alt Hacker NewsIt seems basically that LLM output is public domain, but a bit of human-generated content can be mixed in (whatever is enough to pass the "threshold of originality") and then the overall work can be copyrighted. Much like republishing a public domain book and adding an introduction or a few footnotes (but harder to extract the public domain component.)
But this all says nothing about the original question, about whether the weights can be copyrighted.
Unfortunately I can't link to IRL discussion with lawyer (wish it was so easy!)
We got guidance that:
a) weights should be considered to be public domain due to "blender" aspect of training on otherwise copyrighted data (similar argument as to why stable diffusion weights can't be infringing - because any specific copyrighted work provides less impact on process than RNG)
b) model outputs should be considered public domain as far as "work done by model" counts - prompts/inputs done by human are copyrightable.
However, model output can infringe - essentially same framework as if you used a ton of Disney stuff in a drawing you made by yourself - since the drawing would remain what it is without the copyrighted information, it is infringing even if you did it from memory.
Similarly any human-made addition to model output are copyrightable, but to make an useful distinction there would need to be some significant work. So let's say you made an image that incorporated model outputs for parts of it - going back to "prompts" it also counts if you made a sketch/wireframe/etc. and then used a model to "fill in" or postprocess it.