Danziger Gallery Exhibits "AI-generated color version" of Ansel Adams' "Moonrise, Hernadez, New Mexico" at AIPAD

[DREW WILEY]

Ai neither undertook the initiation of the project, nor attempted to sell it. Humans did that all by themselves. Ai was just a tool and part of the theft apparatus. And the image just happens to be a very famous one with a proven track record of high profitability. Those basics on their own would seem to put some real teeth into a legal action,
and hopefully set a precedent, if there already isn't one, which there probably is.

Good colorization, bad colorization, good taste, bad taste, what would AA do or allow if he were alive today? - none of that matters - it's a blatant piracy of an image without any permission. Seems if someones wants to try a novel defense or excuse it might be, at what point in time is a famous picture part of the "public domain"? But I hope they get squashed like a bug, because if they can get away with it, nobody's images are safe from piracy and abuse.

 

[BrianShaw]

But I hope they get squashed like a bug, because if they can get away with it, nobody's images are safe from piracy and abuse.

Have they ever been? (With the exception of htose who's are never shown by the artist/photographer, of course.)

 

[Vaughn]

My thoughts are along the lines of Drew.

Personally I would not trust this gallery with my work, or to buy work from them. If they rip-off artists (legally or otherwise), why trust them?

 

[Don_ih]

is it derivative or transformative?

It's a colourized print. That is neither transformative nor derivative. It's a re-presentation of the original. It's the same photo but printed with coloured inks. In other words, it's a reprint.

Giving the original to a child with a box of crayons wouldn't make it a different photo, either. It would just mess it up.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

It's a colourized print. That is neither transformative nor derivative. It's a re-presentation of the original. It's the same photo but printed with coloured inks. In other words, it's a reprint.

Giving the original to a child with a box of crayons wouldn't make it a different photo, either. It would just mess it up.

I think it's blatantly derivative, in a legal sense. Looks to be a slam-dunk case.

Hard to understand the reasoning here...legal costs and potential damages will probably far outweigh whatever print sales, notoriety, or free publicity the gallery will get.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Regardless of whether this ends up with the courts or not, it was nonetheless part of a larger venue which could and should make their own rules concerning this kind of thing, and prohibit it in the future, if it cares any about its own reputation. Then the specific vendor should feel the sting by becoming a pariah if they don't clean up their act. It's just plain sleazy, and makes all their associated vendors look bad.

Spaces in that venue are very costly. I'd think the other participants would scream. If they don't, their ethics should be suspected too. The whole thing sounds more like a money laundering fair for daughters and nephews of oligarchs than anything I'd ever go out of my way to visit. Having money to waste is not a sign of good taste. But that's not the point. Even if a "nobody" photographer's work was involved, in principle they deserve the same protections.

 

[BrianShaw]

US Copyright Office regarding derivative works:

https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf

The interesting thing in this is the ruling that a human does the colorization. “individual human creative authorship”. Pre-AI…

https://www.copyrightdata.com/chart/Colorization.html

 

[MurrayMinchin]

US Copyright Office regarding derivative works:

https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf

From the above link on derivative as interpreted in legalese:

"Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, an adaptation of that work".

No permission was sought or granted. Slam-dunk case.

 

[xkaes]

Good colorization, bad colorization, good taste, bad taste, what would AA do or allow if he were alive today? - none of that matters - it's a blatant piracy of an image without any permission. Seems if someones wants to try a novel defense or excuse it might be, at what point in time is a famous picture part of the "public domain"? But I hope they get squashed like a bug, because if they can get away with it, nobody's images are safe from piracy and abuse.

Sounds like the perfect time to resurrect the infamous "Twinkie defense"!!!

 

[BrianShaw]

From the above link on derivative legalese:

"Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, an adaptation of that work".

No permission was sought or granted. Slam-dunk case.

