No, according to Beryl Howell, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia: https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/19/23838458/ai-generated-art-no-copyright-district-court
Can’t say I entirely agree. I’ve seen plenty of low effort AI, but I’ve also seen AI that clearly had work put into it, probably a custom LoRA or checkpoint, extensive inpainting and touchups, etc, where they were using AI as a tool to create something new.
What are your thoughts? Does art generated by AI deserve copyright protection?
The world’s copyright system is broken, so nothing should be copyrightable.
I like the GPL, though. Could that work without copyright?
The GPL, as a copyleft license, uses copyright law for enforcement. You could potentially try to use contract law and offer access to the software contingent on a license agreement with terms similar to the GPL (adding an extra wall to access the software), but this would require a complete rewrite at the very least, and there are plenty of legally-undefined situations that would be introduced by doing so.