Heartbreaking stuff AI-generated image
Facepalm: In what many are calling a deliciously ironic twist, a man who won a digital art match with an AI-generated picture and was comprehensively unapologetic about it is now whining that people are robbing his work – an indictment that artists have extended leveled against AI-powered image-generating tools.
In 2022, Jason M. Allen of Pueblo West, Colorado, an executive at a tabletop gaming startup, took home their first residence in the Colorado State Fair’s annual digital art battle. His piece, Théâtre d’Opéra Spatial (top), had been made using Midjourney, something that outraged many artists. Competition AI-generated image
“I’m not going to apologize for it,” Allen said at the time. “I won, and I didn’t disobey any rules.”
“Art is over, dude. It’s through. AI won. Humans lost,” he added.
Allen’s hubris has come back to haunt him. Jason Allen has been trying since at least late 2022 to copyright his AI-generated art. However, multiple judges have already held that such art can’t be copyrighted since, as it stands, human authorship is an important component of a valid copyright claim.
Last week, Allen filed a complaint with the Colorado federal court where he appealed for copyrights of his work. Besides, the meager revenues were the main reasons behind the lawsuit, he said. “He said on Colorado Public Radio.
Allen also whines that people have been pinching his work. “The Copyright Office’s refusal to register Théâtre d’Opéra Spatial has put me in a terrible situation, with no recourse against others who are blatantly and repeatedly swiping my work without compensation or credit,” he said.
This objection, however, has been raised even since the inception of image-generating AIs because, after all, it was the artists who were complaining that AI models stole from them merely by scraping images from the internet without getting their proper consent. This practice has raised concerns about copyright infringement and the ethical implications of using AI-generated content. In 2023, a class movement copyright lawsuit was launched against Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and other AI-related businesses by artists.
Jason Allen, the man who won an art competition with an AI-generated image, is now complaining that people are stealing his work. Allen says that people have been stealing his work and selling it on OpenSea and Etsy.
According to his lawyer, Allen had an “extensive discussion” with Midjourney to create the picture.
Allen says he edited Théâtre d’Opéra Spatial in Photoshop and with Gigapixel AI after Midjourney produced it.He asserted in Bench that entering the sequence of prompts that created the image, changing the scene, and dictating the tone of the picture was equivalent to the innovative work ‘expressed by other types of artists and capable of copyright safety.” One imagines that other artists would vehemently disagree with this assertion.
“As AI resumes to increase, our legal frameworks must adapt to defend the independence of those who harness these technologies for innovative expression,” Allen’s lawyer said. They should presumably protect those whose hard work is standing used to train AI, too.
According to his attorney, Allen had an “extensive discussion” with Midjourney to finish the picture.
Allen’s lawyer relied on his extensive interaction with Midjourney to establish that the image was indeed made by Allen, who played a critical role in making it. Critics argue back that Allen’s interaction with Midjourney was only an input by a user and not an artistic creation per se by an artist. They argue that it is the AI that produces the actual image and Allen only helps to create prompts for AI to produce based on such prompts.