Abstract

This paper empirically measures the bond between artists and their
work. In a pre-registered vignette study, the impact of generative AI
(Artificial Intelligence) in the creation process on the relationship
between artists and their creations is investigated. The study provides
evidence for the personality-rights theory of copyright law, predominant
in continental Europe, which emphasizes a close personal bond between
creators and their creations. While other theories of copyright law,
such as the incentive and the labor theory, have already received much
attention from the empirical research community, the personality-based
approach to copyright law has been primarily discussed as a mere
theoretical concept. To address this knowledge gap, over 200 art
students from the five top art schools in Switzerland participated in an
online vignette study where they were randomly assigned to go through
the creation process of visual artwork using either (i) traditional
drawing tools on a canvas, (ii) digital drawing software on a tablet, or
(iii) an AI image generator. The results record the degree of the
participants’ emotional attachment to their artwork and indicate a
nuanced relationship between technological tools and the artist’s bond
to their work. While there is no significant di!erence in emotional
attachment between traditional and digital drawing tools, using an AI
image generator leads to a statistically significant decrease in the
artist’s bond to their work and their perception of the work as their
own intellectual creation. These findings suggest that the use of
generative AI tools to create artwork impacts the extent to which
artists can personally express themselves in their artistic endeavors,
which has significant implications for policymakers in the fields of
copyright law and technology as they navigate the landscape of copyright
protection and authorship of AI-generated works.