AI art is not copyrightable
this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2025
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Cutting out the artist middleman in their money-laundering scheme. What a joke.
I enjoy art for the human aspects, the hundreds of musicians performing a single piece together, the incredible talent and skill on display in a photorealistic painting of a person who died hundreds of years ago, or the incredible mind and life of a person writing a moving essay. I don't usually enjoy art for the sake of the object or product.
AI generated material robs that intangible spirit, floods the world with meaningless content, and as a consequence makes it more challenging to find art. Even when you sort through the muck and see that photorealistic painting, you aren't imagining the monk who painted it, you're looking at the hands thinking I don't know if this is real or not.
Fortunately that's mainly online for now, you can still go to a concert or museum to confidently see art, you can opt out of the AI content experience. But this sale symbolizes a further erosion of that separation. It seems inevitable that there will be AI "concerts" and "exhibitions" which will physically take space and money from actual artists and further challenge finding enjoyment from art and artists for people like me.
I understand others enjoy art differently, as a consumable product for example, and those people may not be as bothered by AI content. I do hope those people understand that it does impact other people around them and that the generated material is coming at a cost, if not to them, to those people (and the environment, and the artists).
Well said. I think AI "art" is really best considered just a form of entertainment since there is no human perspective put into it. Adam Savage said it best (paraphrasing here) "In order for me to be interested in a work of art it needs to be coming from a point of view. I don't see anything resembling a point of view with AI."
I feel like everyone who's against image/text generation on the grounds of artists' financial wellbeing is actually against capitalism rather than AI.
Yes and
It just seems like a lot of people don't realize that, based on how they phrase their concerns. I wanted to put the idea out for consideration without calling out anyone specifically as I feel that's needlessly hostile. I think the less direct approach allows people to decide for themselves whether I'm talking about them, without feeling they need to respond to an accusation.
Ahh, yes, finally the 1% can do their tax scams AND not pay actual artists. Truly the most cursed timeline
I'm actually against AI art since creative professions are already lacking in labor rights, and it's going to get worse now that they're trying to make artists replaceable.
But one of the worst things about it, to me, is that it's caused artists to start going to bat for IP laws. IP law is the reason you don't get to finish that story you spent years on, because HBO deleted it in a tax write-off. You don't even get to talk about what it might have been like, because you're under NDA.
Now people want it to be illegal to be influenced by copyrighted things. Great.
I'm not anti-ai art, but I think that if IP laws exists, artist should be able to use them. Either AI art is considered public domain, or it should be certified as having been trained only on public/properly compensated work. I do think current IP laws are so out of date they're basically irrelevant, but artists should be able to enforce these archaic laws if they are subject to them.
Mind you, people will probably still pay 700k for the "original print" or whatever certified/signed by the person who generated it, but at least the work itself should be public.
AI art is not protected by copyright, yes. That isn't a "should" but rather how it actually works in nearly all countries but a few, certainly including the US.
This isn't true. You should read the latest guidance by the United States Copyright Office.
The CO didn't say AI generated works were copyrightable. In fact, the second part of the report very much affirmed their earlier decisions that AI generated content is necessarily not protected under copyright. What you are probably referring to is the discussion the Office presented about joint works style pieces--that is, where a human performed additional creative contributions to the AI generated material. In that case, the portions such that they were generated by the human contributor are protected under copyright as expected. Further, they made very clear that what constitutes creative contribution and thus gets coverage is determined on a case by case basis. None of this is all that surprising, nor does it refute the rule that AI generated material, having been authored by something other than a human, is not afforded any copyright protection whatsoever.
But they do, explicitly:
Many popular AI platforms offer tools that encourage users to select, edit, and adapt AI- generated content in an iterative fashion. Midjourney, for instance, offers what it calls “Vary Region and Remix Prompting,” which allow users to select and regenerate regions of an image with a modified prompt. In the “Getting Started” section of its website, Midjourney provides the following images to demonstrate how these tools work.^136^
Unlike prompts alone, these tools can enable the user to control the selection and placement of individual creative elements. Whether such modifications rise to the minimum standard of originality required under Feist will depend on a case-by-case determination.^138^ In those cases where they do, the output should be copyrightable. Similarly, the inclusion of elements of AI-generated content in a larger human-authored work does not affect the copyrightability of the larger human-authored work as a whole.^139^ For example, a film that includes AI-generated special effects or background artwork is copyrightable, even if the AI effects and artwork separately are not.
