That was a terrible ruling. It should be about who got the camera there and set it up, not who pushed the button. With automated recording (dashcams) there isn't even "a button."

Hopefully no judge uses that as precedence.

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xoa an hour ago | parent | next [-]

>It should be about who got the camera there and set it up, not who pushed the button. With automated recording (dashcams), there isn't even "a button".

I'm actually having a bit of trouble thinking of what sufficient societal good there is/would be in granting copyright on raw dashcam or security camera or the like footage? None of those purely mechanical automated systems need a subsidy or encouragement to generate more. Certainly someone can use that sort of thing in the creation of a copyrighted work but what would be the issue with the underlying material in that case being unprotected?

	▲	collabs an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I am in favor of copyright reform so eventually it becomes something like two years automatic with a one time two year extension possible an I agree with you because of one key word — raw. Once the footage is used in a package, be it a movie, a news report, or a music video, that package can be copyrighted. The problem is there is no way the owner of a dashcam can prohibit commercial use of a video they own if it cannot be copyrighted in the US. In a way, we have conflated copyrights with other so called intellectual property (details). Maybe the solution is to strengthen privacy rights somehow? I'm not sure. Details https://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/gnu/www/philosophy/words-to-avoid.h...
	▲	somenameforme 27 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Thinking more about monkeys, I think that case was made relatively easy because there was a normal living recipient for copyright, but that wasn't eligible for such. I'm fairly certain that dashcam footage, which is 100% automated, as you mention, is copyrighted by default. It's a fairly common source of footage of novel events like a meteorite, rocket impact, or whatever else. And that footage is licensed to media companies. In any case, any country that decides neural network generated media isn't copyrighted then faces a major, and probably impossible, problem of trying to prove it wasn't made by a human.
	▲	dannyw an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		A dashcam could be a safety tool for most people, but it could also be a strategically placed B-cam for a videographer on a shoot. For what it’s worth, dashcam footage can absolutely be copyrightable. The ruling is more about “only humans can get copyright protection”, not so much anything about whether a button is pressed or not.
	▲	gnopgnip an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		There is a spark of creativity in the monkey case that very often doesn’t apply to dashcam footage

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trickypr an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What if it was a human who took the photo, would the copyright still be owned by the equipment owner / person who set it up?

What if this applied in a photography class? The instructor owns the equipment and helped “set up” the photo. Does the instructor own the copyright?

	▲	tossaway0 6 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		After this ruling, I had an idea for a photo where I set up the entire set, camera, etc, but the photo entailed the model clicking the shutter while we were both in the shot. Just in case, I had the model write a quick note ceding the rights. It's fine, I guess. How does it work in cinema? A director who is the creator of the project must have to get rights from every camera/mic operator.

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somenameforme 38 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think the issue you then run into is imagine another human came, picked up the camera, and used it to take a picture of whatever. It'd be fairly self evident that that the photographer would own the copyright to that work, but in your take - it'd be the camera owner.

So you're more of trying to create a special rule where if the normal recipient of a copyright would be invalid, then it slides to the 'nearest' most appropriate individual, but that seems extremely fragile and difficult to define.

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kccqzy an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Dashcams and security footage definitely don’t have copyright protection. Are you seriously thinking that the construction worker who set up the camera would then have copyright over everything it records?

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an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

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