The thing is, we already have doctrine that starts to encompass some of these concepts with fair use.

The four pronged test in US case law:

- the purpose and character of use (is a machine doing this different in purpose and character? many would say yes. is "ripping-off-this-artist-as-a-service" different than an isolated work that builds upon another artist's art?)

- the nature of the copyrighted work

- the amount and substantiality of the portion taken (can this be substantially different with AI?)

- the effect of the use upon the potential market for the original work (might mechanization of reproducing a given style have a larger impact than an individual artist inspired by it?)

These are well balanced tests, allowing me as a classroom teacher to duplicate articles nearly freely but preventing me from duplicating books en masse for profit (different purpose; different portion taken; different impact on market).

The problem with this conversation is that its being had by people that make the top level comment here stating that clothing is not copyrightable. It is. Clothing design is copyrightable. This was a huge recent case, Star Athletica. They know nothing about copyright law and they just build intuitions from the world around them, but the intuitions are completely nonsense because they are made in ignorance of the actual law and what the law does and why the law does it. I find it exhausting.

Your sentiment is probably correct in that there are many aspects of copyright law that are not strictly aligned with the public’s intuition. But your example is a bit of a reach. Star Athletica was a relatively novel holding that allows for a specific piece of clothing, when properly argued, could qualify as copyrightable as a semi-sculptural work of art, however this quality of a given piece is separate to its character as clothing. In fact, the USSC in Star Athletica explicitly held a designer/manufacturer has “no right to prohibit any person from manufacturing [clothing] of identical shape, cut, and dimensions” to clothing which they design/manufacture. That quote is directly from a discussion of the ability to apply copyright protections to clothing design. I think the end result is that trying to argue technical legal issues around a poorly implemented statutory regime is always fraught with errors. That really leave moral and commercial arguments outstanding and advocacy should try and focus on that, when not fighting to affect change in the law these copyright determinations are based on.

And just to be clear, this post does not constitute legal advice.

You're dismissing my comment because of what someone else said upthread?

I hate the desire to meta-comment about the site rather than argue on the merits.

We obviously don't know so much about how courts will interpret copyright with LLMs. There's a lot of arguments on all sides, and we're only going to know in several years after a whole lot of case law solidifies. There are so many questions, (fair use, originality, can weights be copyrighted? when can model output be copyrighted? etc etc etc). Not to mention that the legislative branch may weigh in.

This discourse by citizens who are informed about technology is essential for technology to be regulated well, even if not all participants in the conversation are as legally informed as you'd wish. Today's well-meaning intuition about what deserves copyright and why inform tomorrow's case law and legislation.