this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2024
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It's not selling that image (or any image), any more than a VCR is selling you a taped version of Die Hard you got off cable TV.
It is a tool that can help you infringe copyright, but as it has non-infringing uses, it doesn't matter.
Then who created this image in your view?
That's irrelevant, the issue is whether the machine is committing a crime, or the person
Machines aren't culpable in law.
There is more than one human involved in creating and operating the machine.
The debate is, which humans are culpable?
The programmers, trainers, or prompters?
The prompters. That is easy enough. If I cut butter with a knife it's okay, if I cut a person with a knife - much less so. Knife makers can't be held responsible for that, it's just nonsense.
If you try to bread with an autonomous knife and the knife kills you by stabbing you in the head. Is it solely your fault?
That depends on whether the autonomous knife is designed dangerously and it's a common occurrence, or whether I was being a moron and essentially rigged it to stab me, akin to asking for copyright material from an AI and getting it (scene from a movie, characters part of intellectual property etc)
So you're saying if it's easy to accidentally get copyright images out of this AI by prompting ordinary worlds. Then the AI designers have some questions to answer.
Accidentally? No. By typing in a highly specific prompt that specifies the exact IP? Yes.
"The Joker" is a generic description of a character. Going back to medieval courts.
If the result is a copyrighted version of that character that's not the promoters fault.
That's the fault of the ones who compile the training data.
If someone copies a picture from a cartoon who created it?
What point do you think youre making? The answer to this question supports their point.
I wasn't arguing with them lol just wondered their opinion.
It does feel weird to me that if someone draws a copy of something people don't think they've created anything. That somehow the original artist created it.
The person who created the cartoon in the first place.
Try painting a Disney character on the wall of a waiting room.for children.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/07/robert-jenrick-has-cartoon-murals-painted-over-at-childrens-asylum-centre
So the copyer didn't create anything? Odd way to look at it to me.
The copier didn't create any Intellectual property. They copied it.
Copy right. The right to copy.
It's fairly fundamental.
VCR makers do not claim to create original programming.
Why does that matter?
Because they aren't doing anything to violate copyright themselves. You might, but that's different. AI art is created by the software. Supposedly it's original art. This article shows it is not.
It is original art, even the images in question have differences, but it's ultimately on the user to ensure they do not use copyrighted material commercially, same as with fanart.
If I draw a very close picture to a screenshot of a Mickey Mouse cartoon and try to pass it off as original art because there are a handful of differences, I don't think most people would buy it.
What relevance does this have to AI?
It has relevance to what counts as an original artwork.
This is what you said:
No it is not. They do not have enough differences to be considered original in any court of law.
????
If I ask for an image of Joaquin Phoenix as The Joker from the movie The Joker, then yes it will not be original.
If I ask for original drawings off original ideas it will be original.
Therefore AI can be used for both.
Therefore the technology itself is not infringing, but only specific uses of it are, same as with a VCR, an HDD and our very brains. This should be obvious, and NYT knows it's going to lose and that's why they are now developing their own model. This case is just to stall the industry until old money corpos can catch up to avoid being disrupted out of existence. It has zero legal ground
Again, VCRs and hard drives can't create content. They can only capture content. AI can create content, but it is not always original. Which is the problem. No one is trying to sue them over things that are credibly original.
It is no more legal for you to tell an AI to make you a picture of the Joker as it is to ask a human artist to do it. And if the human artist did it, WB/DC would be within their rights to take them to court because it would violate both trademark and copyright. They usually don't, but they are within their rights.
You can ask a VCR or a hard drive to draw you a picture of The Joker all day. They won't because they can't.
If AI was only capable of creating original artworks, this would not be an issue.
There is no difference, a camcorder creates content, but it doesn't mean they're banned just because you can film a film with one.
Yes I agree, it is not legal to replicate copyrighted works regardless.
But again, human artists aren't illegal just because they can infringe copyright in a hypothetical scenario. Same with AI. The machine is non-infringing, the prompt operator can infringe copyright if they try, and then they are responsible under law, same as a human artist would be.
The machine is blameless regardless of what it was trained on.
