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Getty Images bans AI-generated content over fears of copyright claims

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Re: Getty Images bans AI-generated content over fears of copyright claims

#131

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

It's always weird to see the contrast between HN's reaction to copyright questions about text/image generation, and HN's reaction when it's code generation.

When a model is trained on 'all-rights-reserved' content like most image datasets, the community say it's fair game. But when it's 'just-a-few-rights-reserved' content like GPL code, apparently the community says that crosses a line?

Realistically, this tells me that we need ways for people to share things along the lines of all the open-source licenses we see.

You could imagine a GPL-like license being really good for the community/ecosystem: "If you train on this content, you have to release the model."

Re: Getty Images bans AI-generated content over fears of copyright claims

#132

Post by shagie »

plussed_reader wrote: post #125
noobermin wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5. Getty pictures were trained on likely without permission. So, they definitely might be considering starting a lawsuit. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32573523

Why would it be illegal to train a model on their free samples? I thought their business was paying to remove the watermark?

The "free samples" are still copyrighted by the artist. Adding a watermark to it doesn't remove the copyright and arguably, adding the copyright doesn't even create a new work.

Their business is hosting, indexing, and managing the licensing for art that has been submitted to them and licensed to another party.

Re: Getty Images bans AI-generated content over fears of copyright claims

#133

Post by karmasimida »

jfoster wrote: post #62

Reading between the lines of this, it sounds to me like Getty is preparing a copyright claim against the AI companies: 1. They seem of the opinion that the copyright question is open. 2. Their business stands to lose substantially as a result of such models existing. 3. It would be a bad look for them to make a claim whilst simultaneously accepting works from the models into Getty. 4. At least some of their watermark…

They should sue, and it will clarify things a bit, and the matter would be settled for the years to come.

What is certain is that AI-powered image creation will here to stay forever.

Re: Getty Images bans AI-generated content over fears of copyright claims

#134

Post by spoonjim »

thereisnospork wrote: post #116
spoonjim wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if OpenAI's ability to create a photograph of a person laughing while eating a bowl of salad is due to mashing up these photos that were mainly from Getty Images, then Getty and its photographers would have a reasonable claim.

How different[0] is that from a painter viewing ~half a dozen Getty images, then repainting in combination to not pixel-perfect, but near, detail? Afaik[1] the hypothetical painter has neither committed infringement on the source works and has input sufficient creative effort into the new that it would be copywritable. [0]Granted it differs a little, but not by that much either. [1]IANAL

The history of law and courts have decided that "different things can be treated differently."

Re: Getty Images bans AI-generated content over fears of copyright claims

#135

Post by 7952 »

daniel_iversen wrote: post #23

Their legal worry probably makes sense, but my suspicious mind also feels like it's in their long-term interest maybe not to open pandora's box too much on letting AI art in, because wouldn't one of Getty's competitive advantages be the relationships it has with (I imagine) hundreds of thousands of artists? And so if they let AI art in then suddenly the historic artist relationship means less (because a lot more peop…

My guess is that they will want to exploit their archive to train their own commercial model. And to integrate AI into their existing product to modify their images.

Re: Getty Images bans AI-generated content over fears of copyright claims

#136

Post by nneonneo »

ar-nelson wrote: post #129
jfoster wrote: post #62

Reading between the lines of this, it sounds to me like Getty is preparing a copyright claim against the AI companies: 1. They seem of the opinion that the copyright question is open. 2. Their business stands to lose substantially as a result of such models existing. 3. It would be a bad look for them to make a claim whilst simultaneously accepting works from the models into Getty. 4. At least some of their watermark…

I've seen a lot of confidence on HN and other tech communities that a court would never rule that training an AI on copyrighted images is infringement, but I'm not so sure. To be clear, I hope that training AI on copyrighted images remains legal, because it would cripple the field of AI text and image generation if it wasn't! But think about these similar hypotheticals: 1. I take a copyrighted Getty stock image (that…

It’s not about reconstruction, it’s about the notion of a “derivative work”. Translating a work would absolutely be derivative (consider the case of translating a literary work between languages: this is a classic example of a derivative work). Blurring a work but incorporating it would nonetheless still be derivative, I think.

The challenge with these models is that they’ve clearly been trained on (exposed to) copyrighted material, and can also demonstrably reproduce elements of copyrighted works on demand. If they were humans, a court could deem the outputs copyright infringement, perhaps invoking the subconscious copying doctrine (https://www.americanbar.org/groups/intellectual_property_law...). Similarly, if a person uses a model to generate an infringing work, I suspect that person could be held liable for copyright infringement. Intention to infringe is not necessary in order to prove copyright infringement.

The harder question is whether the models themselves constitute copyright infringement. Maybe there’s a Google Books-esque defense here? Hard to tell if it would work.

Re: Getty Images bans AI-generated content over fears of copyright claims

#138

Post by Imnimo »

I'm not a copyright lawyer or anything, but the way I look at it is that the big concern is that you can't easily prove that a particular AI output is not just a memorized copyrighted training example. So even if we assume that it is perfectly allowable to train your model on unlicensed images, that doesn't protect you if your model spits out a carbon copy (or something close enough to be infringing) of a copyrighted image.

A similar concern exists for things like Copilot, but it feels even harder to detect in the image domain.

Re: Getty Images bans AI-generated content over fears of copyright claims

#139

Post by celestialcheese »

shadowgovt wrote: post #42

Great. So who is now starting the Getty competitor that does accept these or (even better) accepts these and makes them available via CC license? With good custom and tagging, easier since you have the text prompt that generated the content, you could probably disrupt Getty's entire business model in half a year.

It's inevitable there will be a AI Stock Photo competitor, but I don't envy the legal battles that'll follow. Getty, Adobe, iStock, etc are almost guaranteed to sue, and it'll be an expensive and long process.

I look forward to these stock photo sites dying - image copyright is a royal PITA since discovering copyright is almost always just paying shakedown notices from DMCA bot lawyers after the fact when you make mistakes.

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