Watch my video reading the letter of US copyright office whether the comic can stay copyrighted!

It is Interesting to see what copyright office considered copyrightable – mainly the text, the arrangements of the images, but not the Midjourney images themselves.

In legal arguments and case law that office considered they talk about a case of photo of Oscar Wilde – that a photographer is a mastermind behind the photo (BURROW-GILES LITHOGRAPHIC CO. V. SARONY) It is once again reminded that only human can own a copyright, but not a monkey or a spirit (URANTIA FOUND. V. KRISTEN MAAHERRA)

Yet, feels the the biggest argument of they court (see 10:18 of the video) is that Midjounrey is a mastermind behind the art!! As an artist, you are not in control of what Midjourney will create, and actually just “sweat” is not enough to have copyright protection (FEIST, 499 U.S. AT 352–53)

There is an interesting point that Midjourney is same as work for hire – we just give tasks to the tool and hope that we get what we want. In case of work for hire, we are not the ones creating the picture, so Office thinks we are dealing with the same matter here.

Office also talks, that at the same time, if we amend a picture generated by AI, we own copyright. At the same time, it is unclear to what extend we need to amend a photo.

So is the Copyright office up to something? we will wait and see! In my opinion, AI art will get their copyright protection, but we will need more tests and identifying criteria to help understand which works are actually creative and which not.