A 60-year-old retired US Army veteran has recently challenged the US Copyright Office by filing a copyright registration for a self-published novel that had been written extensively by ChatGPT. Elisa Shupe attempted to force the US Copyright Office to overturn its policy on intellectual property made with AI, with AI generated work currently not able to be copyrighted.
The initial registration failed, however she was successful in appealing this decision and subsequently succeeded with her registration. The copyright registration of the novel, AI Machinations: Tangled Webs and Typed Words, highlights the ongoing battle with intellectual property and AI generated work, with this being one of the first instances of AI created text being granted copyright registration.
The USCO has made it clear that although Shupe is not considered the author of the whole text, she is considered the author of the “selection, coordination, and arrangement of text generated by artificial intelligence”. This prevents others from copying the book without permission, but the content of the book is unprotected and could hypothetically be rearranged and republished as a different book.
Shupe has said she is unable to write due to injuries suffered while spending time in the US Army, and was only able to complete her book with the assistance of AI. She thinks that working with AI allows her a different way of expressing her thoughts, and had to put in long hours in order to create her book. The successful appeal of the registration was centered around Shupe’s disabilities, comparing her use of ChatGPT to that of a prosthetic leg to an amputee. The appeal also presented a log of the prompts and commands that Shupe had used, as well as the edits she made. It included a side by side comparison of the unedited AI generated text and the final published book, with nearly every sentence adjusted in some form.
Shupe ultimately won the appeal and is part of a bigger movement to make copyright law more lenient towards AI generated work. The UK is currently at a crossroads with copyright laws regarding AI generated work, after failing to reach a voluntary code in February. Following this, DSIT and DCMS ministers will lead a period of engagement with the AI and rights holder sectors to find a solution that allows the AI and creative sectors to grow in partnership.
