An artist who infamously duped an art contest with an AI image is suing the U.S. Copyright Office over its refusal to register the image’s copyright.
In the lawsuit, Jason M. Allen asks a Colorado federal court to reverse the Copyright Office’s decision on his artwork Theatre D’opera Spatialbecause it was an expression of his creativity.
Reuters says the Copyright Office refused to comment on the case while Allen in a statement complains that the office’s decision “put me in a terrible position, with no recourse against others who are blatantly and repeatedly stealing my work.”
You cannot copyright a recipe, but you can copyright the product it produces, as evidenced by the wealth of food and drinks that are protected by law from being copied.
Can a person who works with wood and creates something unique from the wood then copyright their design crafted from the wood? What makes it art and not just glue, iron nails, and dead trees? This is what needs to be defined with AI. Right now everyone is so happy to jump on the anti-AI bandwagon that they blind themselves to issues regarding the law by claiming the art is lawless at best and stolen at worst, when in fact it is simply a new tool and a new medium.
Did authors who used typewriters rail against the new word processor? What about the editor that checked for grammar and spelling? Did they try to burn down spell and grammar checks in microsoft word? Is the art any less art if it has been created with a tool that allows for more ease than has been available in the past? Should we boycott the bakers that do not mill their own wheat? Or does the sourdough bread belong to the wild yeast cultures, and so owed recompense for all we have taken from it?
The argument can be made until the universe burns out, or we can accept that art is made by sentient life, and any tool used in the production of it cannot be considered an owner of that art, and if the only sentient lifeform involved in the creation of that art wishes to claim it as their own, then they should have the right to protections for their work.
No, you can neither copyright a recipe nor the food or drink it produces.
Food and drink is only protected by trademark law. You are free to make a burger that tastes exactly like a Big Mac, you simply can’t call it a Big Mac.
And you can take a photo of some natural rock formations on black and white film stock, but you can’t take Ansel Adam’s photo of natural rock formations on black and white film stock. This is what the artist is suing for. He wants to claim ownership of his work, which I believe falls under copyright law, just like Ansel Adam’s photos.
Ansel Adams has a copyright because of the creative control he had over his photos, such as in lighting, perspective and framing.
Artists generally cannot copyright AI output because they do not have a comparable degree of creative control. Giving prompts to an AI is not sufficient.
Ok, I controlled the lighting, perspective and framing. Can I copyright now?
If this is an actual photograph, then you can copyright the lighting, perspective, and framing of the photo. Anyone can make an image with the same model though.
If this is AI generated and you directed the AI to change the lighting and perspective, then no you still can’t copyright any of it. Giving direction is not the same as having control.
Ok, lets do it with some of my actual work, then. One of these is the original photo I took, another is black and white, and the other has had some color added. When I took the original photo, I controlled everything about it. However, the edits were done in lightroom, where I asked the computer to change the color and to desaturate. I didn’t go in, pixel by pixel, and change things. I didn’t shoot on different film. I used a tool. Do I still own those photos? It seems like we are struggling over what is and isn’t a tool, and whether tool assisted art is still art.
In your edited photos, a judge can point to any part of the photo and ask, “In this particular part of the photo, why is there this particular hue?” And you can answer, “Because I desaturated it or I adjusted the tone curve or I snapped the photo when I saw that hue in the viewfinder”. There is no possibility that 100% desaturation can result in any color other than grayscale. There is no possibility that a desaturation slider will sharpen the image instead of desaturating it. You know what will happen every time you make an edit. That’s creative control.
In an AI generated photo, at some point the prompter will answer “Because that’s what the AI produced after my prompt, and I accepted the result”. In other words, in some parts of the image the prompter could not predict what the result of a prompt would be, but they approved of the result after the fact. It’s entirely possible that a prompter could get unexpected results from their prompt. That’s direction, not creative control.
Ok, but can you know how every bristle of a paintbrush will flow over a canvas? Can I know every hair on the head of the model and how they will be in the finished photo? Control is relative, and cannot be used as a measurement of art.
When someone throws paint at a canvas, is it still able to be copyrighted by them? They had no control over the paint as it landed, all they did was throw it. What if they didn’t even throw it? What if it were attached to a line and swung over the canvas? What if money-green paint were launched from a gun? Now the art becomes the message of the piece instead of the medium. Is it still copyrightable?
I’m not Anti AI. I have fun making stuff with it.
But the copyright laws as they are don’t apply. And if they did it would open a can of worms legally.
The recipe can’t be copyrighted. The cake produced can’t be copyrighted. But the packaging or style of a cake with your brand could be trademarked which is a different legal ball of wax entirely
What is the limit to the number of words that can be copyrighted?
For sale,
baby shoes,
never worn.
Can I claim that as my own? Is six words the lowest? Four? Where is the line? What makes it art vs. instruction? If Hemmingway had said those words to his publicist and asked that they be published instead of writing them himself, would he still own them?
And therein lies the rub. When it comes to copyright every infringement case has to be adjudicated by a judge (assuming they have filed a copyright)
I can definitely recommend Leonard French’s (a copyright lawyer) channel Lawful Masses on YouTube and Twitch for a more in-depth breakdown of copyright cases. How it works, the rights that copyright holders have, etc.