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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

#222
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 imag…

What if it was not the copied signature of the old master, but a new one with a similar style and placed in a similar spot on the painting, but with the name of the student instead and looking blurry/a bit different? Because that's what's happening here, and that doesn't sound quite like fraud.

Another scenario, what if i create a painting of a river by hand in acrylic and also draw a getty-watermark-looking thing on top using acrylic? As for why, i would put it there as an integral part of the piece, to allude to the fact of how corporations got their hands over even the purest things that have nothing to do with them, with the fake watermark in acrylic symbolizing it. You can make up any other reason, this is just the one i thought of as i was writing this. It wont look exactly like the real getty watermark, it will be acrylic and drawn by hand, so pretty uneven with colors being off and way less detailed. Doesn't feel like fraud to me.

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

#223
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 realized immediately that AI has reached a disruptive point for the stock photography industry, just like the digital composition changed the rules years ago. Probably their value in the advertisment production chain is going to become close to zero in a few years, and they will try to stop or at least slow it down. But once we have open source models released to the public I cannot see how a local legislation c…

I’m going against the grain but we should also recognize that it takes real effort and time to professionally take stock photographs and Getty has a lot of consignments. They travel, they go to junkyards, they search for subjects to take photos of. Catalog them. All this isn’t free and these people would need to put food on the table.

This isn’t similar to “Elevator operators were obsolete after they had a control panel and elevators became reliable for people to feel safe. So their jobs must go”.

Here, it is more like “High quality stock photography would become scarce”. There are free stock photography resources but IMO Getty’s photos are on another level.

That said, Getty has a history of being ridiculously protective and litigation powerhouse. They have a lot of lawyers.

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

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yah, but think of Napster getting eventually usurped by Spotify. The danger is that it's legally no longer possible to update the models (which are very expensive to train), and we end up with only Disney with the copyright horde large enough to train decent models, let alone good ones...

China.

Should’ve said, everywhere except the US. I’d point to classics like Luxembourg or Sweden?

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

#226
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…

Is it copyright infringement to experience copyrighted material and make new art based on those experiences? Of course not. The end here is inevitable. Even if some really backward thinking judgements go through, eventually it will wash out. In 20 years AI will be generating absurd amounts of original content.

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

#227
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 realized immediately that AI has reached a disruptive point for the stock photography industry, just like the digital composition changed the rules years ago. Probably their value in the advertisment production chain is going to become close to zero in a few years, and they will try to stop or at least slow it down. But once we have open source models released to the public I cannot see how a local legislation c…

They'll still be staggeringly rich, their wealth level just won't be automatically accelerating any more. If they litigate over it I doubt jurors will feel much of their pain.

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

#228
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…

Is it copyright infringement to experience copyrighted material and make new art based on those experiences? Of course not. The end here is inevitable. Even if some really backward thinking judgements go through, eventually it will wash out. In 20 years AI will be generating absurd amounts of original content.

> Is it copyright infringement to experience copyrighted material and make new art based on those experiences?

Yes, covered under "derivative work": https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf

> A derivative work is a work based on or derived from one or more already existing works. Common derivative works include translations, ..., art reproductions, abridgments, and condensations of preexisting works. Another common type of derivative work is a “new edition” of a preexisting work in which the editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications represent, as a whole, an original work.

> In any case where a copyrighted work is used without the permission of the copyright owner, copyright protection will not extend to any part of the work in which such material has been used unlawfully. The unauthorized adaptation of a work may constitute copyright infringement.

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

#229

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…

A world where we can't use copyrighted material to update neutral network weights is a world where we can buy books but not read them...

You can train it but not for commercial purposes. Nobody cares what you do at home, but if you want to use someone else's work to make money they will come knocking for their cut.

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

#230
post #213
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not so obviously clear cut. Can the model produce identical output from the same simple prompt?

But that's exactly what happens, AI isn't randomness, it's a set of predefined calculations. The randomness is in the seed/starting point. For e.g Stable Diffusion it is given/user input, resulting in perfect reproducibility.
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