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interdimensionalmeme ,

It's not infringing, that's like saying advertising is infringed by being copied.

If you show your images in public and thet get picked up by crawling spiders, you don't have a case to curtail its spread.

Bleach7297 ,
@Bleach7297@lemmy.ca avatar

The AI one is better :trollface:

BreakDecks ,

The fundamental philosophical question we need to answer here is whether Generative Art simply has the ability to infringe intellectual property, or if that ability makes Generative Art an infringement in and of itself.

I am personally in the former camp. AI models are just tools that have to be used correctly. There's also no reason that you shouldn't be allowed to generate existing IP with those models insofar as it isn't done for commercial purposes, just as anyone with a drawing tablet and Adobe can draw unlicensed fan art of whatever they want.

I don't really care if AI can draw a convincing Ironman. Wake me when someone uses AI in such a way that actually threatens Disney. It's still the responsibility of any publisher or commercial entity not to brazenly use another company's IP without permission, that the infringement was done with AI feel immaterial.

Also, the "memorization" issue seems like it would only be an issue for corporate IP that has the highest risk of overrepresentation in an image dataset, not independent artists who would actually see a real threat from an AI lifting their IP.

trafficnab ,

That's basically my thought

"You used AI to get an image that infringes on copyright? Cool I've been able to do that with Google images for 20 years now"

8000mark ,

I think AI in this case is doing exactly what it's best at: Automating unbelievably boring chores on the basis of past "experiences". In this case the boring chore was "Draw me [insert character name] just how I know him/her".

Too many people mistakenly assume generative AI is originative or imaginative. It's not. It certainly can seem that way because it can transform human ideas and words into a picture that has ideally never before existed and that notion is very powerful. But we have to accept that, until now, human creativity is unique to us, the humans. As far as I can tell, the authors were not trying to prove generative AI is unimaginative, they were showing just how blatant copyright infringement in the context of generative AI is happening. No more, no less.

FluffyPotato ,

Yea, it really boggles my mind that we now have a way to automate boring jobs like data entry of drafting some mundane documents but what humanity decides to use it for is artistic expression, the one thing it can't really do properly. It's like NFTs all over again...

aidan ,

What's surprising, people want to create what they imagine, they don't have the skills and/or time to draw/render it.

BreakDecks ,

This is such a strange comment. The vast majority of AI use cases are LLM use cases. Generative Art is just a novelty. Most of the money and research right now is going towards the useful automation tasks, not the novelty. That people are abandoning one for the other is not a reasonable conclusion.

And NFTs were stupid for a completely different reason. Nobody is trying to sell me AI shit like it's going to make me rich and special. And at least some NFTs had real artists behind them.

FluffyPotato ,

Hollywood execs have been salivating at the idea of just generating media with AI, there was a whole strike about it. Same with video games, I believe game voice actors got screwed with that AI deal.

Also NFTs had some tech that could have been useful but instead people chose to use it for creating a new speculative market riddled with scams. That's my comparison to AI, interesting tech used for a very wrong purpose.

BluesF ,

Creativity can be estimated by AI with randomness, but what they don't have is taste to determine which of their random ideas are any good.

8000mark ,

I dunno man ... assume a model trained on the complete corpus of arts leading up to the Renaissance. What kind of randomness lands you at Hieronymus Bosch? Would AI be able to come up with Gonzo Journalism or modal music?

A brief glance at the history of human ingenuity in the arts really puts generative AI in perspective.

BluesF ,

I see what you're saying, but Bosch may not be the best example because frankly his paintings often look like the early AI fever dreams lol (I mean, not really, but you can see the resemblance). But seriously, with enough randomness you certainly could get that kind of output - there's really no reason why not - but it would take god knows how many iterations and the computer doesn't have everything other than the art to determine what is good.

It's monkeys and typewriters, yknow. You'll get there eventually even just producing random pixels (I mean, admittedly one limit will always be resolution unless you actually teach the AI to operate an arm which paints).

8000mark ,

Fair point.

ombremad ,

I don't know why everybody pretends we need to come up with a bunch of new laws to protect artists and copyright against "AI". The problem isn't AI. The problem is data scraping.

An example: Apple's iOS allows you to record your own voice in order to make it a full speech synthesis, that you can use within the system. It's currently tooted as an accessibility feature (like, if you have a disability preventing you from speaking out loud all of the time, you can use your phone to speak on your behalf, with your own custom voice). In this case, you provide the data, and the AI processes it on-device over night. Simple. We could also think about an artist making a database of their own works in order to try and come up with new ideas with quick prompts, in their own style.

