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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

#191

Post by jstanley »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #131

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…

> 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?

I don't think this is right. I think different people have different views, and you're just assuming that the same people have contradictory views.

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

#192

Post by anigbrowl »

spoonjim wrote: post #86
hospadar wrote: post #48

It does seem like much of Getty's business is redundant if you can trivially generate "photograph of person laughing while eating a bowl of salad" Maybe the new business is "reasonably high degree of trust that if it's a Getty image it's not an AI fake" for news outlets and the like who want to sell trustworthiness

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.

No they wouldn't. Getty and its ilk would go to court and try to argue that they owned the concept of a portrait photograph if they could get away with it. They won't be able to produce specific images that match generated ones well enough to impress a jury at the emotional level. their abstract arguments about mdel constructions won't land because they're too abstract and frankly, boring; the defense will just bore a jury slightly less by putting some neural network nerd on the stand to say the opposite and the jury will shrug and go with its gut.

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

#193

Post by lbotos »

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

Your argument that "painting is transformative enough" and I suspect that wouldn't hold up in court.

If you want an example of a painting that might be transformative enough, here is Ryder Ripps https://www.artsy.net/artwork/ryder-ripps-sup-1 who referenced copyrighted photos and recreated them in this "wavy style".

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

#194

Post by anigbrowl »

dylan604 wrote: post #13
z9znz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech world shows us that the winning strategy is to just go ahead and do what you want, ideally with consistent financial backing, and pay our way out of any issues that arise.

Yet another example of when you have money, normal rules no longer apply to you.

That helps, but simply doing something that nobody has anticipated is often sufficient. If enough people like what you did, technicalities often fall by the wayside.

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

#196

Post by peoplefromibiza »

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 believe the more important issue is that material generated through AI is not copyrightable by the author of such images.

If you are an artist you can't claim any copyright on what you're generating.

If you're not the copyrighted holder it follows that you can't sell it or that you can't complain if someone else copy it (verbatim) and sells it.

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

#197

Post by joe_the_user »

cheald wrote: post #185
wnevets wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not that the watermark is on them per se, but that the model tried to emulate an image it had seen before which had a watermark on it. Imagine showing a child a bunch of pictures with Getty watermarks on them, then they draw their own, with their own emulation of the watermark. That's essentially what's going on. The blurred watermark is what makes its obvious they used Getty's (copyrighted?) images to train t…

I understand that, but why is using copyrighted images to train a model be any more illegal than studying copyrighted paintings in art school? Copyright doesn't prevent consumption or interpretation, simply reproduction.

If a student studied an older master in school and produced a painting inspired by that old master that included a copy of the signature of the old master, this would be more indication of intent to fraud than if they didn't include the signature.

Copyright can be fairly flexible in interpreting what constitutes a derivative work. The Getty water is evidence that an image belongs to Getty. If someone produces an image with the watermark and gets sued, they could say "your honor, I know it looks like I copied that image but let's consider the details of how my hypercomplex whatsit work..." and then judge, say a nontechnical person, looks at the defendant and say "no, just no, the court isn't going to look at those details, how could court do that?". Or maybe the court would consider it only if you paid 1000 neutral lawyer-programmers to come up with a judgement, at a cost of millions or billions per case.

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

#199

Post by unity1001 »

b800h wrote: post #91
unity1001 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can this be in actuality prevented? By abolishing copyright and making crediting the author a habit. There is no way copyrights can survive the AI. There is no way human civilization will let 200 year old legal practices hold back technological advancement.

I think there's a strong case for arguing that we may actually completely ban AI and any sufficiently strong ML algorithm. AI hasn't even realised a millionth of its potential yet, and it's already running rings around humans (cf. algorithmic feeds driving political conflicts online). I think potentially it will cease to be tolerated and be treated a bit like WMDs.

> we may actually completely ban AI and any sufficiently strong ML algorithm.

Who are 'you'. The US, or maybe Angloamerican countries may do it. Many countries won't. Those who don't do it, will get ahead of everyone else.

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

#200

Post by ummonk »

indymike wrote: post #155
ar-nelson wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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! Regardless of the copyright of the training data which really is unresolved, the copyright…

AI-produced art is still human-made, as a person does the job of engineering a prompt and selecting from the generated images. The copyrightability of such work is unlikely to ever seriously be in question.
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