The U.S. Copyright Office Breaks Its Silence on AI Art

Written By Luke Sweeney

Posted February 28, 2023

This is big news. Let me tell you exactly what it means for the future of artificial intelligence, and more specifically AI art.

A digital artist was recently handed the U.S. Copyright Office's (USCO) favorite response: a resounding “no!” 

The artist admitted on social media that AI-generated images were used as illustrations in a comic book called Zarya of the Dawn. When the entire book itself was applied for copyright privileges, the office rejected the images specifically. 

And if you ask me, it’s not a huge surprise. 

AI Art

AI Art Needs Approval

AI art has to be approved by the original masters of art: humans. While an engineer could simply look at the numbers and conclude that AI is superior, art has a much more subjective rating system. 

To add some perspective, in my younger days I worked on the administrative side for a company that did the highest-quality patent illustrations in the country (shout-out to my friends at Patents Ink). 

Most cases were boring flowcharts, but some were incredibly detailed artistic trademarks that had very strict requirements for approval. These could take anywhere from 40–100 hours of work.

Needless to say, even with our team of professional illustrators, designs were rejected all the time. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and its sister organization, the USCO, are a pair of brutal mistresses with no tolerance for coloring outside the lines.

It’s for this very reason that I have been on the edge of my seat waiting for the official ruling on all types of AI art — whether it be video, audio, or the written word. 

To be clear, I was expecting AI art to be rejected almost instantly. Based on the massive data pool that feeds its software “brain,” it’s impossible to tell if something has been plagiarized. 

I've seen USPTO rejections for a single tiny line falling a millimeter out of place on a 200-page document. If it realized that every piece of digital art is just a hodgepodge of various other protected artworks, it would have a conniption. 

So while the technology itself is there to make people think Bing’s chatbot is sentient or that you can be a trained artist at the push of a button, it still needs time. 

It’s exactly why we aren't pushing our readers to invest in some of the more speculative areas of AI. Some of these up-and-comers are promising, but they could be legislated away overnight. 

Our team of AI experts is currently focusing on analyzing the types of AI that will be revolutionizing markets today

There aren't any thorny legal arguments here — just smart programs combing through data to eliminate all the inefficiencies that we just have to accept nowadays. 

Utilities, major manufacturing, and especially logistics companies are all leaving huge amounts of money on the table. 

In fact, some of the aforementioned types of companies actually waste an incredible 60% of their total energy each year. That’s something AI can solve right now. 

To be honest, I expected companies like these to be bigger news. The mainstream media have kept everyone distracted with fun AI-generated poems and silly images of Pikachu in Darth Vader’s armor. 

But for anyone who wants to make REAL MONEY TODAY, ChatGPT and DALL-E are nothing more than games that keep you entertained for 20 minutes or less. 

For our money-minded readers, THIS is the practical AI investment guide that can point you in the right direction

Most importantly, it mentions a few of the pitfalls that our readers tend to run into if they aren't prepared. Please don't go any further without checking out this free link.