But is it copyrighted? I'm not totally familiar with how the Trust controls those assets. Copyright may one of several mechanisms, I suppose. That was once a legal dispute (1980's) and Wikipedia, for whatever that may be worth, has the following annotation:

The photograph was created in 1941. It was first published in 1942, when Adams gave a print to the Museum of Modern Art and it was published in U.S. Camera, 1943.[1][2] Copyright would therefore have to have been renewed in 1968, 1969, or 1970. A search of the 1968, 1969, and 1970 copyright catalogs and the Stanford Copyright Renewals Database found no relevant entries, neither for Moonrise nor U.S. Camera.

https://exhibits.stanford.edu/copyrightrenewals/catalog?exhibit_id=copyrightrenewals&search_field=search_author&q=ansel+adams

https://exhibits.stanford.edu/copyrightrenewals/catalog?exhibit_id=copyrightrenewals&search_field=search_author&q=Adams+Publishing+Rights+Trust

EDIT. Wikipedia is incorrect (go figure) and Stanford copyright renewal database seems incomplete:

U.S. Copyright Office Public Records System

publicrecords.copyright.gov

 

[Don_ih]

A derivative work is a distinct piece that incorporates or heavily borrows essential elements from another work. The photo in question doesn't do that - because it's actually not distinct from the original. It is the same work.

If you play Smoke on the Water on tuba, it's still the same song.

However, like Brian says, Moonrise is no longer copyrighted.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

If a wildly coloured Warhol silkscreen of a Lynn Goldsmith B&W Prince photograph can be ruled as 'derivative' by the US Supreme Court, then an unauthorized & colourized full frame copy of an Adams Moonrise is a slam-dunk copyright infringement.

 

[BrianShaw]

However, like Brian says, Moonrise is no longer copyrighted.

Actually, I didn't say that, Wikipedia did. And Wikipedia seems incorrect. And I only cited Wikpedia as part of a question regarding the validity of such statement. Please see edit of my own post #30.

 

[snusmumriken]

I don’t care for the AI version, but I’m also quite surprised by the strength of feeling voiced so far in this thread. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It’s OK, is it not, for jazz musicians to rip off pieces by Bach? The Mona Lisa is the butt of many a cartoon. There are memes based on every famous piece of art on the social media channels my offspring view. What makes AA’s Moonrise sacred? It’s out there - it’s going to get used.

As for the legal aspect: now that AI is in our lives, someone is going to have to test the law at some point, probably in every country worldwide. Let’s get it over with.

 

[DREW WILEY]

This isn't either imitation or flattery. It's ludicrously overpriced trash, pure an simple, and plagiarism, pure and simple. Legal or not is not for me to say. There have been numerous comical ploys of Moonrise; but they didn't pirate the actual image.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

Legally speaking...

Derivative...requires consent from copyright holder...does not "transform" the art.

Transformative...no consent required...changes or modifies the original to a greater extent.

Kaleidoscopic Warhol silkscreens of B&W photographs have been ruled as derivative and a violation of copyright...not transformative enough.

 

[BrianShaw]

This isn't either imitation or flattery. It's ludicrously overpriced trash, pure an simple, and plagiarism, pure and simple. Legal or not is not for me to say. There have been numerous comical ploys of Moonrise; but they didn't pirate the actual image.

If the Danzinger goal was "outrage bait", then it certainly seems to have worked!

 

[MurrayMinchin]

Creating this image and taping it to your fridge would probably be okay, legally, but selling them in numbered editions is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay bad.

 

[BrianShaw]

Transformative...no consent required...changes or modifies the original to a greater extent.

I asked AI if colorization of photographs was transformative and it replied in the affirmative. Is the case really closed? AI may be a biased opinion; I'm not sure but think I might agree with it.

 

[MattKing]

and this is the news (in english) on the German court:

Once again, no copyright protection for AI-generated output

www.taylorwessing.com

again the rationale is that copyright is something reserved to humans.

What makes the AA's case interesting is that the table is flipped, but still the basic tenet is
that copyright matters are a "human" affair. This will not be an easy one, that's all I am saying.

I'm afraid that you have the cart before the horse.
That case stands for the principle that AI derived work cannot be copyrighted.
So referencing the subject of this thread, the case stands for the principle that the Danziger Gallery's IP interests in a colourized version of "Moonrise" cannot be protected by the copyright legislation.
The issue of interest to us is whether that colour "postcard" infringes the IP interests of the Ansel Adams estate.
If it does, and I expect it does, that may mean if anyone copies and distributes the Danziger Gallery's version, than they won't be infringing any interests of the Gallery, but they may very well be infringing the interests of the Ansel Adams estate.
So it wouldn't be prudent to use the colourized version as your new screen saver.
A caveat: I have been retired from the practice of (Canadian) law for nearly two decades, and while I did practice for nearly a quarter century, my practice only occasionally touched on matters involving intellectual property. Most of my knowledge in that realm comes from my personal interest in photography, combined with my curiosity about how photography and the law interact. That being said, I have done a lot of reading and interpreting of judicial decisions.

