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.”
That douche punched a sentence into a computer and thinks he’s an artist? My god what have we become.
Dude just pointed a camera, pressed click and thinks he’s an artist? My god what have we become. We could take that train of thought all the way to “if you’re not grinding up your own pigments and painting on cave walls you’re not really an artist”.
AI is a tool. I don’t have an issue with someone using AI and calling themselves an artist, as long as they’ve generated the AI model based on their own previous art. You teach a machine to mimic your brush strokes and color palette and then the machine spits out images as you taught it. I don’t see an issue there because you might as well have painted them yourself, it just saves time to have AI do most (if not all) of the work.
Problems arise when the AI is based on someone else’s work and you claim the output as yours. Could you have painted the image exactly the same way?
Firstly, I agree with most of what you’ve said. However…
Problems arise when the AI is based on someone else’s work and you claim the output as yours. Could you have painted the image exactly the same way?
Is there anything in the world that isn’t a derivative of something else? Can you claim to have a thought that isn’t influenced by something you’ve heard, read, seen? Feeding art to AI is no different than a student walking a gallery and learning the styles of the masters. Is the AI better at it? Sure. But it’s still doing the same thing. If someone with eidetic memory paints like Picasso, are they not an artist?
To really drive home the point, if I have a friend that is an artist, like, a really good artist, and I ask them to paint something for me, say, a field with wildflowers in the snow, and they come back with something that looks just like Landscape With Snow by Van Gogh, does that mean my friend isn’t an artist? If I ask AI for that, and they come back with something like what my friend painted, how is it any different? We call them “learning” models, but we refuse to believe that they “learn”. Instead we call it “theft”.
I didn’t say I’m completely against imitation. I more or less implied that’s where lines start to blur. If someone spends their entire life learning Picasso and can perfectly imitate Picasso then I don’t consider that to be not art. Similarly if someone did that and fed it into an AI model that then imitates them imitating Picasso I think that’s still fine.
But if you throw in all the famous artists and have the AI generate an image could you really imitate it? Not only would you have to imitate how all of them paint and what colors they use, you should also be able to tell the difference which part of the painting was influence by which artist so you could imitate it correctly. And if we factor in that AI can blend brush strokes it becomes even more harder to actually imitate. That’s so muddy water it’s easy to make arguments for and against.
I’m not sure I understand your argument. Are you saying that because AI can blend together the works of hundreds and create something unique, that it is bad?
That douche punched a sentence into a computer
The jokes write themselves, folks.
Yeah, the joke is that someone thinks they can call themselves an artist by typing a sentence into a prompt on a computer. I get that you’re trying to call me out, but the failure in your joke is that I’m not claiming to be an artist. That douche is.
You’ve got nothing.
You’ve got nothing.
That’s a matter of perspective.
You have to be the creator of the work in order to copyright it. He didn’t create the work. If the wind organized the leaves into a beautiful pattern, he couldn’t copyright the leaves either.
You can copyright a combination of words, though, and it was his unique combination that created the art. The artist doesn’t copyright the palette, and the shop that sold the pigments holds no ownership over the painting. If the art is created with paint, pixels, or phrase, the final product belongs to the artist, and so should be protected by law for them.
It has to be fixed in a tangible medium.
In this case they’re not “fixing” their words and the final art is the created expression. Yet in this case their created expression wasn’t created by them but the program.
In this case their combination is the palette and paint but the program “interpreted” and so fixed it.
For example you can’t copyright a simple and common saying. Nor something factual like a phone book. Likewise you can’t copyright recipes. There has to be a “creative” component by a human. And courts have ruled that AI generated content doesn’t meet that threshold.
That’s not to say that creating the right prompt isn’t an “art” (as in skill and technique) and there is a lot of work in getting them to work right. Likewise there’s a lot of work in compiling recipes, organizing them, etc. but even then only the “design” part of the arrangement of the facts, and excluding the factual content, can be copyrighted.
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.
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?
you can copyright the product it produces, as evidenced by the wealth of food and drinks that are protected by law from being copied.
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 I use a combination of words to commission an artist to paint a picture, I don’t own the copyright on that picture.
If it’s a commission, you might. Depends on the how the contract is worded.
Okay, let’s see the contract in this AI case that grants this man the copyright.
The contract is set by the company, let’s say Midjourney, which passes ownership to the person who generate the “art.” What needs to be defined is if ai generated art is art? So far, no one seems to have a definite answer. I come down on the side of yes, but there are a lot of others that say no.
Which company passes the ownership to the person in its contract? Midjourney does not, I just looked:
By using the Services, You grant to Midjourney, its affiliates, successors, and assigns a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, sublicensable no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute the Content You input into the Services, as well as any Assets produced by You through the Service. This license survives termination of this Agreement by any party, for any reason.
https://docs.midjourney.com/docs/terms-of-service
They make it clear that you do not own the copyright on the images you create. Did the artist suing the copyright office use this company?
https://help.midjourney.com/en/articles/8150363-can-i-use-my-images-commercially
reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute the Content You input into the Services, as well as any Assets produced by You through the Service.
In no way does Midjourney own the image, they only have the ability to “reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute”.
You can copyright a combination of words, though, and it was his unique combination that created the art
so its literature, then?
