Ai-generated Art Cannot Be Copyrighted

A good first step.

If AI generated art cannot be copyrighted then every AI generated artwork published that is attributed to a human has a false attribution.

Agree Sharon.

Drew, this might provide some more context:

"The U.S. Copyright Office issued new guidance on Wednesday to clarify when artistic works created with the help of artificial intelligence are copyright eligible." https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-copyright-office-says-some-ai-assisted-works-may-be-copyrighted-2023-03-15/

Frank, it looks like the laws are going in the direction that many of us discussed in this conversation.

Thanks, Frank!
https://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=8199018&targetid=8279349#8279349

Yes, Drew, I saw that thread ... thanks for including it here.

You are welcome Frank!
My hope is that this conversation continues with civility and is not closed; primarily for the historical significance of AI and its affect on human creativity.

Well, if we stick to the context of the original post we'll do just fine ...

My ai work is copyrightable as it is from my own photography. Clearly recognisable if you see the photo

It looks like to me, to officially register a copyright, one will have to account for the degree of generative AI usage.
Is this what you guys are understanding?

From the article:
"that this would create “challenging questions regarding how much human input is necessary” to copyright AI-created art, noting that AI models are often trained on pre-existing work."

I believe this discussion has been ongoing and will continue to go on for years without any clear consensus, and each individual case is adjudicated through the courts.

You may be right Floyd except for the fact that copyright protection is embedded in the US Constitution and the courts imho are forced to set guidelines such that frivolous laws suits will not clog the system.

I mean that's good. How they will know its AI is another story, some of them are pretty real looking. Still though its the source of the images that's the problem.

I think the biggest problem is, there needs to be new definitions to what copyright is. Because its not infringement and yet it is. Without our work there would be no AI work at all. Or for the most part anyway. And yet its not a direct copy either. So it would never quite fit into a court case.

I do wonder though - if someone infringed an AI image, and enlarged it, could one have it taken down because no one owns the copyright? That will also be getting some weird cases down the line.

If a person did what AI was doing, would that person get into trouble or not? That's what i'm wondering.


----Mike Savad

I think eventually AI images will be copyrightable. The machine does something with an input. Many artists make several inputs and do so several times till the artists get what they like or want. The machine like the paintbrush or the camera is none the wiser.

The use of our images for AI grist can trouble some of us. That is a different issue. Related in some minds yes.

Almost all of my AI Work is test-to-image, with no base image. I also think it is unethical to create an image "in the style of" or tell the AI what art you want to model after. I wonder how that will be considered?

Gary,

My own take the aesthetic is the test for the copyright office. That goes beyond style or modeled after. It can be much more of a unique dynamic.

I think we have plenty of just throwing it at the wall going on for decades now. That can seem like an uphill battle but most of what is thrown at the wall is not shown or marketed much.

AI Art if a "derivative" of stolen art, is the issue here and therefore, not copyrightable, since the foundational image wasn't created by AI, but another human artist. ANY new AI art if there such a thing, "might" be copyrightable, but each image will need to be found "unique" to AI and no aspect of that art was taken during the "capture" period of AI art being "grown" or "seeded" more correctly....

If interested, search FB for my group "Artists Against AI Infringement"....

Rich

Rich,

The copyright office is saying it is not copyrightable because it was not created by a human being.

I disagree with that. For now the copyright office has decided that way.

To a certain extent it is as simplistically wrong as saying someone is not taking the photograph by only pushing the button. I do not believe that either.

The infringement stuff is a separate part of this that has not fully been decided either but that is not blocking the copyrights. Yet.

I wrote a post on my own site. https://ourartsmagazine.com/blog/2023/08/20/photographers-rights-to-copyright-derivative-images-from-own-photography-and-the-debate-around-creating-from-others-work/

I am not against AI in any way, shape or form. I am against people using other peoples photography and art in it. But filters etc have been used on photos for decades, and tbh, many photographers have used other peoples filters/brushes/etc freely. Is their work not theirs?

Abbie,

Not the same, right? The "foundation" for AI is billions of images stolen/captured, without permission,from here and other large "libraries" of online images, so that AI can use those images, bits and pieces to create "new" art.... Putting a painterly effect over your own image is very different....apples and oranges.....

Rich

Brushes and filters are different. They transform an image and they still need your image and your input. AI can't exist unless it uses our art, it does a fantastic job compositing together though.