Nope. Camcorders do not create content. They record content. Camcorders do not create anything. That is a ridiculous claim. I cannot point a camcorder at you and have it make you look like Heath Ledger.
AI creates content. It can make things that literally don't exist. If I tell it to make me Heath Ledger as The Joker fighting Jack Nicholson as the Joker, it can create it. A camcorder can't. A VCR can't. A hard drive can't. I have no idea why you don't understand the difference between creating content and recording content.
I also said nothing about the AI itself being illegal, so I also have no idea where you're getting that from. I said it is violating copyright and trademark when it creates such images. Because it is.
Hence the lawsuits. Hence the lack of such lawsuits against camcorders, VCRs and hard drives.
It flat out isn't lol, I don't know what to tell you bud, but you have no idea what you're talking about, and there was a lawsuit against VCRs:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc.
In fact it's quite likely that the OpenAI decision will be based upon this.
It's not that complicated to understand:
AI trains on images (fair use) -> Prompter inserts prompt -> output can be copyright infringing or not, depending on the prompt, same as a brain, hard drive, VCR and an HDD.
The metaphysics of what counts as creation vs recording are irrelevant, everything you're saying is just flat out irrelevant.
Yes, there was a lawsuit against VCRs. It had nothing to do with original content.
Nope, that is not in any legal definition of fair use.
What prompt do I enter to get a VCR to make me a picture of Jack Nicholson's Joker fighting Heath Ledger's Joker?
Do I press both rewind and fast forward at once to access the secret content generation menu?
You dress up and film it with your buddies and record it to a second gen tape lol? Again, the content generation aspect is irrelevant, what matters is whether a piece of equipment is made to infringe copyright or not, AI isn't, neither are VCRs, that's law, simple as really.
And yes training is fair use, it better be, I train my brain on images all the time.
Which means it is not creating content. It is recording content. Which was my point.
Please back this up. Your brain is not a computer. Furthermore, even if it was, someone else would be training it and you cannot legally train someone else on copyrighted material that you have not licensed, which is why schools have to license textbooks and a teacher that teaches from an unlicensed textbook can be sued. That's the entire impetus for the Open Textbook Library. The Open Textbook Library would literally not need to exist if training material was not protected by copyright.
You see, the problem here is that you keep claiming things that are the opposite of what these companies are getting sued for doing. And yet those suits aren't getting laughed out of court. Doesn't that tell you that maybe your ideas of how the law works here are wrong?
I have been studying U.S. copyright and trademark law for over 15 years. How long have you been studying it?
You're creating a film that wasn't there before though? Recording is creation, I don't know what you think cameras do or how video is made 🙄
Recording is creation too and it can all be IP infringing at any stage, it's all completely irrelevant how it was made in 99% of cases (exception being reverse engineering)
Brain is absolutely just a computer lol. I look at images - I remember images, I'm influenced by images. Is that fair use? If so - so is AI, because that's all it does.
Like the lawsuit against Stable Diffusion & Midjourney? You know, the class action one that was dismissed precisely because the end work (output) was non-infringing, and training itself (and by extension, the tech) was not an infringement?
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/judge-pares-down-artists-ai-copyright-lawsuit-against-midjourney-stability-ai-2023-10-30/
Educate yourself.
Read up on the Sony vs United Studios too if you want to get in intro on law stuff. Start with Wikipedia. Then watch as this court case against OpenAI unfolds like I said it will.
You keep banging on about the same few points that are all incorrect, proven time and time again, I have better things to do than to respond to this any further.
I guess you need to study it some more then, you don't even know the basics.
I swear you reddit refugee armchair experts need to go back.
Not according to the law. And if you disagree, find me the law that defines recording as creation.
One of many. One getting dismissed does not equal all getting dismissed.
Irrelevant to this subject. Original content was not at issue.
This was literally directly connected to my own business for 15 years. One I ran legally. Because I made sure to study copyright and trademark law as much as possible so my company wouldn't ever violate it.
And since I'm a 'refugee armchair expert,' from where did you get your law degree? Feel free to answer unless you want to just insult me again.