AI art UK Law

AI & ART - Copyright Law UK Jan 2024 

“Section 178 of the UK Copyright Designs and Patents Act (CDPA 1988) enables copyright protection in works generated by a computer in circumstances when there is no human author of the work.” 

“…exhibit the same skill labour and judgment required to meet the threshold of originality required for copyright to apply in traditional works. It is therefore uncertain whether arrangements such as prompts need to be sufficiently original, exhibiting enough “free and creative choices” for a human to meet the originality requirement for copyright…”

https://pec.ac.uk/blog_entries/copyright-protection-in-ai-generated-works/

The AI will not let me use the word ‘erotic’ so I made a conscious choice to use an alternative. I instead use the word ‘sleazy’ which is textural as it also includes a level of degeneracy and grime which can be differentiated visually from the word ‘erotic’, where such textures are not identified specifically. 'Sleazy' is a different prompt, arguably generating quite different images, than 'grimy, degenerate, erotic'. This is a custom genre or sub-genre of the general theme. 

Therefore the concept of "judgement required to meet the threshold of originality" and "sufficiently original" and "exhibiting free and creative choices", is relevant and applies to my work. It is creative because I had to discover a work-around solution to the problem of inhibition. It is free both because it exists outside that limiting inhibition and because a human decision maker with free will consciously decided with a human decision making process requiring free will to overcome an inhibiting restriction. 

“Artists who are passionate about the potential of AI technology have argued that the directive and curatorial instructions they use to guide AI tools requires skilled labour and judgment that is worthy of recognition and protection. Innovation-focused policy makers may view the ability to own and license AI-assisted creations as favourable to economic growth. What is urgently needed is evidence on the likely impacts of AI generated work – whether copyright protected or not – on the lives and livelihoods of creators.”

I am passionate about all forms of art. I do include AI generated images within this. I am a multimedia artist with an honours degree in the Fine Arts with decades of training and experience, ergo I have sufficient expertise to have valid opinion on the matter. I will be the first to tell you my opinion as to what constitutes art is equally as valid as the next persons because art is subjective. "Beauty is the in the eye of the beholder." Which in Art School philosophy mis interpreted that it is the gaze assessing the thing where the beauty lays, it is a perception. John Berger and many other philosophers teach about this in words.  

"Directive and curative instructions" used "to guide AI tools" do not materialise out of nowhere. A Human decision maker is involved, requiring a process of thought and decision making. 

How has using AI generated art in combination with prompts and a source-texture affected my ability to create visual images and develop as an artist and as a writer? Exponentially. Are the images comparable to traditional art techniques, ie; drawing and painting? Yes they are comparable, with pro's and con's, the same way that other technology focussed forms of print-based art, ie; photography and print-making is comparable, with pro's and cons.  

I will write more about this specifically. 

TBA