AI Painting: Regulatory and Ethical Challenges
🧑🎨🤝In the past two years, AI painting has become the focus of public attention and has also caused many controversies.
In 2022, the AI painting “Space Opera Theater” won first prize in the art competition at the US Colorado State Fair, which quickly attracted widespread attention to AI painting. This event subsequently sparked a series of discussions, including “whether AI can participate in the competition” and “whether AI can replace human painters”.
In this context, the advantages and disadvantages of AI painting have been widely discussed. While AI has the capacity to produce paintings rapidly, its creative capabilities and imagination remain constrained. Concurrently, AI painting technology is continuously advancing, enticing a growing number of artists to incorporate AI into their creations to discover novel avenues of artistic expression.
Some traditional painters still insist that AI painting cannot completely replace human painters. They argue that artworks embody human creativity and artistic expression, emphasizing that AI can merely replicate human painting styles and lacks the capacity to generate unique creations.
At the end of last year, the globally renowned art website Artstation appeared with an icon boycotting AI works, expressing artists’ anger towards AI painting. This year, artists initiated class action lawsuits against AI companies like Stability AI, Midjourney, and Deviant Art, alleging infringement on the rights of millions of artists.
📑On February 22 this year, the US Copyright Office issued a statement explicitly stating that images created using the AI painting tool Midjourney are not eligible for copyright protection.
This decision was prompted by artist Kris Kashtanova’s attempt to register copyright for her work “Zarya of the Dawn”. While the written and edited content was deemed copyrightable, the images generated with Midjourney were excluded. Consequently, the copyright registration for “Zarya of the Dawn” was revoked, and the comic work was re-registered as a compilation.
This US court decision sets an important precedent for the copyright protection of artificial intelligent creation works. The court has determined that AI painting works, being generated by machines rather than human authors, do not fulfill the legal requirements for protection as “works” and are therefore ineligible for registration. This ruling offers valuable insights for copyright assessments concerning generative AI software like ChatGPT.
🎯The US Copyright Office underscored in the letter that the Copyright Act safeguards original works, with originality encompassing both independent and complete creativity.
The US Copyright Office highlighted that the Midjourney tool’s output results are unpredictable, rendering user descriptions and instructions merely “suggestions”. The images produced by the AI are ultimately determined by the AI itself, lacking human creativity and “originality”. This perspective supports the argument that the images generated by Midjourney are not eligible for copyright protection.
Such controversies constantly stem from the fact that legal progress has not kept up with the pace of technological development, and there is a lack of recognition of the ownership of artificial Intelligent Creation rights in current regulations. There is still no conclusion on the copyright issue of AI painting. Whenever new technologies and tools emerge, they are bound to raise questions.
We must recognize the unstoppable trend of AI’s rapid development, especially in areas with substantial commercial potential and practical benefits for enhancing production efficiency. It is challenging to surpass such technology. However, caution and rationality should guide the creation of AI paintings to ensure their sensible application and development in the art domain. Notably, AI-generated images are already being used in the external promotion of some countries.
In summary, the copyright issue of AI painting is a complex and unresolved issue. As technology advances, it is crucial to delve deeper into legal and ethical dimensions for appropriate solutions. This ensures the protection of AI-created works, fostering the harmonious development of technology and art.🔥🥳
