An artist who infamously duped an art contest with an AI image is suing the U.S. Copyright Office over its refusal to register the image’s copyright.
In the lawsuit, Jason M. Allen asks a Colorado federal court to reverse the Copyright Office’s decision on his artwork Theatre D’opera Spatialbecause it was an expression of his creativity.
Reuters says the Copyright Office refused to comment on the case while Allen in a statement complains that the office’s decision “put me in a terrible position, with no recourse against others who are blatantly and repeatedly stealing my work.”
Um. A macaque did. And every photo a child takes with a smartphone is considered to be sufficiently creative as to be a copyrightable work. It doesn’t need to be “good” to be art.
“What is art” can be a difficult question. But “how difficult was it to create it” is not the answer.
If a skillless child can reproduce it with no training but a command of their language of origin, it’s not art. You can give a child a camera but they’re not gong to be Ansel Adams. Yet you can give a child a computer and voilà! You have Stable Diffusion.
I’m not arguing this with you any further.
The art is in the eye, not the device. People made the same or similar claims about photography. “It’s just reproduction not creation!” “It’s just operating a machine that does all the work!”
AI is a tool - the person is the creative.
You may not like the art - but that’s not to say it’s not art. Either way I think it’s a creative work and worthy of at least the option to be considered art.
In my eye, AI isn’t art and using AI doesn’t make one an artist. In fact I think it’s an insult to at and artists that talentless hacks are now claiming the title when it takes a lifetime to develop a craft to become an artist.
It’s shameful.
In my eye Jackson Pollock is a no-talent hack who created meaningless crap that looks like somebody left a 2yr old unsupervised in the arts and crafts room at school. And I think it’s an insult to other artists that his work is so heavily prized.
But we’re talking about the quality of the work here aren’t we? Not whether it is a work at all. You’re effectively saying that you don’t value the work because it was easy. Which is fine - that’s your value call. But to deny that it’s a creative work at all is an entirely different thing.
And you’re allowed to think that with no argument from me. But do you see how many people have rushed to tell me how I’m wrong with their shit examples?
AI isn’t art. It never will be. Using AI doesn’t make someone an artist. This is what I think. And it’s going to have to be okay.