Yes, this is what I said. Situations where a work can conceivably considered co-authored by a human, those components get copyright. However, whether that activit constitutes contribution and how is demarcated across the work is a case by case basis. This doesn't mean any inpainting at all renders the whole work copyright protected--it means that it could in cases where it is so granular and directly corresponds to human decision making that it's effectively digital painting. This is probably a higher bar than most expect but, as is not atypical with copyright, is a largely case by case quantitative/adjudicated vibes-based determination.
The second situation you quoted is also standard and effectively stands for the fact that an ordered compilation of individually copyrighted works may itself have its own copyright in the work as a whole. This is not new and is common sense when you consider the way large creative media projects work.
Also worth mentioning that none of this obviates the requirement that registrations reasonably identify and describe the AI generated components of the work (presumably to effectively disclaim those portions). It will be interesting to see a defense raised that the holder failed to do so and so committed a fraud on the Copyright Office and thus lost their copyright in the work as a whole (a possible penalty for committing fraud on the Office).
You're moving the goalposts. Your original reply made no mention of co-authorship by a human, it was just one sweeping statement.
AI art is not protected by copyright, yes. That isn’t a “should” but rather how it actually works in nearly all countries but a few, certainly including the US.
Correct, but they were stating that people should not support artists backing IP laws, and my lay understanding is that the only thing keeping it that way is IP laws. If we got rid of IP laws, I'm not sure individual artists would win. Large corporations would be able to produce at scale, and you'd get the same issue as with redbubble or whatever, but with legit companies instead of shady ones.
Only a moron would pay for this, let alone $700K
The best part of artwork is when you can see an artists personality through their art. Because Ai art is just stolen from other people who have poured their energy into their craft, it completely ruins the point.
It feels cheap. But because of this garbage, it's also made me appreciate real art so much more.
Campbell's got advertising and credit.
Ah, they were paid with exposure.
In this case, totally worth it because it is exposure without giving away the product itself for free (just like all advertising).
That is not what happens to artists and musicians when they get paid with exposure.
More than 5,600 artists signed an open letter protesting the auction, saying that the works used AI models that are trained on copyrighted work.
All artists are trained on copyrighted work.
Let's abolish all copyright then, since everything is influenced upon things that came before it. Right?
Let’s abolish all copyright then
That's a great idea! Copyright is completely broken and only benefits large corporations with the lawyers to enforce it. It is nonsensical and the constant extensions to US copyright have diluted public domain and open-source works. In fact, the constant and rampant breaking of copyright and stretching the definitions of fair use is a side effect of the public’s lack of options in the public domain space.
except AI isn't human, obviously. so corporations can deploy millions of instances to churn out slop while crediting no one, thus erasing all the cultures that went into said slop.
while all the remaining artists become even more impoverished from the devaluing of their art. there's a name for this behavior if a human was doing it, it's called being a scab
so corporations can deploy millions of instances to churn out slop while crediting no one, thus erasing all the cultures that went into said slop.
People can create whatever they want with AI. They have access to the same tools. Viva la open source.
Also, AI art isn't copyrightable, so whatever corporations are churning will not be protected by a court of law.
I've yet to come across an AI shill that can demonstrate a modicum of reading comprehension. none of your points disprove what I said
"we've open sourced the nuclear button, Viva la resistance 🛠️" 🤦🏻♀️
thus erasing all the cultures that went into said slop.
Nobody's art is being deleted, what are you trying to say here?
