Re: The AI creators are free-loading on other peoples work.
“ I could reproduce a grainy and lossy JPEG version of the "golden arches" and stick it on the front of a burger joint, and still expect to get sued out of existence by McDonalds.”
Yes indeed. And this is exactly why I try to explain the laws that apply, because they aren’t what people think they are:
First off; the Golden Arches will be protected as a *trademark* not copyright, and that’s a separate set of conditions. But if a company made a graphic design that wasn’t a logo, they can register that under *design rights*, a different thing again. Now, if it’s an artistic picture, or a photo; that is *copyright*, but it’s a different sort of copyright. It’s literally a different set of pages in the legal code to text, some are the same rules and some are different.
Copyright of eg a painting, has only to be *similar* not the same, and “intent to deceive” is relevant, as is whether or not you actually used the original to copy (irrespective of the end result).
Text has to be both *the same*, substantial passages, and have substantial artistic invention and be uniquely identifiable as the work of the originator. Even a page copied directly out of a manual describing how to put together a particular piece of IKEA furniture is not going to be defensible copyright, because there’s only one way to do it, and everyone would describe it similarly. No artistic endeavour, no copyright. Essence of the original is also irrelevant: if you paraphrase, you do not infringe copyright.
TLDR: people’s experience of when copyright has teeth is almost always music, performances, or photos. Copyright of text is a different law, much weaker