Artist Jason M. Allen is suing against the copyright rejection of his award-winning artwork generated by artificial intelligence.
In 2022, Jason M. Allen entered the Colorado State Art Fair competition with his work Théâtre d’Opéra Spatial. The work depicted some kind of futuristic royal court with a portal. The painting ended up winning the top prize. However, everyone was left scandalized when Allen revealed that the work was actually AI-generated.
Jason M. Allen created the artwork using Midjourney, a generative AI tool for images. He had fed hundreds of prompts into the tool before getting the image he wanted. He then proceeded to use Adobe Photoshop to make further changes to it. When Allen broke the news about his artwork, the art fair committee disqualified him, but the action didn’t dissuade him. The news sent ripples into the art world and prompted a fierce discussion about the use of AI in art.
However, Jason M. Allen did find himself disappointed last year when the U.S. Copyright Office rejected his application to copyright the artwork. The office thought the work contained too much AI-generated material and asked Allen to remove such components, which he refused.
Now, Allen has decided to appeal in the Colorado federal court to reverse the rejection. The lawsuit said: “Mr. Allen had a specific artistic idea, conceived of in his mind, and he used Midjourney as a tool to create an artistic expression of that idea. Such creative input is on par with that expressed by other types of artists and is capable of copyright protection.” The US copyright office has a firm stance on AI-generated art, having previously rejected another such artwork. However, a negative court ruling in this case could set a major precedent in the AI vs Art debate.
