What if someone else comes up with the same image, and wants to sue for infringement? Can they do that? Can we add our watermark on the image and distribute?
The following applies to everyone:
Subject to the Content Policy and Terms, you own the images you create with DALL·E, including the right to reprint, sell, and merchandise – regardless of whether an image was generated through a free or paid credit.
Source: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6425277-can-i-sell-images-i-create-with-dall-e
If someone else comes up with the same image they’ll have exactly the same rights as you. There is no copyright, for an image to be copyrighted, a human creator is needed. AI-generated content can’t be copyrighted because it isn’t considered to be the work of a human creator.
Further reading:
https://www.reuters.com/legal/ai-generated-art-cannot-receive-copyrights-us-court-says-2023-08-21/
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That’s somewhat true. The AI images are not protected under copyright but you absolutely can trademark unique franchisable character designs with consistent features, personalities, names, and other elements that clearly show a highly creative and human-driven process. For example, if you were to create an entire franchise like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with Dalle where every turtle has a distinct outfit, backstory, look, personality, and voice, and then create books with those images or animate those images with Luma or Sora, you absolutely can trademark your franchise. Creating franchisable characters involves significant human creativity and effort beyond simply generating images with AI so they can be trademarked.
Most people haven’t figured out character consistency via the API yet, let alone personality and emotions ( results for ChatGPT plus wouldn’t cut the mustard for trademark purposes since the images are all low-res and not useable at the consumer level ). This would only apply to API users. I’m yet to see anyone create anything good using Plus. But the results from the dalle API are mindblowing. Way ahead of Midjourney, for example, but very few people are aware of this, and even so, they don’t know how to write good prompts to get franchisable characters. For example, you can’t franchise deadpan AI characters without distinct personalities, emotions, outfits etc…
It’s important to note that creating franchisable characters involves more than just generating images. It requires a deep understanding of character development, storytelling, and brand building. Furthermore, the photos must be of high quality and consistent, which, as I said, 99.9% have no idea how to achieve using dalle.
I have figured it out, though, so yeah, I can trademark my work. Anyone else who has figured it out can do so as well. Obviously, none of us are sharing how we’re doing it, but perfect character consistency is already achievable with dalle 3 API and has been for a while. You have to know how to code.