I received the Copyright Office's decision today about Zarya of the Dawn. The great news is that they affirmed my copyright, so Zarya of the Dawn will stay officially registered.

This is a great day for everyone that is creating using Midjourney and other tools. When you put your images into a book like Zarya, the arrangement is copyrightable. The story is copyrightable as well as long as it’s not purely AI produced.

That covers a lot of uses for the people in the AI art community. I was disappointed in one aspect of the decision. The Copyright Office didn't agree to recognize my copyright of the individual images.

I think that they didn't understand some of the technology so it led to a wrong decision. It is fundamental to understand that the output of a Generative AI model depends directly on the creative input of the artist and is not random.

My lawyers are looking at our options to further explain to the Copyright Office how individual images produced by Midjourney are a direct expression of my creativity and therefore copyrightable.