Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could always retouch the images in photoshop. I believe that ruling was for fully generated AI, with no retouch afterwards.
That interpretation probably does not pass muster. The guidance from the US Copyright Office leans on substantial human authorship or creative changes or interpretation of the output of AI generative tools. Probably better to just link the actual guidance, it’s only a couple pages. https://copyright.gov/ai/ai_policy_guidance.pdf
Individuals who use AI technology in creating a work may claim copyright protection for their own contributions to that work. They must use the Standard Application, 39 and in it identify the author(s) and provide a brief statement in the “Author Created” field that describes the authorship that was contributed by a human. For example, an applicant who incorporates AI-generated text into a larger textual work should claim the portions of the textual work that is human-authored. And an applicant who creatively arranges the human and non-human content within a work should fill out the “Author Created” field to claim: “Selection, coordination, and arrangement of [describe human- authored content] created by the author and [describe AI content] generated by artificial intelligence.”
In particular, this sentence:
> “Selection, coordination, and arrangement of [describe human- authored content] created by the author and [describe AI content] generated by artificial intelligence.”
Sounds to me like a DJ selection or like Duchamp's found objects as the creative element.