Its like saying, I want to make a cake I have 2 options:

1. I can go to a store and buy a cake, and then buy frosting (the filter), and decorate it.

2. I can go into everyone's house on the block, and take one of their ingredients, i'll put it back, i'm just taking some of it. Then i'll take the idea of what cake looks like and i'll assemble the cake. Other than mixing it up, I couldn't have done it if it wasn't for the help of all the ingredients I borrowed from people's houses. And some of those ingredients were very nice and high quality.

Though AI is worse because the filters are other artists styles. Which is basically like a stolen identity, you still have your identity, but another person also has it and is ruing your ID through their actions.


----Mike Savad

As long as the issue of the scraped images used to train AI remains in people's minds as just the images of artists out here there will be no real reason for people to care. But if they knew the truth about how all the images of everyone who has posted photos on social media have been scraped and used maybe then it would become personal to them and they would understand how we feel about it.

Sorry if that is off topic... I am out now.

Photographic filters are not generative AI. That is surely an apple and an orange comparison.
Billions of stolen images surely is a phrase loaded with a huge bias slant.
I'm not even sure civility can be part of the discourse with this topic.

My question is: if the courts deem Generative AI art non copyrightable, are they also saying the images are not public domain as well?

Shelli,

Don't think you're off-topic at all. The "creation" of AI ART is totally due to the scrapping(stealing) of images and parts of images anywhere they appear. If an "Art" is TOO derivative, then it's infringement. which is the bottom line of this.
"Therefore, the owner of the copyright to the original work may bring a copyright infringement lawsuit against someone who creates a derivative work without permission."

https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/what-are-derivative-works-under-copyright-law

Drew,

Good point and I would guess, yes, if not copyrightable, therefore not protected, falls into the realm of public domain and then has no protection or legal rights!

Here's a question back atcha and others here.....If a new AI image is created and the "face" say has come from a hundred other faces, the new face can't be seen anywhere online, BUT portions of the face, eyes, nose, mouth, etc. can be found in other copyrighted images.....so the entire face was made up from other copyrighted images....is the new face an "infringement"?

Rich

Rich, what you describe is called a collage and as long as the pieces come from many and various sources they are not being infringed upon.

Children have been cutting up magazines for many decades and making original art without getting permission from the photographers and no, they have not been steeling or infringing and yes, their art is copyrightable.

When a person exercises Fair Use we call it art. When an algorithm exercises fair use, we call it art.
A person has claim over their creations but so far, no human has claim over the algorithm's art.

Yet all one has to do is look and humans are claiming attribution to generative AI's art.

Art and it's meaning has changed radically over the past century. Anymore, anything can be called art. Art is a tautology.

I wonder if one were to make a painting. Its your style, its obviously you. And an animator took that image and made a moving movie out of it. Its still clearly your work, enough that people recognize it, but at the same time its totally different - I wonder where that would fall in the copyright world?

Like right now i'm seeing stock images, being animated by AI - does that mean based on this ruling that its now public domain? Or that the copyright is void because the AI animated something? And there are some impressive examples. Like a picture of a ship, animated to look like its moving in the sea (I forget where I saw that, I was looking up AI stuff and video cards and ran across it).


As for kids and collage - they aren't selling it. If its in their home, and it was for fun or a school project that's one thing. But to sell it, that gets trickier, though that's more of a trademark issue as well. However in the case of the kids doing it, they are physically doing something. If you handed the monkey the shreds of paper and it made it, then its not copyrightable. And that's the ai.


----Mike Savad

I agree with Floyd. There is a gulf legally between ethics/morality and the law which is punishable by the state.

Why is that so hard? How is that dictating anything to you? Other people have plenty of opinions to express.

There are not thousands of people in the forum. We can talk more freely even if we disagree a bit.

The law is based on morality and/or ethics. That is a different statement. You are not stating that clearly.

We all should maintain civility regardless. That includes understanding what other people are discussing.

Wherever I go online only a small handful of people admit when they are wrong. I do. I know Floyd will. The feeling online some have is there is no need to ever be the bigger wo/man when wrong. That is a shame.

And I speak for FAA, Drew, and you will stop calling out ANY member, even in round about ways, for anything they do with ai. Same as they are not allowed to call you out for anything they disagree with about you.

Everyone. If this does not stop (personal arguments) I'm closing this and ai talk will be banned. Totally. Or I'll make Floyd or David moderator of it.

Thank you Abbie! I am not calling out anyone on this forum that uses AI as morally or ethically bankrupt. In fact, I clearly acknowledge my use in animation and intent to continually use AI.

This is not a black and white binary issue and we do have in place existing guidelines that those like my self and thousands of others who choose to us AI will help with our decisions.

