Us copyright Office: pictures made by AI are not protected by copyright.

According to news in the morning of February 23, Beijing time, the US copyright Office reportedly said in a letter that pictures produced by AI painting tool Midjourney are not protected by copyright.

According to the US copyright Office, artist Christina Kristina Kashtanova wrote a comic book called Zarya of the Dawn. Although the content of the book is protected by copyright, her AI images made in Midjourney are not protected.

In the recent popularity of generative AI, Midjourney, Dall-E and ChatGPT have been sought after, and the statement of the US copyright Office is worthy of attention.

Kashtanova submitted a copyright registration application for the work, and the US copyright Office approved the application and registered it, but now the copyright Office has decided to re-register, excluding pictures created by non-human authors. Kashtanova thinks getting the rights to stories and pictures is good news, but she and her lawyers will stick to their belief that AI images express the author's ideas and should be protected by copyright.

Midjourney is a popular AI tool. When the author gives a text prompt, AI will create a picture. In October last year, the US copyright Office told Kashtanova that it would reconsider the copyright registration of books because Kashtanova did not mention the role played by Midjourney in her application.

In its latest letter, the US copyright Office pointed out that the text and elements in the book are copyrighted, and that as for the pictures in the book, Kashtanova is not the planner. "in fact, the specific output of Midjourney is unpredictable by users, and from a copyright point of view, Midjourney is significantly different from other tools used by artists," the letter explained.