[rickydroll]

I wonder if Nano Banana spits out an image and I copy it by hand into a different medium like acrylics, chalk, or charcoal. Does a manual transcription suddenly render the image worthy of copyright?

This also raises the meta question: how much does an image need to change to acquire a new copyright? For example, if you change the Last Supper to include two fat Jesuses on either side of the single skinny Jesus, is that enough?

[ThrowawayTestr]

A human couldn't recreate it perfectly in a different medium, thus you are adding human creativity to it, thus copyrightable.

[rickydroll]

A photograph or a tracing made with an optical device is a mechanical reproduction of the original work, but it has its own copyright because there's a human in the loop.

A forger takes skill and creativity to make a copy of an existing work that is so good it cannot be distinguished from the original. By your assertion, the forgery should have its own independent copyright.

[t-writescode]

Why wouldn’t that be the case? Each performance of a song is uniquely copyrightable.