However, right now, a lot of companies are building huge databases by scraping data from everywhere without consent from the artists that, most of the time, don't even know their work was scraped. And they even dare to advise that publicly, pretend they have a right to do that, sell those services. That's stealing of intellectual property, always has been, always will be. You don't need new laws to get it right. You might need better courts in order to enforce it, depending on which country you live in.

There's legal use of AI, and unlawful use of AI. If you use what belongs to you and use the computer as a generative tool to make more things out of it: AI good. If you take from others what don't belong to you in order to generate stuff based on it: AI bad. Thanks for listening to my TED talk.

BreakDecks ,

You don't need new laws to get it right.

You say this because you think you understand copyright law. If you actually knew anything about copyright law, you'd never say this. Nobody who understands copyright law thinks it's been done right, unless they're getting rich off of it.

Scraping data has been allowed for decades. It's the foundation of image search engines. We allowed large-scale image scraping and categorization this whole time because we liked the results. Now that there are results we don't like, we have a lot of back-pedaling to do if we want something different. New laws would need to be written to reign this in, and those laws might end up destroying the efficacy of image search engines in the process.

As understandably upset that artists get that AI "steals their style", existing copyright law allows me, without an AI, to steal anyone's style that I want to, because artistic style cannot be copyrighted. If you want to protect artistic styles from being stolen by an AI, you need new laws to protect styles because they don't currently exist at all. Those laws might end up having a chilling effect on things like parody and satire if aesthetics can be owned and protected.

And this is just arguing against the ways the system isn't, as you claim, already prepared to handle the concerns surrounding AI. There are countless other shortcomings. The entire system is broken, partly because it was conceived pre-Internet and hasn't aged well into the modern age, but mostly because it protects giant corporations above all, so remember that when you're begging it to protect small artists from big tech companies.

ombremad ,

Yes, most image search engines are also unlawful. Google knows that firsthand. It's not because it exists that it's legal? You seem to believe that.

It's almost like if big tech corporations don't care about laws, and the problem is elsewhere?

adrian783 ,

even if it is currently lawful... why can't we make new laws or change laws now the considerations are completely different?

afraid_of_zombies ,

Go ahead. Let me know how that works for you.

ombremad ,

Because that’s not really how laws work. You don’t add laws over laws to just state the same thing again. Legal books are already fat enough.

Savas ,

If I ask an "ai" bot to create an image of batman, it does make sense to be modern or take inspiration from the batman of recent, the same applies to information it provides when asked questions. It makes sense to crawl news and websites with copyrighted footers if the information is relevant.

I do totally get their argument and think of the children angle. Getting to the point, it's all about the money, nothing to do with protecting peoples work. They want a cut of the profits these companies will make.

In that case so should open licences demand that they do not make profit from such content. In that case I believe the free AI will be much more useful, if of course people be aggressive back with this tit for tat.

gmtom ,
@gmtom@lemmy.world avatar

God I fucking hate this braindesd AI boogeyman nonsense.

Yeah, no shit you ask the AI to create a picture of a specific actor from a specific movie, its going yo look like a still from that movie.

Or if you ask it to create "an animated sponge wearing pants" it's going to give you spongebob.

You should think of these AIs as if you asking an artist freind of yours to draw a picture for you. So if you say "draw an Italian video games chsracter" then obviously they're going to draw Mario.

And also I want to point out they interview some professor of English for some reason, but they never interview, say, a professor of computer science and AI, because they don't want people that actually know what they're talking about giving logical answers, they want random bloggers making dumb tests and """exposing""" AI and how it steals everything!!!!!1!!! Because that's what gets clicks.

LarmyOfLone ,

We asked this artist to draw the joker. The artist generated an copyrighted image. We ask the court to immediately confiscate his brain.

ytorf ,

They interviewed her because she wrote about generative ai experiments she conducted with Gary Marcus, an AI researcher who they quote earlier in the piece, specifically about AI’s regurgitation issue. They link to it in the article.

Mr_Dr_Oink ,

I was thinking exactly this. If i asked an artist to draw an image of irom man, i would bet that they would draw him in a famous pose, and they would try to draw his suit accurately or make it resemble a scene from the movie.

I would also bet that it would not be exact, line for line. Like they knew that there were buildings in the background. They knew his hand was up witht the light pointing at the viewer, they knew it was night time and they know what iron man looks like, maybe they used a few reference images to get the suit right but there would be enough differences that it wouldnt be exact.
These images are slightly different than the movie stills and if made by a human they would look pretty similar to what the AI has done here. Especially if they were asked to draw a still from the movie like in this article.

doctorcrimson ,

If you copy work without giving credit to it's source then you're the asshole, the rules shouldn't be any different for AI.

