Kristina Kashtanova’s achievement has been relatively short-lived. About five months ago, the New York artist celebrated that the comic images of her ‘Zarya of the Dawn‘ created with Midjourney became protected by copyright. This week, the aforementioned benefit has been terminated, that is, everything returns to the previous point.
The United States Copyright Office has been the one that has decided to reverse a decision that set a precedent in the registration of works created with artificial intelligence. According to the federal agencythe original certificate had been issued under the idea that Kashtanova was the author of 100% of the work presented.
You cannot protect the rights of a “non-human” work
In a letter to the artist’s lawyer, the office explains that the change only applies to part of the work, so a corrected copyright certificate will be issued. The text and layout of the different elements that make up the comic will receive protection because Kashtanova is considered to be the legitimate and original author.
The situation changes radically with the images generated with Midjourney for the comic. For the office, as it is a creation that is not the product of “human authorship”, there is no possibility of protecting it. In fact, it seems that they never intended to endorse the registration of images created with artificial intelligence.
Comic ‘Zarya of the Dawn’
According to the official statement, the artist’s registration application does not mention anywhere that the work has been generated using artificial intelligence. In this sense, she explains that in the 18 pages that make up the comiconly on the cover does the word “Midjourney” appear, accompanied by the title of the work and the name of the author.
Surprisingly, the agency claims that it learned that Kashtanova had used Midjourney to generate the images for the work due to the repercussions that the comic had on social networks. Consequently, they indicate, they determined that the application was “incorrect or, at least, substantially incomplete”, which led them to revoke the previous registration.
It should be noted that not all design tools are banned. For the office, Midjourney’s problem is that he generates images using text prompts and the data with which he has been trained. “The fact that users cannot predict specific production of Midjourney makes Midjourney different for copyright purposes than other tools used by artists.”
Images: Zarya of the Dawn—Kris Kashtanova (Midjourney)
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