When there is so much AI slop out in the world that it makes you question whether something is AI or not. That's definitely erasing human creativity.
yeah what it leads to in practice is the original art style of the victim being scrutinized due to "looking like AI art".
like, no, the AI actually looks like this art style because so many techbros stole it without crediting the artist and now everybody thinks that the style belongs to the AI overlords.
it's happened to me a few times where I see gorgeous art and I second-guess myself for a split second when I see certain digital art styles.
that is a horrible experience to have as an art enjoyer and concerning how few so-called "tech enthusiasts" actually value the human beings that led to them enjoying art.
they've been so brainwashed by AI propaganda and bootstraps ideology that they can't imagine a future that's worse than today because corporate tech futurism so often labels cyberpunk futures as utopia
As a digital artist, you can produce time-lapse videos while AI cannot.
Perhaps process will become more important than product. In fact process is indeed where the progress is IMO (even in music).
wdym by process will become more important than product?
I did say "perhaps".
The way art/music is made prrhaps becomes more important than the art/music.
There is much more uncharted territory there than in the final product now that most taboos are removed and even unskilled people have been able to realise visions from their bedroom.
Yeah, this is what I don't get. "Good artists copy, great artists steal." This is a quote for a reason. Everything is just a remix of something else. Just look at the shit Andy Warhol put out.
Also, you can't copyright AI art, so I'm not sure what the point of paying money for AI art is for.
AI could not have predicted that Andy's work would be popular. AI would not have come up with it.
Reminds me of the way that many DJ's do little more than press play. The "brand-name" of the "artist" becomes more important than the art.
If the public's appreciation of art is dumbed down, then it is logical for art to be dumbed down too.
except actual humans do work on that and get royalties for shadow producing those pre-recorded sets. not comparable
Depriving live electronic musicians and DJ's who are actually talented.
The reality is that the audience doesn't care. If they knew how to detect the difference, they might but the music is only a small part of the overall clubbing experience anyhow despite being loud.
This anti-AI propaganda talking point is getting old.
Value each artist's input at what it is: if there is no input, then it's slop; if there is input, value the input.
Some works of art, long predating AI, for your consideration:
These are great examples of that part of art AI can not capture.
The first was painted by a donkeys tail in the presence of a legal witness, sent to exhibition under a false name, and when it began to be recognized at the time by critics and media, the artist said "aha! You literally like art that a donkey can make, your taste is terrible and so is popular art".
The second is a physical can of the artists feces (I don't know if anyone has opened the can to be sure), this time with no explicit agenda. What did the artist mean by this, was it another criticism of art critics, was it a criticism of the commodification of art, or something else entirely?
The last was made as the artist tried to find a religious experience derived from art. He said with this piece he did. I don't find it particularly compelling, but 100 years ago this rethinking of what art can be was revolutionary enough for Stalin to send him to the camps.
If you only value art for consumption, yes these are exactly the same as me sitting at the computer pressing generate for a few hours. If any of the context is included in your enjoyment of the art, there is no comparison.
They are examples of a simple prompt you can put into an AI, to get similar results.
One is little more than random noise. You can put this comment into an AI prompt, in the presence of a legal witness, and when people start liking the output, say "aha!".
The second is an automated process of canning food, that the artist used to can his own feces. Yes, they were real, about half the cans have exploded after being exposed in places when the sun would heat them up, which was part of the artist's plan. Another piece by the same artist is Fiato d'Artista, a balloon blown up and sealed by the artist, that over time has deflated. The "art vs. automation" of both, fall heavily on the automation part.
The last can be generated with a single sentence prompt to any image generating AI.
The interpretation you make up to justify a piece, is independent from the means used to generate it... so you have to choose:
- The interpretation is the art, making all tools a valid option, including AI.
- The piece itself has to embody some interpretation, making the examples into "not art".
...Propaganda? Cnet?
In what world does it take two people to "make" a piece of malformed AI schlock?
Herndon and Dryhurst are frequent collaborators, and xhairymutantx is their work. So they didn't just prompt an LLM to make the image, they trained the model themselves. And they specifically trained the model on pictures of Herndon (who has distinctive red, braided hair).
I'm personally a really big fan of their work (which I don't expect everyone to be), but the picture that's being circulated in articles and apparently sold at auction without context is pretty uninspiring.
An artist and a muse. Same as it ever was.