AI in Art: Artists are Facing New Reality
Planning to use AI in art? Think twice.
It is not advisable to use AI in art.
According to the recent decision by the US copyright office review board, the AI-generated image Théâtre d’Opéra Spatial that triumphed at the 2022 Colorado state fair annual art competition, was not eligible. The reason is copyright protection “excludes works produced by non-humans.”
Its author, Jason Allen, used the online AI-platform Midjourney where he “entered a series of prompts, adjusted the scene, selected portions to focus on, and dictated the tone of the image.” He also claimed that he had authorship, adding that “he wanted to make a statement using artificial intelligence artwork. I feel like I accomplished that, and I’m not going to apologize for it.”
However, the board disagreed that statement, noting that “if all of a work’s ‘traditional elements of authorship’ were produced by a machine, the work lacks human authorship, and the Office will not register it”.
The board’s decision comes amid a series of recent rulings where courts are emphasizing human authorship requirements under copyright law. This includes the recent rejection of Kristina Kashtanova’s copyright claim for Zarya of the Dawn, a book “‘authored’ by non-human spiritual beings”.
Likewise, another court ruled that an AI computer system owned by Stephen Thaler could not be copyrighted. This is because human beings are an “essential part of a valid copyright claim”.
However, not everyone agrees with such an approach. This includes New York artist-critic Walter Robinson, who has been using Midjourney, he said, “for fun”.
“Judges don’t understand art, or have an old-fashioned idea of a very specific skill that is being able to reproduce a very specific vision of the world by hand,” he said, adding that “obviously, using any kind of tool, whether it’s a brush or a computer program, it’s all creative and all directed by a human agent.“
This includes entering prompts into Midjourney until the desired effect is produced.
The decision comes as Hollywood representatives continue to strike, demanding, among other things, that the usage of AI is limited.
Previously, GNCrypto begged the question Will the Latest AI Beatles Record Be Eligible for Grammy Awards?