When fallacious statements are introduced to what I perceive as a civil discussion, I will point them out with explanations and reference.

Then all will be well

That is very true it is not black or white.

There are inputs and outputs with any digital output. The inputs for AI are worrisome to folks. The outputs depend on the difference between the input and output.

I feel I was wrong about Midjourney. But that is not the full AI treatment. The law has to catch up.

I do think it is a tangled.......you decide.....There is no one answer. AI itself is making tangles of stuff for its purpose. Often technique is aesthetic.

In the end the law will say that you can't use a living artist's name as a filter or style, as it takes away from their business and its unfair to them. Same with using sites to make images look better. That the names simply won't work in the engine.

Copyright wise, the only thing people enter are words. Which are a pain to get it right or it comes out weird. But anyone can copy the text and make something. I could say - make a fish and it does, and I can call myself a great artist and point out all the detail but I didn't do anything. But it wouldn't stop me from putting a copyright symbol on it anyway, just couldn't fight it out in court.


----Mike Savad

Geeeeez! I go away for a few days, and all get out, breaks out. lol

Abbie, I appreciate what you are saying, and thank you for stepping in, and I wholeheartedly agree with you.

As with every post, I speak only for myself and never for anyone else. Pointing out there are thousands of AI users and sellers on FAA is "not" speaking for them. It is speaking about them.

Floyd Snyder
AI Artist
Photographer
Bank Robber

Mike,
>"Copyright wise, the only thing people enter are words."

That has not been true for a long time. Many AI software sites allow users to enter images as separate entries or combined with words.

I, for example, do not enter just words anymore. I always enter MY OWN photo or AI output from MY previous input. That way, all AI images I get from AI software are variations on my OWN artwork.

Yeah but we are talking about AI itself and not img2img, even then I don't know where it falls in exactly, since the modifications aren't really your own. Like without the AI help how much could you change yourself?

----Mike Savad

The abstraction process for AI or to a degree MidJourney is different from what an artist can do.

When I made digital art I knew which abstraction I was applying.

With AI the process does not work with my input for the abstraction method regardless of typing in text or style or adding an image. The use of noise is not really applied by me as the artist. Because the noise randomly does the work. I have not decided how that should be applied.

Note I have not produced any AI art. Not my thing. The "I" is generic.

As I mentioned the genre could be called, "tangled". As soon as everyone tires of "tangled" what is next? Noise only produces tangled.

Just a look at one unspoken profession those guys are thinking of using AI to send a lot of emails that reach individuals on an individual messaging level. What could go wrong with using poorer marketing ploys found randomly across the internet to message people to join in and get things done? I can see major mess-ups. Just one crazy email mess-up would be a disaster.

Does not matter what the product would be randomly finding things online to say to strangers? LOL

Mike,
>"We are talking about AI itself and not img2img". In this sentence, you should probably use "I" instead of "we."

There is no such thing as "AI itself" in art making. So far, all artworks produced by AI were a response to humans, not AI input.

Initially, the only thing available was a text input. But that was at the stone age of AI-assisted art. Many people use what is available now - text and one image input. Probably soon we will have an ability to use several images as an input.

We are talking about AI - as a whole in this thread...

I'm not getting what you are saying. The AI can make stuff with just a character (though I haven't tried that. Right now the most popular use is straight from the pc, because I think many people using it are not artists so they don't have an input picture.

As far as copyright goes, it will be for whatever the base image is. So like when I colorize, the color parts are the only things I really added. That part is protected some how. With AI the base picture is your copyright if you made it, and any extra isn't. This will be confusing in court btw.


----Mike Savad

Mike, Yuri,

I'm tempted to take a black and white PD image with the prompt "Colorize" and see what AI does with it.

Perhaps, instead, an old B&W snapshot, I have.

Photoshop does have an AI colorizer and it isn't very good. It doesn't account for period colors, is often blotchy, has issues with low contrast edges. But it does well with grass, sky and people last I checked. But you can always tell because it can't discern where a shadow is and makes it a different color. I don't know what you would get in an img2imge though. Probably not what you think you'll get.


----Mike Savad

The craft of (Digital) Photography as we knew it is reduced to knowing how to come up with a phrase, a keyboard shortcut, paying for presets, or a combination of these three hooligans.

"human input" in AI is comparable to ordering a sandwich from Subway and then claiming to be a cook and asking "How do you like my sandwich?"


