The Copyright Office has a clear policy on AI.

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.”

  • FlowVoid@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 hours ago

    At what point does the generative capabilities in Photoshop (which you can give prompts to) become not controlling the output?

    At the point where a creative decision is made that the user did not control, that element is not eligible for copyright.

    So to return to my example: suppose a photographer takes a photo of a model and asks an AI to add a dog to the image. Unless the dog comes from one of their other photos, they can’t copyright it (although they can still copyright the model).

    Now suppose another photographer takes a photo of Mt Everest. They ask the same AI to add a dog to the image, which results in the same (or very similar) dog. The first photographer can’t sue the second one for copyright infringement, because the first one didn’t create that dog and therefore has no rights over it.

    At which point does control net (which literally allows you to pose models and replace every single thing about a scene along with numerous other features) become “controlling the output”.

    That’s like asking “How many alterations do I have to make to an image of the Mona Lisa to transform it into something I can copyright it as my own work?”

    The answer is: it’s up to the judge. See: Lynn Goldsmith vs Andy Warhol

    See any sort of public art, or even the paintings you make by literally just pouring paint on a canvas or hanging a bucket of paint by a string and having it move across a canvas and drip.

    An artist pouring paint on canvas or hanging a bucket of paint on a string can still plausibly tell a judge that they controlled the output. The behavior of such mechanical devices is fully predictable by the user. Or they might claim that they controlled some elements of the output but not others. Then they can copyright the elements they controlled.

    Of course if they want to lose their copyright, then they are free to tell everyone that they didn’t really have any control over the output. See: Monkey selfie.

    public art

    You can copyright a tangible thing that you personally created but you can’t claim a copyright over the interaction of the public with what you created.

    To the extent that members of the public contribute tangible creative elements to the work (for example inviting the public to decorate your work), those contributors will share the copyright with you over the final result.