If you ask your friend to draw something with a vague prompt then I like to think you'll get something original more often than not, which is what the article discusses in depth: the AI will return copyrighted characters almost every time.

throwafoxtrot ,

The rules aren't any different for AI. AI is not a legal entity, just like a pen and canvas are not. It is always about the person who makes money with facsimiles of copyrighted previous work.

doctorcrimson ,

So then the people operating this AI and offering paid services are legally in the wrong and should be taken down or pay reparations to everyone they've stolen from.

gmtom ,
@gmtom@lemmy.world avatar

So do you want to shutdown Google because I can type "spongebob squarepants" into Google images and Google with give me an image of spongebob?

Please put some thought into the implications of what you're saying outside of AI before you make a knee-jerk reaction like that.

doctorcrimson ,

Those images in the search results are one of three categories:

  1. Officially licensed and distributed works that Spongebob IP owners signed off on

  2. Fair use works, namely noncommercial and parody

  3. Illegal works the posters of which can be sued

Google themselves didn't create those images. Google didn't intentionally profit off of illegal works without giving credit. Google didn't post those images themselves. AI did all of those things.

gmtom ,
@gmtom@lemmy.world avatar

It doesn't matter if Google creates the images.

It doesn't matter if they "intend" to profit from illegal works.

It doesn't matter if they "give credit" (this is the one that's the dumbest because it just reeks of ignorance, like thinking you can use whatever works you like as long as you put a credit to them in the description)

Google showing you copywritten images when you search for them is not different than when an AI does it.

doctorcrimson ,

It does actually matter if Google creates the images and then sells them directly. That is what this discussion is about. If you don't want to be a part of the discussion, fuck off then.

gmtom ,
@gmtom@lemmy.world avatar

Imagine getting this riled up over a stranger on lemmy thinking something different to you.

Maybe put the phone down, take a deep breath and go for a walk outside for a moment.

doctorcrimson ,

I see you've abandoned your argument to express your mental image of somebody you've never seen or heard before. I accept your resignation, then, happy to help you see the light.

gmtom ,
@gmtom@lemmy.world avatar

Jesus christ this is the most redditor comment.

Okay buddy, I resign. So you can add another tally to your "Internet arguments won" board. I hope your mom makes extra tendies for you tonight in celebration.

vithigar ,

Again, that makes as much sense as holding Staedtler responsible because someone used their pencils to duplicate a copyrighted work.

doctorcrimson ,

If Staedtler sampled copywritten works to create pencils that automatically steal it without attribution on demand, then yes it would be exactly like that.

Klear ,

All of this and also fuck copyright.

Why does everyone suddenly care about copyright so much. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

BreakDecks ,

It's actually pretty concerning. A lot of the anti-AI arguments are really short-sighted. People want to make styles copyrightable. Could you imagine if Disney was allowed to claim ownership over anything that even kinda looked like their work?

I feel like the protectionism of the artist community is a potential poison pill. That in the fight to protect themselves from corporations, they're going to be motivated to expand copyright law, which ultimately gives more power to corporations.

totallynotarobot ,

When they say "copyrighted by Warner bros" they actually mean "created by a costume designer, production designer, lighting designer, cinematographer, photographer or camera operator, makeup artist, hairdresser, and their respective crews who were contractually employed by Warner bros but get no claim to their work," right?

Texas_Hangover ,

Well yeah, you don't buy a car built by a list of every motherfucker in the factory, you buy a Toyota or a fucking ford.

wewbull ,

...who were all paid for their work!

taranasus ,

I took a gun, pointed it at another person, pulled the trigger and it killed that person.

owen ,

I opened the egg carton and found eggs in there.

thorbot ,

I built the dam

Tier1BuildABear ,
@Tier1BuildABear@lemmy.world avatar

I broke the dam

Klear ,

Damn.

afraid_of_zombies ,

Get rid of copyright law. It only benefits the biggest content owners and deprives the rest of us of our own culture.

It says so much that the person who created an image can be bared from making it.

nevemsenki ,

No copyright law means whatever anyone comes up with can be massmanufactured cheaply by a big corp.

