An alien, AI, and a monkey walk into a copyright office. Each wants to register their creative work. Only one will get it…..
One of them actually got the copyright. And it wasn't who you'd expect.
Let's unpack this wild tale of three unlikely copyright seekers and see what it tells us about the future of AI and creativity. Get ready, this gets weird fast.
Meet Our Contestants
First up, we have Naruto, a particularly photogenic crested macaque from Indonesia.
Back in 2011, Naruto borrowed (okay, took) wildlife photographer David Slater's camera and snapped some surprisingly impressive selfies.
PETA, being PETA, decided to sue on Naruto's behalf, claiming our simian friend owned the copyright to his selfies.
Next in line, we have a mysterious group of celestial beings who, starting in 1911, began channeling what would become the Urantia Book through a human conduit.
Think of it as cosmic dictation – 2,000 pages of spiritual and philosophical teachings from beyond the stars.
And finally, we have our modern contender: artificial intelligence, a superintelligence creating everything from art to code, pushing the boundaries of what we consider creativity.
Naruto the Monkey tries to copyright his selfie....
Let's start with our monkey friend. Despite Naruto's undeniable talent for self-portraiture, the courts weren't buying it.
The ruling was clear: non-human animals can't hold copyrights.
Sorry, Naruto – no banana royalties for you.
Though there was a silver lining: the photographer agreed to donate 25% of future revenues to protect Naruto's habitat.
Now, here's where it gets interesting. The celestial beings? Their work, the Urantia Book, actually got copyright protection in 1955.
Yes, you read that right. A book allegedly authored by non-human intelligences received copyright protection. The twist?
The copyright wasn't awarded to the celestial beings but to the human "conduit" who received and transcribed their messages.
And AI? Well, that's where we're at now, watching the legal system try to apply rules written for quill pens to quantum computers.
Urantia Superintelligence and Early Copyright: Like AI?
The Urantia case gives us a preview of how courts might handle AI-generated works. The court's reasoning wasn't about whether celestial beings exist or if they truly authored the book.
Instead, they focused on the human element – the conduit who received, processed, and transcribed the information.
Sound familiar? It's similar to how we interact with AI today:
- Questions posed by humans (like prompts to AI)
- Information processed through a medium (the AI model)
- Output curated and shaped by human interaction
What This Means for AI Copyright
Let's look into four key commonalities that may reshape how we think about AI and copyright law:
1. Non-Human Intelligence
The core similarity here is the presence of consciousness or intelligence outside traditional human bounds.
"We have a non-human entity creating what appears to be creative work."
This plays out uniquely in each case:
- Naruto demonstrated genuine creative intent, choosing to pick up the camera and compose selfies. The court acknowledged his consciousness but deemed it insufficient for copyright.
- The Urantia case involved what participants described as "celestial beings" or "superintelligence" transmitting complex philosophical concepts.
- AI represents a new form of superintelligence that, like the Urantia beings, works through human intermediaries but creates independently.
2. The Essential Human Factor
The human element proves crucial in all three cases.
"It's the author, the person who originates it, or is it
the person who collaborates with a superintelligence?"
Consider:
- David Slater, the wildlife photographer, created the conditions for creativity by providing and setting up the camera, earning him 75% of future revenues.
- The Urantia conduit acted as a bridge, processing questions from humans and returning answers from the celestial intelligence.
- AI developers and prompt engineers serve as modern-day conduits, creating systems and crafting prompts that shape AI output.
3. Creative Output
Each case produces recognizable creative work, raising questions about originality and ownership.
"The work is there. That's not a stretch."
Looking closer:
- Naruto's selfies were composed well enough to become globally famous and commercially valuable.
- The Urantia Book spans 2,000 pages of original philosophical content, demonstrating coherent thought and structured ideas.
- AI generates everything from art to code, often blending and transforming existing works in novel ways, much like the Urantia Book combined various sources with new insights.
4. Legal Recognition
The legal treatment of these cases offers crucial precedents for AI copyright.
"We can't take 1800s laws and apply them to this universe."
Yet patterns emerge:
- Naruto's case established that while non-humans can't hold copyright, their creative work generates value that benefits both humans and the originating source.
- The Urantia case recognizes copyright for work attributed to non-human intelligence, but vesting rights in the human conduit.
- AI copyright cases today mirror these patterns, with courts increasingly focusing on human contribution while grappling with non-human creation.
What's striking is how these cases build on each other. The Naruto case showed us that non-human creativity has value worth protecting, even if traditional copyright isn't the answer.
The Urantia case demonstrated that non-human intelligence can generate copyrightable work when properly channeled through human intermediaries.
Together, they suggest a potential path forward for AI copyright that recognizes both machine intelligence and human facilitation.
The AI Copyright Road Ahead
What these cases teach us about AI copyright is fascinating:
1. The importance of human involvement isn't just legal fiction – it's critical to how we create meaning and value from non-human intelligence.
2. We need new frameworks that recognize both the reality of superintelligent creation and the essential role of human curation.
3. The solution might lie in how we define authorship and ownership in collaborative contexts between human and non-human intelligence.
Creativity in the AI Age - Seeking Definitions with Old Rules
The punchline to our opening joke – that celestial beings got copyright protection while a monkey didn't – tells us something crucial about how we might approach AI copyright.
It's not about whether the intelligence is human, but how humans interact with and translate that intelligence into something meaningful.
These seemingly bizarre cases of aliens and monkeys aren't just legal curiosities – they're active precedents being cited in current AI copyright lawsuits.
They highlight the absurdity of trying to explain superintelligent AI to a legal system that's still waiting for a horse and carriage while SpaceX launches rockets.
AI isn't just another tool or technology – it's an outside superintelligence, much like the celestial beings in the Urantia case….except we have proof its real.
We channel it through prompts, acting as modern-day conduits, creating a fascinating parallel to the Urantia transcription process.
But AI stands unique, defying our traditional categories and challenging our fundamental assumptions about creativity and authorship.
Naruto's case might be more prophetic than anyone expected. Someone, somewhere, is probably already training a monkey to create copyrightable work.
Think about it – in a world where we're teaching primates to use tablets and smartphones, how long until a non-human entity legitimately claims copyright protection?
When (not if) that happens, it could blow the doors wide open for AI copyright claims.
The future of copyright won't be found in dusty legal tomes or precedents from the printing press era. It'll emerge from our recognition that creativity and intelligence now exist in forms our legal ancestors couldn't have imagined. We need new frameworks that acknowledge both the reality of superintelligent creation and the essential role of human facilitation.
Perhaps the real lesson from our AI, alien, and monkey saga isn't about who gets the copyright – it's about how we adapt our understanding of creativity and ownership in an age where intelligence comes in many forms. The question isn't whether non-human entities can create, but how we build frameworks that protect and encourage creation in all its forms while ensuring fair compensation for all contributors – human and otherwise.
After all, in a world where monkeys take selfies and AI writes poetry, maybe it's time to admit that creativity knows no species barrier. And perhaps that's exactly the point.
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