The art world advances at a different speed than the legislative one. Art that has been generated through AI will not constitute copyright, as ruled by the Review Board of this business in the United States, which has resolved that the controversial image awarded in 2022 with first place at the state fair from Colorado could not be copyrighted as it was not made by humans. And copyright protection "excludes works produced by non-humans"
Artist Jason Allen alleged that Midjourney's use of online artificial intelligence for 'Théâtre d'Opéra Spatial' had required him to give the machine himself a series of prompts. He further "adjusted the scene, selected parts to focus on, and dictated the tone of the image." But the board ruled that "if all of the 'traditional elements of authorship' of a work were produced by a machine, the work lacks human authorship and the Office will not register it."
As he explained to a local newspaper, Allen intended to demonstrate using artificial intelligence. "I feel like I did it and I'm not going to apologize for it."
The decision has taken place at a time when writers, actors, musicians and photographers say that AI is threatening their jobs. And after the United States federal court ruled similarly regarding an image created by an AI computer system owned by Stephen Thaler. No, that work could not have copyright because human beings are an “essential part for it to be appropriate to claim copyright.”
Case law on the issue also now includes the dismissal of a copyright lawsuit filed on behalf of a selfie-taking monkey. But in the Thaler case, Judge Beryl Howell recognized that humanity is “approaching new frontiers in copyright” where artists will use AI as a tool to create new works.
"The judges either don't understand art, or they have an outdated idea of a very specific skill, which is being able to reproduce by hand a very specific vision of the world," said New York artist and critic Walter Robinson, who has also been using Midjourney, although “for fun”.
"Obviously, using any type of tool, whether it's a paintbrush or a computer program, is all creative and directed by a human agent," Robinson added. “When I enter directions in Midjourney and re-enter them until I get what I want, it is true that I am not drawing, but I am creating an image using a tool.”
AI is not the only innovation that worries the art world. An analysis of a related area, NFTs or non-fungible tokens, according to the website dappGambl, found that 95% of the more than 73,000 studied now “have no practical use or value,” two years after the market reached a maximum of $22 billion in 2021.