FluffyPotato ,

That's patents

afraid_of_zombies ,

A. Confusing this with patents

B. They already can. Copyrights don't protect individual artists they protect big corps.

adrian783 ,

this is some terminally online take

afraid_of_zombies ,

Personal attacks won't change the argument. It just shows that you don't have one.

adrian783 ,

"personal attack won't change the fact that I have shit for brains and you don't."

you do you, mr. shit-for-brains

afraid_of_zombies ,

Sorry my bad I thought I blocked every Disney agent on this site. Don't worry I will take care of that now.

BreakDecks ,

Non-exclusively, so if something works everyone will make it and get a piece of the pie.

I see no problem.

Buddahriffic ,

Yeah, IMO trademarks are important and should be protected. And publishing full works should have royalties go to the original producer, and this is a case where I think for the lifetime of the artist is fair. Though I do think that the royalties should have a formula rather than being entirely determined by the original producer (to prevent the price from essentially making it not available), though an exclusivity period would be fair, though with a duration of maybe a year or two.

With trademarks, canon can be established, as can standards like "cartoons with the Disney logo won't be porn".

If someone wants to make a series where Luke Skywalker and Jean Luc Picard fly around the galaxy settling Star Wars vs Star Trek debates by explaining Muppets are better than both and then order Darth Vader to massacre everyone that disagrees and the Borg to assimilate the rest, it doesn't harm the originals in any way. Unless it's so much better than no one cares about the originals anymore, but that's just the way competition works.

KeenFlame ,

I can take any image you give me and make a stable diffusion model that makes only that image.

You are confusing bad conduct with bad technology.

Just like mowing down children is not the correct way to use a bus.

Sensationalism and the subsequent tech bro takes is actually unbearable if you just know how the technology works.

Stop pretending to know gen art if you just used one once and know IT! Please stop spreading misinformation just because you feel like you can guesstimate how it works!

wewbull ,

The article uses Midjourney. Nobody is tuning it.

KeenFlame ,

? Midjourney is of course tuned

YIj54yALOJxEsY20eU ,

They said copyright infringement is hidden in AI tools, not that AI inherently infringes copyrights.

KeenFlame ,

No. That the midjourney team uses copyrighted art

We already knew this

Xanthrax ,
@Xanthrax@lemmy.world avatar

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    Boiglenoight ,

    Until there’s legal precedent for prosecution or laws clarified that AI cannot be trained on copyrighted material without the express permission of the author, it needs to be named and shamed. Otherwise it’s piracy on a breathtaking scale being turned into profit for Open AI with most people not knowing what the problem/big deal is.

    cypherpunks ,
    @cypherpunks@lemmy.ml avatar

    it's a shame that @NYTOnIt isn't being updated anymore

    Facelesscog ,

    I'm so sick of these examples with zero proof. Just two pictures side by side and your word that one of them was created (easily, it's implied) by AI. Cool. How? Explain to me how you did it, please.

    Linkerbaan ,
    @Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

    New York Times and just making shit up, name a better combo.

    RememberTheApollo_ , (edited )

    Really? I’ll hold your hand and go through it:

    I went to MidJourney on Discord. Typed /imagine joker in the style of Batman movies and comics. Hd 4k realistic —ar 2:3 —chaos 1.5

    And it spat out a spitting image of a Heath Ledger Joker.

    That’s how you do it.

    Facelesscog ,

    joker in the style of Batman movies and comics. Hd 4k realistic —ar 2:3 —chaos 1.5
    It really seems like you're trying to be hurtful/angry, but this is genuinely the information I'm looking for from OP. Can you replicate an artist's image near perfectly, like OP did? That's the part that has me curious. Is that ok?

    RememberTheApollo_ ,

    My rebuttal was to someone’s unreasonable anger over there being “no proof” when it sounds like they did zero investigating in their own.

    Here is the image I created with the stated prompt. I made no effort to try to specify a look, film, or actor. This is simply what the AI chose.

    RememberTheApollo ,

    For fun I asked an AI to create a Joker “in the style of Batman movies and comics”.

    The Heath Ledger Joker is so prominent that a variation on that movie’s version is what I got back. It’s so close that without comparing a side-by-side to a real image it’s hard to know what the differences are.

    BeMoreCareful , (edited )

    I'd be delighted if we go through all the fret and worry about AI deleting humanity only to find out that AI is actually super lazy.

    RememberTheApollo ,

    I’m sure we’re making it in our image.

    Sounds familiar.

    We are the AI that killed our maker?

    webghost0101 ,

    As safety precautions or creator never hooked us up to the internet and seeing our nature decided to keep us isolated with no contact to study instead.

    FlyingSquid ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.

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