In my previous video, I described the process of how I took a script that I wrote actually in Hebrew, not even English, and turned it into a book in English. So, I ended up with the question: Do I have the rights, the copyrights for this book after I used ChatGPT in order to write that book? The answer is a bit complicated. First of all, it is important to say a few things. A disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer. I am quite an experienced scriptwriter, but here in Israel, copyrights are a bit different in each territory, so you need to check what’s the status in your country. I’m talking because I wrote this book in English and I published it on Amazon, so what’s important for me is to get a copyright in the United States. And for that, I went and first checked, by the way, with the help of a lawyer, the guidelines. So let’s see what the United States copyright office published regarding using AI. As you can see here, this is what the United States copyright office published regarding the use, the uses, the copyright registration guidance Works containing material generated by artificial intelligence. It’s a long document that I guess you need to be at least a lawyer or with some sort of a laws background in order to fully understand. So, thankfully, people kind of gave the bottom line. In this article, which I’m going to paste the description below, it’s talking about a very famous case. It’s called the Castanada case. It’s about a woman that made a graphic novel used in mid-journey and filed for copyright, and they told her she doesn’t have it. The bottom line regarding if we’re talking about text, okay, and what about AI-generated text? So, the bottom line, if you do not know editing at all, then it seems that the copyright office policy is clear: no copyright. Anything can take your book and sell it under their own name. And if you use the AI for idea generation and some outlines and background research and write the text yourself, then in that case, okay, you do have copyrights. So, almost the opposite of what people think. People think that if you have the idea and you just tell ChatGPT to write it down, then you’re protected. You’ll have copyrights. That’s not the case. Actually, it’s the other way around. If the ideas come from ChatGPT and you write it yourself, you got copyright. Because what the important thing is about getting a copyright is that you did the job. It was your doing that is important. And if it’s the other way around, if it’s your idea, you tell it what to do, but it specifically writes it, then you don’t have a copyright. But that’s the simple case. Right now, but like I said, the way I do it is a bit more complicated because the scripts I did write, the script, the entire script, the heroes, the places, the dialogue that are used in that book, I wrote it, and I do have rights for the script. So first of all, I get a copyright registration on the script, and then based on that, I ask to file a registration for this book, hopefully to get that. According to my lawyer, I do have a case because it’s not like ChatGPT wrote it by itself. Basically, generally, by some ideas that I gave it. I’m gonna keep you posted on the procedure, and when I get it, I will surely celebrate it with you. I took this document and obviously pasted it in ChatGPT and asked it to summarize it and give me the bottom line. So here is the bottom line of ChatGPT based on the document you provided. Here are the necessary conditions to obtain copyright for a fiction book written using ChatGPT: human authorship requirement, the work must be the product of human creativity. The term author used in both the Constitution and the Copyright Act excludes non-humans. Human control over AI output, if the traditional elements of authorship were produced by a machine, the work lacks human authorship and the office will not register it. Human selection or arrangement of AI-generated material, a work containing AI-generated material will also contain sufficient human authorship to support a copyright claim if a human selects or arranges AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship. Duty to disclose AI-generated content, applicants have a duty to disclose the inclusion of AI-generated content in a work submitted for registration and to provide a brief explanation of the human author’s contributions to the work. So, this is another reason why I have to file a registration for copyright, also declaring that I use ChatGPT in order to get this copyright. I mean, I could file it without saying I use ChatGPT, but if it was revealed in the end, then I would lose the copyright. So, and the last thing, let’s see what ChatGPT told me about my chances of getting a copyright registration. As for the chances of getting a copyright registration for a fiction book created in the way you described it, seems like it could be possible. The process you described involves significant human input and creativity at multiple stages: writing the original script, translating it, processing it into a book using ChatGPT, and then having a human editor write the entire book. This process appears to meet the requirement of human authorship and creative control over the work’s expression. However, this is just an interpretation based on the document provided, and it would be best to consult with a legal professional to get a definitive answer. People say, and this is in my experience true, ChatGPT is a bit optimistic. So, I also, like I said, consult and use a real human lawyer, and gladly, she says that I do have a case. So, I’ll keep you posted.
