--- title: "Government Refuses to Copyright Award-Winning AI Artwork" description: "The US Copyright Office has refused to hand Jason Allen copyright protection for an award-winning, AI-generated artwork." date: "2023-09-12" modified: "2023-09-12" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/government-refuses-copyright-award-winning-ai-artwork" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai" - "copyright" - "midjourney" - "the digest" --- # Government Refuses to Copyright Award-Winning AI Artwork ![The US Copyright Office has refused to hand Jason Allen copyright protection for an award-winning, AI-generated artwork.]() *\Image: Jason Allen / Colorado State Fair\* ## Soap Opera Remember that guy who [won the Colorado State Fair's fine art competition]() with an AI-generated painting? Just over a year ago, a guy named Jason Allen submitted an artwork titled "Théâtre D'opéra Spatial," a depiction of a sci-fi-inspired scene of an opera performance, to the competition — and won first prize, pissing off a lot of artists across the globe in the process. Why? Because Allen used the AI image-generating tool Midjourney to come up with the image, arguably demonstrating his skill as a prompt engineer, but not an actual painter. Now, the US Copyright Office has refused to hand Allen copyright protection for the work, [*Reuters* reports]() — despite him appealing the decision. It's yet another decisive moment in the evolving legal status of AI-generated art, striking a blow against those who claim to be original artists for work they generated using AI. ## Copywrong In a [ruling]() last week, the US Copyright Office denied Allen's appeal, since the artwork contained "more than a de minimis amount of content generated by artificial intelligence." "Because Mr. Allen is unwilling to disclaim the AI-generated material, the Work cannot be registered as submitted," the Office wrote. In other words, Allen has to fully acknowledge that he didn't actually create the work himself when applying for copyright, something that has plenty of legal precedent, as [*Ars Technica* points out](). In his original request for copyright protection, Allen argued that he had to revise his prompts "at least 624 times" to get to the resulting artwork, and had to go through the laborious process of editing the AI-generated image with Photoshop. Allen refused to disclaim that he was using Midjourney, causing the Copyright Office to initially deny his application. That didn't sit right with Allen, who argued in his appeal that the "Office is placing a value judgment on the utility of various tools." But the appeal failed. "If this stands, it is going to create more problems than it solves," Allen told *Reuters*. "This is going to create new and creative problems for the copyright office in ways we can't even speculate yet." **More on AI art:** *[Artists Sue Stable Diffusion and Midjourney for Using Their Work to Train AI That Steals Their Jobs]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()