Who Owns Creativity? The Battle Over AI-Generated Art

<blockquote> In the new era where machines can paint, compose, and create novel video, one groundbreaking case has ignited a fierce debate. </blockquote> The US Copyright Office just denied copyright protection for Jason M. Allen and his Midjourney work titled Théâtre D’opéra Spatial. <img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/1*QFjFJpWRTbFlaIH5G2T9TQ.png" style="height:467px; width:700px" /> via Wikipedia: Théâtre D’opéra Spatial by Jason M. Allen You might remember that work. It was the first AI generated artwork to win a major award when it won “best digital art/digitally manipulated photography” at the Colorado State Fair last year. As the story goes, Jason submitted this work with the disclaimer that it was AI generated using Midjourney. To his surprise, and much to the disdain of traditional artists around the world, Jason was within the rules of the competition and won the category. But, that’s not the end of the saga — after seeking copyright protection on the image, the US Copyright office ruled that Jason would need to disclaim parts of the image that were generated by Midjourney. Of course, as digital artists we understand that differentiating what is or is not AI generated or manipulated in a Midjourney image is virtually impossible, even in a future state where we have reliable digital provenance models. Today, with current models and interfaces, it isn’t possible at all. Naturally, Jason declined to disclaim the AI generated portions of the image, and the US Copyright Office rejected the case, ruling that it was not copyrightable due to lack of human authorship. <a href="https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/who-owns-creativity-the-battle-over-ai-generated-art-and-the-shattering-of-copyright-norms-ecf312f074f3">Website</a>