Nowadays, artificial intelligence(A.I.) has entered a new stage where it can create various contents such as images, music, and videos beyond simple data process and calculation. Among them, image generation technology is one of the most popular field...
Nowadays, artificial intelligence(A.I.) has entered a new stage where it can create various contents such as images, music, and videos beyond simple data process and calculation. Among them, image generation technology is one of the most popular fields, and numerous artificial intelligence image programs have been developed since the mid-2010s. Now, the era has opened when artificial intelligence programs allow people to directly produce images they want without coding. Furthermore, these images are displayed and sold like 'artworks' and are gradually permeating the contemporary art paradigm. In 2015, Google created unique visual results using its own artificial intelligence 'DeepDream' and held an exhibition "DeepDream: The Art of Natural Networks" for this purpose. In 2016, Microsoft, the Netherlands' Delft University of Technology, and the Rembrandt Museum of Art gathered to conduct the "Next Rembrandt Project," which led them to create a new portrait of Rembrandt after a precise analysis of the portrait of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, a 17th-century painter, using artificial intelligence. As a result, the artificial intelligence product "The Next Rembrandt" showed such a high degree of completion that even professional critics can evaluate it as difficult to distinguish from the authenticity. In 2018, Obvious, a French creative group,'s "Protrait of Edmod de Belamy" was sold for about $430,000 at an art auction Christie for the first time. At the 2022 Colorado State Fair, artificial intelligence image "Théâtre d'opéra Spatial" topped the digital art category, sparking a great controversy in the art world.
Despite these technological advances and social concerns, the legal status of artificial intelligence images remains unestablished. Since the current copyright system has traditionally been formed around human creative intervention and originality, copyright is not granted to image results produced using artificial intelligence. Specifically, since the current copyright law in Korea defines a work as "creatures that express human thoughts or emotions," artificial intelligence products cannot be recognized as works. Even under US copyright law, it has been made clear that works are limited to those created by natural people, and in principle, copyrights cannot be granted to all results generated by artificial intelligence. The European Union (EU) and Japan have also failed to provide clear standards for the legal protection of artificial intelligence images based on similar interpretations. Meanwhile, in Korea, legislation has been proposed several times to recognize and supplement the legal void for artificial intelligence products. However, regarding the copyright of artificial intelligence, there are a number of problems to be solved, such as 'the criteria for calculating the contribution of human authors' and 'the issue of distribution of rights and responsibility for the subject matter', which does not lead to practical legislation.
In the above reality, this study aims to examine the status of artificial intelligence images in various ways in the legal and artistic context. First, in Chapter 2, the technical structure and operating principle of generative artificial intelligence are closely analyzed to examine the technical basis of how artificial intelligence images are generated. Next, in Chapter 3, we will review the copyright law regulations and precedents of major countries such as Korea, the United States, the European Union, and Japan, and analyze the composition requirements to be protected as works under the copyright law. Furthermore, we would like to clarify each country's attitude toward artificial intelligence images and their limitations, and suggest directions for future legal and institutional improvement. Finally, in Chapter 4, we will look at the process by which human artists produce artificial intelligence images sequentially, and examine how human creativity is being exercised. Furthermore, we will discuss how human artists can define their roles and how artificial intelligence art will change the concept of modern aesthetics and creativity.