal quotation marks omitted)>>

In aprticolare nel caso sub iudice:

<<Additionally, the parties agree, and the Court concurs, that the Complaint does not allege infringement of the “overall structure of the songs, order, and number of verse and chorus sections,” or the “instrumentation,” “musical notes,” or “musical production.”5 (See Opposition at 2-6; Memorandum at 4-6; Complaint ¶¶ 39-40.)
The Court finds that the “distinct and unique vocal cadence, delivery, rhythm, timing, phrasing, meter and/or pattern” or “flow” as well as the “lyrical theme” and “structure” of the chorus in Plaintiff’s Composition lack sufficient originality alone, or as combined, to merit compositional copyright protection or are categorically ineligible for copyright protection. (Complaint ¶ 39.) For instance, Nwosuocha asserts copyright over the “lyrical theme” of Plaintiff’s Composition, but a lyrical theme is simply an idea, and ideas are not protectable. Moreover, the idea of a boastful rapper is certainly not original to Nwosuocha.
The Court further finds that although the “content” of the chorus of Plaintiff’s Composition, which the Court understands to mean the lyrics, bears sufficient originality to merit compositional protection, a cursory comparison with the Challenged Composition reveals that the content of the choruses is entirely different and not substantially similar.6 As noted previously, the “question of substantial similarity is by no means exclusively reserved for resolution by a jury” and the Second Circuit has “repeatedly recognized that, in certain circumstances, it is entirely appropriate for a district court to resolve that question as a matter of law, either because the similarity between two works concerns only non-copyrightable elements of the plaintiff’s work, or because no reasonable jury, properly instructed, could find that the two works are substantially similar.” Peter F. Gaito, 602 F.3d at 63. Here, no reasonable jury, properly instructed, could find that the lyrics of the chorus of Plaintiff’s Composition and the chorus of the Challenged Composition are substantially similar>>.

Si tratta però di esame ultroneo , condotto dalal corte senza necessità, dato che l’opera nmon era stata retgistrata come richeide il diritto usa per aver tutela in corte. O meglio -particolare assi imporante- l’attore aveva registrato solo il fonogramma (sound recording) e  non l’opera muscia /musical registration): inadempimeot palese del suo consulente IP .

L’immagine fumettistica creata tramite intelligenza artificiale non è protetta come opera dell’ingegno : decisione interessante dello US Copyright Office

dal sito https://processmechanics.com/author/vanl/ si apprende della decisione February 21, 2023 dello US Copiright Office (poi: c.o.)  nel caso  <Zarya of the Dawn (Registration # VAu001480196)> .

Viene ivi offerto anche il link diretto al testo di quest’ultima.

In breve il c.o. nega la registrazione (là necessaria a quasi ogni fine) perchè il fumetto (o meglio: le immagini) sono state geenrate da intelligenza ariticiale (Midjourney: generatore di immagini) anche se su input (prompts) della artista (Kristina Kashtanova, poi: KK).

Noin può infatti ravvisarsi “work of authorship”.

Mon è servita l’allegazione per cui KK avesse provato moltssimi prompts per generare l’immagimne migliore, poi scelta per il fumetto

Il c.o. invece ammette il copyright sui testi e sull’arrangement di immagini+testo.

Nella decisione è desritto bene il funzionament di Midjourney (lato utente : non ovviamnte la logica algoritmica alla base)

<< Based on the record before it, the Office concludes that the images generated by
Midjourney contained within the Work are not original works of authorship protected by
copyright.
See COMPENDIUM (THIRD) § 313.2 (explaining that “the Office will not register works
produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically
without any creative input or intervention from a human author”). Though she claims to have
“guided” the structure and content of each image, the process described in the Kashtanova Letter
makes clear that it was Midjourney—not Kashtanova—that originated the “traditional elements
of authorship” in the images.
Ms. Kashtanova claims that each image was created using “a similar creative process.”
Kashtanova Letter at 5. Summarized here, this process consisted of a series of steps employing
Midjourney. First, she entered a text prompt to Midjourney, which she describes as “the core
creative input” for the image.
Id. at 7–8 (providing example of first generated image in response
to prompt “dark skin hands holding an old photograph –ar 16:9”).
14 Next, “Kashtanova then
picked one or more of these output images to further develop.”
Id. at 8. She then “tweaked or
changed the prompt as well as the other inputs provided to Midjourney” to generate new
intermediate images, and ultimately the final image.
Id. Ms. Kashtanova does not claim she
created any visual material herself—she uses passive voice in describing the final image as
“created, developed, refined, and relocated” and as containing elements from intermediate
images “brought together into a cohesive whole.”
Id. at 7. To obtain the final image, she
describes a process of trial-and-error, in which she provided “hundreds or thousands of
descriptive prompts” to Midjourney until the “hundreds of iterations [created] as perfect a
rendition of her vision as possible.”
Id. at 9–10.
Rather than a tool that Ms. Kashtanova controlled and guided to reach her desired image,
Midjourney generates images in an unpredictable way. Accordingly, Midjourney users are not
the “authors” for copyright purposes of the images the technology generates. As the Supreme
Court has explained, the “author” of a copyrighted work is the one “who has actually formed the
picture,” the one who acts as “the inventive or master mind.”
Burrow-Giles, 111 U.S. at 61. A
person who provides text prompts to Midjourney does not “actually form” the generated images
and is not the “master mind” behind them. Instead, as explained above, Midjourney begins the
image generation process with a field of visual “noise,” which is refined based on tokens created
from user prompts that relate to Midjourney’s training database. The information in the prompt
may “influence” generated image, but prompt text does not dictate a specific result.
See
Prompts
, MIDJOURNEY, https://docs.midjourney.com/docs/prompts (explaining that short text
prompts cause “each word [to have] a more powerful influence” and that images including in a
prompt may “influence the style and content of the finished result”). Because of the significant
distance between what a user may direct Midjourney to create and the visual material
Midjourney actually produces, Midjourney users lack sufficient control over generated images to
be treated as the “master mind” behind them.
>>

Pertanto secondo il c.o.:

<<The fact that Midjourney’s specific output cannot be predicted by users makes
Midjourney different for copyright purposes than other tools used by artists. See Kashtanova
Letter at 11 (arguing that the process of using Midjourney is similar to using other “computerbased tools” such as Adobe Photoshop). Like the photographer in Burrow-Giles, when artists
use editing or other assistive tools, they select what visual material to modify, choose which
tools to use and what changes to make, and take specific steps to control the final image such
that it amounts to the artist’s “own original mental conception, to which [they] gave visible
form.”15 Burrow-Giles, 111 U.S. at 60 (explaining that the photographer’s creative choices made
the photograph “the product of [his] intellectual invention”). Users of Midjourney do not have
comparable control over the initial image generated, or any final image. It is therefore
understandable that users like Ms. Kashtanova may take “over a year from conception to
creation” of images matching what the user had in mind because they may need to generate
“hundreds of intermediate images.” Kashtanova Letter at 3, 9>>.