A Copyright Primer for Generative AI

Last updated April 7, 2023

Copyright issues around Generative AI are contentious and confusing.

Traditional artists are suing Midjourney, Stability AI and Deviant Art for using copyrighted images in training data. Other artists find it incredibly invasive to have their work used without permission to fine tune models producing images in their style and sometimes even carrying their name.

For a new type of artist who uses AI tools the copyright laws on the books are unsatisfactory. Last week I spoke with Jason M. Allen who used Midjourney and other digital tools to create the famous AI-generated print titled Théâtre d'Opéra Spatial. The piece won a state art fair competition after Jason spent weeks honing his prompts and manually editing the finished piece. He was denied copyright by the U.S. Copyright Office. Jason is now challenging that decision. In a similar case regarding a comic book with AI generated images created by Midjourney tool, copyright was not granted for images, but for the overall selection, coordination, and arrangement of the work.

I summarized the issues in a table below as they play out for people who create & own training data, model developers and model customers.

References:

1. U.S. Copyright Office Fair Use Index 

2. Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence

3. Invasive Diffusion: How one unwilling illustrator found herself turned into an AI model - Waxy.org 

4. U.S. Copyright Office says some AI-assisted works may be copyrighted | Reuters 

5. Adobe Promises Artists will be Compensated Fairly with New Generative AI Product but is fuzzy on the details 

6. Shutterstock Introduces Generative AI to its All-In-One Creative Platform

7. Zarya of the Dawn Case