However, if you make one, you will top the list of most internationally wanted criminals.
Seems unlikely. Why do you think so?
But at the end of the day, the issue at hand is really the way copyright works.
Since so far the "copyright" we got at the moment is mostly in practice only ever a right for the middleman (publisher, record companies, etc. ) which are important to the industry just not remotely as beneficial to the actual creator(s).
If there was a clear cut licensing system (license to stream, license to use once, lifetime license and ai training license) it would solve potentially the ai issue, since some of the profit would go to the creator.
But since copyright is based on who owns it (based on usually capital purchase) like a monopoly, instead of an inherent creator(s) , it's at odds with the creator(s) and automation.
That's close to what the Copyright office is laying out as their actual policy for AI-generated work: images or text created by AI prompting with no other human interaction are not eligible for copyright [1]. I like the Copyright office's approach, since it's pretty straightforward - did a human do this? If yes, can be copyrighted. If no, cannot. It follows clearly from the monkey selfie thing from a couple years ago, as well.
Unsurprisingly, though, some people have a problem with that idea. The Washington Post ran an op-ed that they put on the front page of the opinion section for a couple days claiming that this ruling was awful, and would destroy everything. [2] Personally, I'm taking the op-ed writer's opinion with a grain of salt, since he seems proud to have written a book praising NFTs, but that's just me.
[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/16/2023-05...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/27/artificia...
Edward Lee does such a cynical pearl clutch, artists does creative work, if ai replaces 90% of that, there's no "creative work" left, then it's like a record label labeling itself as a culture creator despite only maybe doing 10% of creative work.
And as you point out, it's not as if you can't copyright individual pieces and plan out the parts you are willing to make non-copyrightable (such as backgrounds).
What I find extremely troubling is that they're using language like "copyright reform" similar to what you'd hear from EFF or other copyright activists, masquerading as ethical protection for artists or things of the sort. Except that they are not really addressing the inconsistencies that the "digital property" concept entail; it cannot make sense from a logical standpoint, so it's just a kludge. So, "artistic interpolation", which has always been available to semi-skilled artists, becomes the argument for a new fully totalitarian view of copyright.
The entertainment industry was basically entirely built on top of pilfered public domain culture. It's constantly providing artists with abusive contracts, when it's not doing much worse, e.g. Harvey Weinstein. It seems to me that all this is a show of crocodile tears to justify a new massive capture of what falls under copyright to be able to rent-seek in perpetuity.
this is where I think the law needs to step in very quickly. What's being taken away from actors here is their very identity because that is where the value in their recognizable voice is. There needs to be an inalienable right to one's own likeness. Here in Germany we already have something like it (Recht am eigenen Bild/Right to one's own image). Otherwise you're enabling essentially a form of digital servitude.
