Last year, Chris Kashtanova typed instructions for a graphic novel into a new artificial-intelligence program and touched off a high-stakes debate over who created the artwork: a human or an algorithm.
In “Zendaya leaving the gates of Central Park,” Kashtanova enters Midjourney, an AI program similar to ChatGPT that generates glowing images from written prompts. “Sci-fi visual future empty New York…”
From these information and hundreds of others emerged “Zaria of the Dawn”, an 18-page story about a character resembling actress Zendaya wandering a deserted Manhattan hundreds of years in the future. Kashtanova secured a copyright in September, and declared on social media that it meant artists were entitled to legal protection for their AI art projects.
This did not last long. In February, the US Copyright Office suddenly reversed itself, and Kashtanova became the first person in the country to be denied legal protection for AI art. The images in “Zarya”, the office said, “were not the product of human authorship.” The office allowed Kashtanova to keep the copyrights in the arrangement and the plot.
Now, with the help of a high powered legal team, the artist is testing the limits of the law once again. For a new book, Kashtanova has turned to a different AI program, Stable Diffusion, which lets users scan in their own drawings and refine them with text prompts. The artist believed that starting with the original artwork would provide enough of a “human” element to impress the authorities.
“It would be very strange if this is not copyrightable,” said the 37-year-old artist of the latest work, an autobiographical comic.
A spokeswoman for the Copyright Office declined to comment. Midjourney also declined to comment, and Sustainability AI did not respond to requests for comment.
smashing records
At a time when new AI programs like ChatGPT, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion look set to transform human expression as they break records for user growth, the legal system has still not been able to figure out who owns the outputs – the users. , the owners of the programs, or maybe none at all.
Legal experts said billions of dollars could hinge on the answer.
If users and owners of new AI systems can obtain copyright, they stand to gain hugely, said Ryan Merkley, former head of Creative Commons, a US organization set up to allow creators to share their work. issues the license.
For example, companies can use AI to produce and rightsize large quantities of low-cost graphics, music, video, and text for advertising, branding, and entertainment. “Copyright governing bodies are under enormous pressure to allow copyright for computer-generated works,” Merkle said.
In the US and many other countries, anyone who engages in creative expression usually has immediate legal rights. A copyright registration creates a public record of the work and allows the owner to go to court to enforce his rights.
Courts, including the US Supreme Court, have long held that an author must be a human being. In denying legal protection for the “Zaria” images, the US Copyright Office cited rulings denying legal protection for a selfie taken by a curious monkey named Naruto and a song that the copyright applicant called “Holy Spirit”. Told to be composed by
Stephen Thaler of Missouri, an American computer scientist, has said that his AI programs are sentient and should be legally recognized as the creator of the artwork and inventions that they generated. They have sued the US Copyright Office, petitioned the US Supreme Court and have a patent case before the UK Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, many artists and companies who own creative content fiercely oppose granting copyrights to AI owners or users. They argue that because the new algorithms work by training themselves on vast amounts of content on the open web, some of which is copyrighted, AI systems are usurping legally protected material without permission.
Stock photo provider Getty Images, a group of visual artists and owners of computer code have filed separate lawsuits against the owners of AI programs including Midjourney, Stability AI and ChatGPT developer OpenAI for copyright infringement, which the companies deny. Getty and OpenAI declined to comment.
One of the artists, Sarah Anderson, said that copyrighting AI works would “legalize piracy.”
‘Tough question’
Kashtanova is being represented by Morrison Foster and its veteran copyright attorney Joe Graetz, who is also defending OpenAI in a proposed class action brought by owners of copyrighted computer code. The firm took on Kashtanova’s case after Heather Whitney, an associate at the firm, saw a LinkedIn post by the artist seeking legal help with a new application after the “Zarya” copyright was dismissed.
“These are difficult questions with important consequences for all of us,” Gratz said.
The Copyright Office said it reviewed Kashtanova’s “Zarya” decision after discovering the artist posted on Instagram that the images were created using AI, which was not clear in the original September application. On March 16, it issued public guidance instructing applicants to clearly disclose whether their work was created with the help of AI.
The guidance states that most popular AI systems probably do not create copyrightable works, and “what matters is the extent to which the human has creative control.”
‘Full blown’
Kashtanova, who identifies as non-binary and uses “they/them” pronouns, discovered Midjourney in August, when the pandemic forced mass yoga retreats and extreme-sports events as a photographer. I stopped my work.
“My mind was completely blown,” said the artist. Now, as AI technology develops at lightning speed, Kashtanova has turned to new tools that allow users to input basic tasks and give more specific commands to control the output.
To test how much human control will satisfy the Copyright Office, Kashtanova plans to submit a series of copyright applications for individual images selected from the new autobiographical comic, each created with a different AI program, setting or method. Has gone.
The artist, who now works at a start-up that uses AI to turn children’s drawings into comic books, created the first such image a few weeks ago, titled “Rose Enigma”.
Sitting at a computer in his one-bedroom Manhattan apartment, Kashtanova demonstrated his latest technique: He drew a simple pen-and-paper sketch on a screen that he scanned into Stable Diffusion, and by adjusting settings and text prompts began to refine it using such as “young cyborg woman” and “flowers coming out of her head.”
The result was an otherworldly image, the lower half of a woman’s face covered with long-stemmed roses instead of the top half of her head. Kashtanova submitted it for copyright protection on 21 March.
The image will also appear in Kashtanova’s new book. It is titled: “To my AI community.”
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)