Threads like this make it very clear that it is not AI assisted photography/images. It is clearly the other way around, photography/images assist AI. . For AI to do what it does, it needs images and you could say that (digital) photography became subordinate to a computer and an app, which is all fine with me as long as people who engage in all of this don't use the word "Photography" or put these images in any "Photography" category! Ever! That wouldn't be fair to the people who stick to the craft of photography

Excuse me while I try to find a quite space and sob a little

>"Threads like this make it very clear that it is not AI assisted photography/images. It is clearly the other way around, photography/images assist AI"

"Human-assited-AI art" - Well said, Rudi!

At FAA, we have a thread about AI art. I unsuccessfully tried to move it to the name "AI-assisted art." The effort to move it to a more clearly defined term, "human-assisted AI art," would probably be unsuccessful too.

But it isn't assisted art.

There are a few kinds of AI

text to image - is what i'm pretty sure this thread is about.

Img2img modifying your own work with AI

and AI filters, an overlay over your own work. Most of the AI in there i'm pretty sure started off as text only. And the AI did the work.


----Mike Savad

"text to image - is what i'm pretty sure this thread is about."(Mike)

It's about copyright. AI art cannot be copyrighted.

That's where the confusion is, 100% AI no. But where does 50-50 land?

----Mike Savad

Let us gather it - types of "AI" art - together.

1) Text2text AI art (per Mike)
2) Img2img modifying your own work AI art (per Mike)
3) AI filters, an overlay over your work (per Mike).
4) Human-assisted-AI art (per Rudi) - No matter if the input is text or image.
There are also those ones.
5) (Text+img)2img AI art
6) Text2video AI art
7) Video2video modifying your own video work AI art
8) Img2video modifying your own work AI art

People prefer to put all of this under one (and wrong!) umbrella - AI art.

Respectfully the talk of this thread is about copyright for ALL kinds of "AI" art.

Text to image, text to text is a chat I think

there is also those neural filters that change a person's expression or change their entire face. But where copyright falls under all of this.. Who knows. Like if it was your copyright of a boat and I animated it, using some of my art, where does the copyright fall there? Its all very confusing.


----Mike Savad

Mike,
>"Text to image, text to text is a chat I think"

Did anybody on this chat agree with you that the talk here is exclusively about "Text to image, text to text"?

Enough. It's been clearly stated throughout the thread that you may copyright your own work (photographs) but may not copyright the ai additions

Arguing about terms, that are wrong anyway, in the main, is wasting all of our time

OK, I'm getting bored. How about a suggestion from Monty Python's Flying Circus: "And Now for Something Completely Different."

So jump ahead a few years. AI may let any photographer scan in an image and ask AI to describe it. IOW, Image to text. A plain old b/w snapshot of Pike's Peak, no problem. Just ask the AI genie to make it sound nice. How about something like this:

In this captivating black and white photograph, the majestic Pike's Peak rises like an ancient titan from the depths of history. The stark contrast between the velvety obsidian skies and the snow-capped splendor of this towering monolith creates a visual symphony that seems to transcend time itself.

The peak, shrouded in an aura of mystery, commands the viewer's attention with its sheer, awe-inspiring presence. Its rugged contours, etched in shades of charcoal and silver, give way to the ethereal white purity of the snow-crowned summit. Each crevice and crag is a testament to the unforgiving forces of nature, eternally frozen in this exquisite moment.

The play of light and shadow, masterfully captured in this monochromatic masterpiece, adds depth and dimension to the landscape. As the sun's rays kiss the slopes, it reveals the subtlest nuances of texture and form, painting a timeless portrait of sublime beauty.

The photograph's composition is a marvel in itself, as the darkened foreground serves as a stage for Pike's Peak to take its rightful place as the star of the show. It stands, a stoic sentinel, against the backdrop of the ink-black heavens, as if guarding the secrets of the cosmos.

In this black and white masterpiece, Pike's Peak emerges not merely as a mountain but as a symphony of nature, a soul-stirring sonnet carved into the very fabric of existence. It is a photograph that invites you to contemplate the grandeur of the world, capturing a moment that resonates with the echoes of time and whispers of eternity.

Had that got anything to do with copyright?

If you're bored, it is better to go off and get a hobby elsewhere. There are a million things better to do with your time, don't you think?

This discussion seemingly is never-ending. So I will add my own thought: since AI in the art creating process is a 'tool' I see no reason why should it be eligible for copyright..maybe patented, but that is a different story.

I am going to open this again in 3 months (before if there is significant news). People are just bumping this up for no reason other than to keep it at the top.

No more AI based threads.. inc / copyright / infringement threads until then. Thank you

Abbie
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Abbie Shores
Manager
Fine Art America | Pixels.com
Manchester, UK | Santa Monica, CA