Public Opinions About Copyright for AI-Generated Art: The Role of Egocentricity, Competition, and Experience

Breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI) have fueled debates concerning the artistic and legal status of AI-generated creations. We investigate laypeople's perceptions (N=432) of AI-generated art through the lens of copyright law. We study lay judgments of GenAI images concerning several copyright-related factors and capture people's opinions of who should be the authors and rights-holders of AI-generated images. To do so, we held an incentivized AI art competition in which some participants used a GenAI model to create art while others evaluated these images. We find that participants believe creativity and effort, but not skills, are needed to create AI-generated art. Participants were most likely to attribute authorship and copyright to the AI model's users and to the artists whose creations were used for training. We find evidence of egocentric effects: participants favored their own art with respect to quality, creativity, and effort -- particularly when these assessments determined real monetary awards.