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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

#381

Post by LtWorf »

strangescript wrote: post #232
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems clear that such training of AIs requires copying an image onto a computer system in which the training algorithms are performed. Maybe that fits in Fair Use (I doubt it: it's commercial and harms the original creators) but it certainly doesn't fit in Fair Dealing (in UK). I certainly, personally, approve of weak copyright laws that allows for things like training AIs without getting permission; neither USA,…

The AI doesn't actually need the image. It needs a two dimensional array that represents the pixel values. I am sure there are some very clever ways to get around that hurdle if that is where the bar is set.

> It needs a two dimensional array that represents the pixel values.

That's an image…

Are you saying that if I shut down the screen and the image isn't shown, I can copy it and send it around because it isn't an image but some numbers?

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

#382

Post by LtWorf »

anigbrowl wrote: post #227
ciberado wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think it's a penal justice trial, so it wouldn't go with a jury at all.

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

#383

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

joe_the_user wrote: post #299
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing about GPL makes it "less copyrighted". Acting like a commercial copyright is "stronger" because it doesn't immediately grant certain uses is false and needs to be challenged whenever the claim is made. GPL says "you have a license to use it if you do XYZ." The alternative is "you have no license to use it." How is that not strictly "stronger?"

The GPL is as strong as a commercial license in the sense that the conditions it does specify are exactly as legally binding as those of a commercial license.

Right, but a license is more permissive than no license.

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

#384

Post by ROTMetro »

shadowgovt wrote: post #370
ROTMetro wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The creator would still own the copyright and have to assign it to the person that hired them. It's that same as when us software engineers get our names on patents and then assign them to our employers. I'm surprised more people in HN are not familiar with how intellectual property rights work.

What you have just described matches no mechanical process I've undergone getting my name on a patent my employer owns. At no time did I receive a patent that I then assigned to my employer. Such assignment is included in my employment contract. I think that may be a hair-splitting on the process; point is it is possible to write a contract where work done by someone else has its copyright assigned to a contracted em…

Copyrights are assigned to inventors. How can you legally not create the patent under the inventors' names and then assign the patent to the company? Maybe my company's lawyers were just doing CYA, and granted I took much of the patent stuff on the lawyers word, but I don't think the process you describe is legal. The fact that my company owns the fruit of my labor has nothing to do with the legal requirements of an inventors name being on a patent. Your refusal to acknowledge that these laws require an inventor/artist is the core of my argument.

If you generate images in the manner you describe you are nothing more than a machinist plugging in coordinates and generating widgets, not an artist using tools. The generating program meets the 'anonymous artist' portion of the relevant Title code in that case, and you can not copyright it. The office might mistakenly give you copyright, but I don't think it would hold up to a challenge.

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

#385

Post by acehw »

I feel like the easiest thing to do would be to declare that entirely ai generated images are public domain because a human didn't have enough of a hand in making them (and only humans and groups of humans can have a copyright), and there's not enough of any one image from the the training data in the output to say that the output contains a recognizable segment of any of the images that it was trained on, even assuming the training images were all copyrighted.

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

#386

Post by pbhjpbhj »

deltasevennine wrote: post #377
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I look at something I create an image of it on my retina. When a computer "looks" it creates an image somewhere. The former is allowed, the latter comes against copyright scrutiny, things like caching images to show you a webpage have been addressed by copyright law--through precedent--and this will be similarly addressed.

The image is not saved in a neural network. No identical image can be extracted from the network.

Yes, it's a derivative that relies on use of the copyright works. You can't create a NN without using a copy of the work, so copyright applies -- there might be a Fair Use exception in USA but the outputs compete with the original creators of the works and so IMO courts are likely to rule it as non-Fair Use.

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

#387

Post by shadowgovt »

ROTMetro wrote: post #384
shadowgovt wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you have just described matches no mechanical process I've undergone getting my name on a patent my employer owns. At no time did I receive a patent that I then assigned to my employer. Such assignment is included in my employment contract. I think that may be a hair-splitting on the process; point is it is possible to write a contract where work done by someone else has its copyright assigned to a contracted em…

Copyrights are assigned to inventors. How can you legally not create the patent under the inventors' names and then assign the patent to the company? Maybe my company's lawyers were just doing CYA, and granted I took much of the patent stuff on the lawyers word, but I don't think the process you describe is legal. The fact that my company owns the fruit of my labor has nothing to do with the legal requirements of an…

I wanted to thank you for this interaction because I've learned quite a bit about the boundary layer on copyright. I think I see what you're saying in this topic.

It looks like the copyright office is perfectly willing to grant copyright on work that uses an AI generator for even a substantial portion of it (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/09/artis...) but not the whole thing. I suspect there will be a series of cases in the not too distant future to make the boundary line clearer.

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

#388

Post by stjohnswarts »

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…

Honestly, as much as I am rooting for AI "art" (still not sure about that term here) I can see how Getty would easily have a claim in court if the AI was indeed trained on some of their images AND they can prove it somehow. If that's not derivative then I don't know what is. Maybe a special niche could be carved out for people who are only researching and experimenting and not really "selling" or profiting from the resulting images. It would seem if they're right that maybe they could bury a watermark in their images that identifies it as Getty (or just whomever) and that it's copyrighted by them and they don't give permission to use it for training AI. Maybe I just don't know enough about how the algorithms work though shrug

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

#389

Post by vineyardmike »

dTal wrote: post #371
kranke155 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a bizarre definition. So because they’re both black boxes we suddenly treat them both the same legally? I don’t have to prove that an ML transform is equivalent to a human being. Divine spark isn’t necessary to protect you from copyright - we have laws that determine what you need to do and those laws have allowed IP to exist as a profitable area for a century. Here’s a simple question - if I were to take an i…

>But if I build an ML engine I apparently can take 100 of his images, produce similar images and charge money for it. Magic! You can pay a human artist to produce "similar" images too, and as long as they aren't too similar it's fine. You seem to be conflating - repeatedly - exact copies of a work with merely copying a style. Family Guy had an episode where Brian and Stewie visit a Disney universe, and everything was…

> A bunch of humans did indeed watch a bunch of Disney films, and make a new animation based on what they saw. Did Disney - a notoriously litigious company - sue? Of course not.

Why would Disney sue themselves? Disney owns family guy.

In a world where Disney did not own it, Disney would probably sue if they used a cartoon mouse. "Style" may not be covered by copyright, but characters likely are. A human animator would know enough not to make a parody cartoon mouse look too Micky-like, but an AI wouldn't know to avoid that.

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

#390

Post by deltasevennine »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #386
deltasevennine wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The image is not saved in a neural network. No identical image can be extracted from the network.

Yes, it's a derivative that relies on use of the copyright works. You can't create a NN without using a copy of the work, so copyright applies -- there might be a Fair Use exception in USA but the outputs compete with the original creators of the works and so IMO courts are likely to rule it as non-Fair Use.

>Yes, it's a derivative that relies on use of the copyright works.

Almost every idea on the face of the earth is a derivative of something else. This includes ideas from a Human brain so applying such laws is inconsistent.

>but the outputs compete with the original creators of the works

All art competes with other art. And all art is derivative of other art other things.

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