The artist doesn’t copyright the palette, and the shop that sold the pigments holds no ownership over the painting.
Sure, the artist doesn’t copyright a palette, or the shop does not hold ownership of pigments. But Companies do patent pigments.
If the art is created with paint, pixels, or phrase, the final product belongs to the artist, and so should be protected by law for them.
If you commission an Art piece, with a detailed description of what it should display. The artist comes back to you with a draft, you tell them to adjust here and there, and you finally after several rounds of drafting got the commissioned art piece. Did you draw it?
Thats what LLMs do and nothing else.
Is the diction of the buyer to the artist in the final paragraph of your argument make the painting a novel? You have you answer.
Yes, companies can copyright specific pigments, but that doesn’t give them ownership over the paintings created by them, only protect for their own IP vis-à-vis the pigments. In the same way, the company that created the LLM may protect their work but hold no ownership on the art it produces.
Who drew the art is of no import when the artist isn’t a sentient lifeform. By your definition, a photographer cannot own a picture because the camera captured it.
In the same way, the company that created the LLM may protect their work
What does the company protect here? The system, or the model? Which the latter being ill-gotten by scraping already copyrighted content?
Who drew the art is of no import when the artist isn’t a sentient lifeform
It was an allegory. The supposed artist is the commissioner and the LLM being the artist. And since you can’t copyright something you didn’t made, well tough luck getting copyright on AI slop.
By your definition, a photographer cannot own a picture because the camera captured it.
No, because as a photographer you hold the tool in your hand. You can adjust everything, even the subject. And its all in your own control and it takes your skill in managing it to shoot the perfect photo.
If we would take your interpretation of my definition, then nobody can own anything since they always have to use a tool to create something.
What does the company protect here? The system, or the model? Which the latter being ill-gotten by scraping already copyrighted content?
That depends on what is proprietary to the company. If they have created the system and the model, then both.
The supposed artist is the commissioner and the LLM being the artist.
That is a highly subjective point of view. Let’s look at music. If a musician loses their arms and can no longer play an instrument, but instead dictates the chords to someone else to play, who is the artist? Who can claim ownership of the piece?
No, because as a photographer you hold the tool in your hand. You can adjust everything, even the subject. And its all in your own control and it takes your skill in managing it to shoot the perfect photo.
Spoken like someone who has never used an LLM before and thinks it magically produces exactly what you want on the first time, every time.
If we would take your interpretation of my definition, then nobody can own anything since they always have to use a tool to create something.
No, that’s everyone else’s argument. Mine is that the tool is the LLM, and that when art is created with it, it should be open to copyright.
Let’s look at music. If a musician loses their arms and can no longer play an instrument, but instead dictates the chords to someone else to play, who is the artist? Who can claim ownership of the piece?
Then that musician becomes the composer who can copyright the sheet music. The one who plays the chords becomes the performing artist and can copyright the performance.
Spoken like someone who has never used an LLM before and thinks it magically produces exactly what you want on the first time, every time.
I have used LLMs extensively, several versions and types. I know how that shit works. And no I do not think that its results are deterministic and accurate.
Mine is that the tool is the LLM, and that when art is created with it, it should be open to copyright.
The LLM is the “artist” as it produces the image. And you can’t claim copyright for someone else.
Then that musician becomes the composer who can copyright the sheet music. The one who plays the chords becomes the performing artist and can copyright the performance.
That is if they actually composed the music. In the case of someone saying I want a song that is ABAG, and they ask that it be written down because they cannot write it down themselves, the person who writes down ABAG isn’t the composer, they are an extension of the pen that writes the note–they have become a tool.
The LLM is the “artist” as it produces the image. And you can’t claim copyright for someone else.
The LLM gives you what you ask for based on a random seed and keywords in your prompt. It has no will of it’s own. It cannot exert its will over the image. It simply outputs. As I’ve said in another part of this thread, if I tie a bucket of paint with hole to a rope and sling the bucket of paint over a canvas, does the bucket of paint get credit for being the artist? Does the rope? No. They had no will. Even though my input was minimal, and the results most assuredly random, I am still the artist by all accounts, and as such may copyright my random sprays of paint should I deem them worthy. My intent has created the art–my desire. The machine cannot create because it cannot exert its will. It simply does what it is asked and outputs.
He did not make it. He essentially commissioned a machine to create an image for him using millions of pieces of art that were stolen from artists. It’s no different from commissioning an artist to draw something for you, except the artist turns out to be someone who traces bits of other people’s art, or copy and pastes it, and then you attempt to take credit for it instead by claiming that you made it. I predict that this lawsuit is not going anywhere as he does not have a proverbial leg to stand on.
What if he wrote the technology himself? Would that count?
What about games with “procedural generation” - does that count?
Last I checked, procedurally generated games all exclusively use their own internal assets. Apples and oranges.
Authors didn’t invent the alphabet. Painters didn’t invent colors. It’s rearranging pre existing work in a way that makes sense to the rules of a new system. Need a stronger definition to explain the difference.
If you didn’t make it, how the fuck can it be stolen from you?
He spent weeks on fine tuning tbf
It’s like photography: Photographers often spend weeks trying to get the perfect shot, should they be allowed to copyright it?
While some just snap a photo. And both are equally copyrightable
