I’m still sifting through the new AI + copyrightability report put out by the USCO, the one my submission was cited in regarding Jackson Pollack. Have been combing like articles, like the one from Artnews cited below, to try to get a foothold into it before continuing to comb through the document line by line.
The report illustrated how easily matters of authorship can be muddled with AI using the example of a Gemini-generated cat smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper. Gemini, the reported noted, ignored select prompt instructions and added elements of its own, including the cat’s “incongruous human hand.”
The unpredictability of Gemini was then contrasted with examples of human spontaneity, like the splatter technique of Jackson Pollock. The artist did not manage where or how the paint landed, but “controlled the choice of colors, number of layers, depth of texture, placement of each addition to the overall composition — and used his own body movements to execute each of these choices.”
“The issue is the degree of human control, rather than the predictability of the outcome,” the office concluded.
However, the department said that using such technology to assist in “human” creative expression does not necessarily preclude a work’s eligibility for copyright protection. Like a writer asking AI to create an outline for a book, the user is “referencing, but not incorporating, the output,” the report explained.
To me, when I read that as an artist, I almost take it as a challenge. My brain starts formulating “Oh yeah? Well, what if I ______ and used ____ to ____?” Like literally every criteria they mention above, I can think of half a dozen interesting ways to tear it all down and remake it into something new… And speedrunning through videos on historical art movements has given me tons of new (well, old, since most of its historical – but new to me) references and art historical contexts to flesh out my understanding of how we arrived at this moment, and what relevant things artists have already said about these issues many times over during at least the last 125 years, perhaps longer. More on that another time though, as those project ideas simmer on the back of the stove.
One thing I’ve spotted in media coverage around that report has been that in terms of purely reading headlines about it in Google News, it’s about a 50/50 split, it seems, as to whether or not the position championed by the Copyright Office enables something (like copyrighting art that is assisted by but not purely generated by AI), or restricts something (like registering copyright for, I guess, purely AI generated works). So I wonder if that is a success or failure in terms of public messaging? I would guess maybe it shows success in finding some middle position that much of the public is likely to be able to live with… we shall see.
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