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.”
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?
You’re basically arguing that you can’t copyright every hair on the head of your model. And you’re probably right!
Imagine I published a photo that was exactly like yours, except I edited the model’s hair color. Even though my image is not identical to yours, it has the same model, pose, lighting, framing, etc. These were all things that you intentionally controlled. You could argue on that basis that I violated your copyright.
Now imagine I published a photo with a different model, different lighting, different framing, different background, different everything except, by chance, the hair on my model’s cheek matched the hair on yours. If you admit that you didn’t even try to control that, you would have a much harder time proving I violated your copyright.
Likewise, suppose my painting of a flower vase contained a drop of paint splatter that by chance matched the fine texture of a drop on a Pollock painting. Pretty unlikely that would be a copyright violation.
To the extent that an artist gives up control of their work, they lose the ability to copyright it. The extreme case is the monkey selfie, where the artist (initially) admitted they had no control over the output and thus no basis for copyright.
No, I’m arguing counter to your point about “control” being the lynchpin to copyrighting art. Control has nothing to do with it. What makes art is intent. I can throw paint at a wall all day, but if I’m only doing it because I don’t like the wall, then it isn’t art (though I accept that someone else may see it as art, but that’s a different story…). When I have intent–when I throw the paint with a purpose to create something that is a reflection of some idea I have–then it becomes art. The same goes for AI generated art. I can type words into Midjourney and pictures come out. These pictures can be “artistic” but they are meaningless if there was no intent behind them. I, like the artist attempting to copyright their AI art, have created AI art with intent and purpose. We have created something of our own will as a reflection of an idea. How much control we have over the product is unimportant, what is important is that the final piece is a representation of our desire to convey something to you in a visual medium.
You may not like it, but legally copyright is not based on intent. That’s why if a couple hired you with the intent to shoot their wedding then they do not have copyright over your work. As a photographer you control the photos and thus retain copyright even when the intent of your photos is dictated by your employer.
The functional relationship between the employer and the photographer is basically the same as the relationship between the AI user and the AI.
You are conflating intent and ownership. If I shoot a wedding, I have intent for every picture (this is a fucking lie, weddings are boring, even though everyone thinks theirs is unique, I space out until the ceremony, regardless of how adorable your niece is as the flower girl). I am creating that art with intent. Whether I own it or not is per contract, and if I’m shooting a wedding, then I don’t own the pictures because the contract I have with the wedding party states their complete ownership of the images after I take them. In that way, I have created art with intent, and should I desire to copyright it, then I would have to make an adjustment to the contract, though I do have a clause that with permission I will retain some photographs for advertisement, but they must be cleared with the wedding party.
How is your employer’s contribution to your photo shoot fundamentally different from your contribution to an AI generated work?
The difference is I am the one with the intent in both scenarios, and the employer and AI aren’t. In both cases, I control the art through my intentions. At the wedding, I have my own intent when I take a photo. That intent is the same intent that I have when I create generative art. I control the app like I would the camera. If I don’t like a shot, I throw it away and try again. The AI is the tool, much like my camera. When I take a photo, just because my camera has more knobs and buttons than the web-app I make generative art with, doesn’t make it any more real than the generative art. A tool is a tool, and art is art. If the web-app becomes sentient, and starts to prompt itself for art and pay for the server time with my credit hours, then we can have a talk about intent and ownership again :)
Why do you say your employer has no intent? They hired you with a particular product in mind after all. And they can do everything that you do with an AI: evaluate the results and tell you to try again.
What, specifically, do you do with an AI that an employer cannot do with a photographer?
It depends on who is creating the art. If I simply go where I am told, take exactly the pictures that I am told to take, and then hand them over to the employer, I am little more than a tripod that can work a shutter. I’m not the one with the intent, my employer is, and in that case I would be the tool (and my exes agree). In that case, my employer has effectively made the art, I have had no input in the process, and am for all intents and purposes no different than the AI. However, when I start to force my will upon the photographs, when I stage the lighting and set everything the way that I wish, then I am the one with intent, and I have created the art, and the camera is the only tool in the bag. That is how the art shifts; with the intent. Every pencil’s lead will have a grain specific to it, like a fingerprint, however, that pencil has no control over the art that it creates. It is a tool. If the AI, the pencil, or the photographer start to exert their own will over the art, then it becomes their own. If they take suggestion from someone else, like an employer, then a contract and shared creative ownership can be argued, but that is something between two sentient life forms. A tool cannot own the art. I do not credit my camera for the shots I take.