 

[oneeyedpainter]

Ai neither undertook the initiation of the project, nor attempted to sell it. Humans did that all by themselves. Ai was just a tool and part of the theft apparatus. And the image just happens to be a very famous one with a proven track record of high profitability. Those basics on their own would seem to put some real teeth into a legal action,
and hopefully set a precedent, if there already isn't one, which there probably is.

well, yes, and no. The previously ruled cases on similar matters considered the AI definitely "not a tool", but the creator of the piece of art. That was the reason why in all the three cases I mentioned and linked in a previous post, the person who used the AI to obtain the piece of art could not be assigned the copyright on it: by making use of AI, they had not created the output, but the AI had done that. For the judges, the AI was not a tool, but "the creator" of the piece of art. Then, the current copyright laws in almost every country specify that copyright belongs automatically to the person or the legal entity that is "the creator" of the piece of art. However, in all those three cases it was ruled that the copyright could not be assigned to the AI (although it was recognised as being "the creator" of those pieces of art), for the mere reason that an AI is neither an individual not a legal entity.

This case is slightly different in that the AI has been the creator of a derivative of a work covered by copyright. So if any judge would recognise that in this case the AI was a tool, there is more trouble to come later, as we will have two contrasting pieces of ruling on the matter, one saying that the AI is not a tool, and another one saying that it is. There will be the issue of drawing the line and defining where the tool becomes creator, and how. The reality is that AI poses new problems that were not there when the only entities able to create stuff were humans.

Beware: I am not in favour of a particular interpretation here. I believe that the case is interesting because it will set a precedent, either way. We will probably see more and more similar situations in the near future.

Personally, I dislike the colorised image, and I agree with @koraks when they say that the colorisation has probably resulted in the whole composition falling apart. But that's another story, and not really the reason why I think this case is interesting for photographers, both amateurs and professionals.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

A fun experiment... Ansel did say he'd be curious how his negatives would be interpreted. I'm not sure how he'd feel about AI doing it, though. We'll never know... But, I'd much rather stare at Ansel's version.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I believe it was $10,000.

The publicity to the dealer is worth more than the $10,000.

 

[oneeyedpainter]

pI'm afraid that you have the cart before the horse.
That case stands for the principle that AI derived work cannot be copyrighted.
So referencing the subject of this thread, the case stands for the principle that the Danziger Gallery's IP interests in a colourized version of "Moonrise" cannot be protected by the copyright legislation.
The issue of interest to us is whether that colour "postcard" infringes the IP interests of the Ansel Adams estate.
If it does, and I expect it does, that may mean if anyone copies and distributes the Danziger Gallery's version, than they won't be infringing any interests of the Gallery, but they may very well be infringing the interests of the Ansel Adams estate.
So it wouldn't be prudent to use the colourized version as your new screen saver.
A caveat: I have been retired from the practice of (Canadian) law for nearly two decades, and while I did practice for nearly a quarter century, my practice only occasionally touched on matters involving intellectual property. Most of my knowledge in that realm comes from my personal interest in photography, combined with my curiosity about how photography and the law interact. That being said, I have done a lot of reading and interpreting of judicial decisions.

Matt, it is not putting the cart on the wrong side of the horses. It is a link to ruling that has decided that AI was not a tool, but the "creator" of the piece of art. That is the whole point, IMHO. The link to the Ansel Adams foundation is linked to the role that the AI played in the colorisation. If a judge thinks that it was used "as a tool", then it is an obvious case of unauthorised derived work by the gallery, but the interpretation of the role of AI would be opposite to the previous rulings on the same matter, where the AI was recognised as the creator. If the AI is recognised as the creator, then the AA foundation might have a hard time trying to prove that the gallery is liable for copyright infringement. They might be liable for selling unauthorised derivative works, but (perhaps?) not for having produced those derivative works themselves.

Let's see how it ends. This is probably not the last one we will see.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Yep, as a start, this is the latest one, from the Supreme Court in the US:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-supreme-court-declines-hear-dispute-over-copyrights-ai-generated-material-2026-03-02/

the bottom line is that an AI cannot be a subject in copyright litigations, because copyright is all about humans.

What does that case have to do with this situation? That case just says that AI cannot copyright a photo becasue it's not a human. In this case, the gallery isn't trying to copyright the color photo that AI produced, only sell it. So the question is whether the gallery violated someone else's existing copyright. The fact it was done by AI or a human should result in the same legal decision.