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I've been thinking of the output as fanfiction/fan art. It shares many of the same complications regarding the ownership of ideas, commerical intent of writing, competition, and copyright. Fanfiction is generally a protected form of expression, but requires the work to be "transformative". Unlike with parodies and critisisms, fanfiction can be much harder to distinguish from original work. From that perspective, a large amount of the output of LLMs is so generic, that it's not possible to attribute it to one person. It's like trying to find the original author of "Once upon a time".

https://theinnisherald.com/the-other-once-upon-a-times-a-his...




Fanfiction isn't as protected as many people think it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_issues_with_fan_fiction

Fanfiction and fan art also tend to run afoul of the infrequently (but occasionally) litigated part of copyright - copyright of fictional characters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_protection_for_ficti...

I came across this with the Eleanor lawsuits - https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a42233053/shelby-estate-wi... - and while I believe that that instance Eleanor falls on the "this shouldn't have been copyrightable" (took a bit to get there), the question is "what protects the representation of Darth Vader?"

In general it tends to be ignored and tacitly encouraged... but it isn't protected.




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