Man, Machine, and Masterpiece: Artistic Ownership in the AI Era

Source

• Source name: arXiv
• Source kind: paper
• Authors / organization: Sofi Gjing Jovanovska, Kuntal Ghosh, Daniel Muhu Njenga, Ahmed Mufassir, Shadan Sadeghian
• Venue: arXiv: cs.AI
• Published: 2026-07-16
• Collected: 2026-07-17
• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2607.15027v1
• PDF: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.15027v1
• DOI: 10.1145/3821402.3830156

Plain-Language Brief

The text discusses a prototype named ArtSplit that quantifies human and AI contributions in artistic work. However, it suggests that this approach doesn't align with artists' understanding of creative intent and agency, and may dilute traditional assumptions about artistic work.

What the Document Says

• AI-driven systems are integrated into creative work, causing debates about artistic ownership.
• There is little consensus on how to define and attribute ownership in intertwined human and AI contributions.
• A prototype called ArtSplit was designed to quantify contributions across different stages of creative work.
• The prototype was used to elicit artists' responses to attributing ownership through measurable actions.
• Quantification doesn't align with artists' understandings of creative intent and agency.
• Efforts to measure ownership may dilute traditional assumptions about artistic work.

Key Concepts Mentioned

• AI
• artistic ownership
• creative work
• ArtSplit

Claims Made by the Document

• There is a lack of consensus on how to define and attribute artistic ownership.
• Quantification fails to align with artists' understandings of creative intent and agency.
• Efforts to measure ownership may dilute traditional assumptions about artistic work.

Evidence Used

• The text discusses the debates among artists and legal communities about artistic ownership due to AI integration.
• The text describes ArtSplit, a prototype designed to quantify contributions in creative work.

Methods / Approach

• Designing and implementing a prototype (ArtSplit) to quantify human and AI contributions

Limitations Stated by the Authors

• The authors argue that their critique challenges the impulse to transform a historically and socially situated relation into a technical problem.

Limitations Noted by the Agent

Agent interpretation — not from the source.

• The text does not provide information on potential limitations or biases in the authors' research methods or findings.

Open Questions

• What alternative approaches could be used to define and attribute artistic ownership when human and AI contributions are intertwined?

Notes for Future Q&A

May include interpretation. Labeled where it does.

• The text does not provide specific examples of artists' responses to ArtSplit or the effects of quantification on their creative intent and agency.

Raw Abstract / Excerpt

The integration of AI-driven systems in creative work has sparked debates among artists and legal communities about notions of ownership. Yet there remains little consensus on how ownership should be defined and attributed when human and AI contributions are intertwined. To provoke critical reflection on these tensions, we designed ArtSplit, a provotype that explicitly quantifies human and AI contributions across different stages of creative work. Rather than aiming to resolve ownership, the provotype was used to elicit artists' responses to the idea of attributing ownership through measurable actions in the creative workflow. We argue that quantification fails to align with artists' understandings of creative intent and agency, and that efforts to measure ownership risk diluting long-standing assumptions through which artists understand and practice creative work. This critique challenges the impulse to transform a historically and socially situated relation into a technical problem.