426

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.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

The contract is set by the company, let's say Midjourney, which passes ownership to the person who generate the "art." What needs to be defined is if ai generated art is art? So far, no one seems to have a definite answer. I come down on the side of yes, but there are a lot of others that say no.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Which company passes the ownership to the person in its contract? Midjourney does not, I just looked:

By using the Services, You grant to Midjourney, its affiliates, successors, and assigns a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, sublicensable no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute the Content You input into the Services, as well as any Assets produced by You through the Service. This license survives termination of this Agreement by any party, for any reason.

https://docs.midjourney.com/docs/terms-of-service

They make it clear that you do not own the copyright on the images you create. Did the artist suing the copyright office use this company?

[-] chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

https://help.midjourney.com/en/articles/8150363-can-i-use-my-images-commercially

reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute the Content You input into the Services, as well as any Assets produced by You through the Service.

In no way does Midjourney own the image, they only have the ability to "reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute".

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

That has absolutely nothing to do with who owns the copyright. I already quoted to you from their own ToS and linked to it.

[-] chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It has everything to do with what the copyright gives them the right to do, which is: reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute". They cannot claim ownership of the art. If you were to create art that is illegal, they do not own it and are not responsible for that.

And since you want to quote the TOS, here is the first part which you ignored:

You own all Assets You create with the Services to the fullest extent possible under applicable law. There are some exceptions:

Your ownership is subject to any obligations imposed by this Agreement and the rights of any third-parties.

If you are a company or any employee of a company with more than $1,000,000 USD a year in revenue, you must be subscribed to a “Pro” or “Mega” plan to own Your Assets.

If you upscale the images of others, these images remain owned by the original creators.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

You said it was based on the contract. The ToS literally says Midjourney owns the copyright. This is pretty cut-and-dried.

[-] chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

I'm getting really tired of trying to explain this to you. Their copyright does not give them ownership, it gives them very specific rights. These rights are:

reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute

If you create CSM with Midjourney, they are not the owners and it cannot be used to sue them. They don't want that smoke. They do not want ownership. They make it very clear in the part you skipped over that you own your work, they simply own the right to "reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute".

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

This is literally all about copyright. Hence the copyright office being sued.

[-] Silentiea 2 points 1 month ago

irrevocable copyright license

A licence isn't a copyright, though?

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

The article makes that perfectly clear.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

The article makes it perfectly clear that he used Midjourney.

Midjourney makes it perfectly clear that he does not own the copyright to anything he uses Midjourney for.

I'm not sure what your point is.

this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
426 points (100.0% liked)

News

23353 readers
2722 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS