An artist who infamously duped an art contest with an AI image is suing the U.S. Copyright Office over its refusal to register the image’s copyright.
In the lawsuit, Jason M. Allen asks a Colorado federal court to reverse the Copyright Office’s decision on his artwork Theatre D’opera Spatialbecause it was an expression of his creativity.
Reuters says the Copyright Office refused to comment on the case while Allen in a statement complains that the office’s decision “put me in a terrible position, with no recourse against others who are blatantly and repeatedly stealing my work.”
It’s a good analogy but one thing to consider is that the artist is the copyright holder.
The company that directed it only has the copyright either by explicit contract transferring rights or because it’s a work for hire where the employee’s copyright work is “automatically” transferred to their employer.
Some interesting case law on that from Disney artists, comic book authors, etc
https://copyright.gov/circs/circ30.pdf