Copyright battle to begin in Colo. court

When Jason Allen won the digital-art competition at the Colorado State Fair last year, he sprayed fuel on a debate about the role of artificial intelligence in the art world. Now the Pueblobased game designer, who created his award-winning piece “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial” using the AI software Midjourney, is exploiting his fame as an Ai-art poster child to launch a campaign to legally protect AI works.

“The U.S. Copyright Office rejected my copyright registration (for the image), so after some back and forth, I’ve hired a lawyer and am appealing,” said the 39-year-old Allen, who this week is unveiling a coordinated online protest against the ruling. “We’re prepared to go all the way to the Supreme Court.”

Allen’s Colorado-based protest is called COVER, or Copyright Obstruction Violates Expressive Rights. He’s filing a Request for Reconsideration with the U.S. Copyright Office in an attempt to establish sole ownership of an artwork generated using AI software — the first appeal of its type, he said. It parallels international debates and legal cases about revenue and commercial rights with AI creations, but takes specific issue with the U.S. Copyright Office’s reasoning.

“We have decided that we cannot register this copyright claim because the deposit does not contain any human authorship,” Copyright Office officials wrote in their decision. “Instead, the deposit contains only material that your client solicited from an artificial intelligence art-generator.”

In response, Allen and Denver-based trademark attorney Tamara Pester argue that “the use of AI in the creation of art is a legitimate form of artistic expression,” and that such works should be afforded the same protection as “traditional” forms of art.

Allen’s public relations campaign, and his plan to repeatedly appeal any rejections, echoes others in the art and design worlds who have come to see AI as a tool rather than a threat. That’s in contrast to the backlash Allen received from artists around the globe after “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial” won in Colorado last year.