Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI • Hacker News Board

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#171

Post by gpderetta » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

raincole wrote: post #142

My perspective is there are two different main issues about AI (especially Stable Diffusion). One is how it works consistently with the current law. Ml model is basically a highly lossy compressed data format. If you collect millions of copyrighted images, merge them into a super big image, then compress it into a .jpg. Are you allowed to redistribute this .jpg file? To me, it's mostly depending on how lossy (low qua…

Machines do not have rights. The question is whether an human with a specific machine has a certain right, as opposed to a human with a different machine.

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#172

Post by nologic01 » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

marcinzm wrote: post #164

nologic01 wrote: post #134

Can somebody explain how this will not kill any incentive to publish anything? Why would any human spend their limited lifespan to create a piece of work that will be grabbed without permission, approximated algorithmically (at least on the surface) and reused in infinite possible small variations without any attribution or remuneration whatsoever? This feels like a reversion to medieval times with minimal trade betw…

>Why would any human spend their limited lifespan to create a piece of work that will be grabbed without permission, approximated algorithmically (at least on the surface) and reused in infinite possible small variations without any attribution or remuneration whatsoever? Because they enjoy it? Or do you see artists as some type of corporate drone who hates the very act of making art? That's like asking why anyone wo…

Excuse me? What moral and economic planet are you living on? Enjoyment is an important drive behind any creative person, so much is true. But at least part of the enjoyment comes from other people appreciating, acknowledging and, yes, remunerating that creative work.

The idea that authors, artists and other creatives will keep pumping original work as part-time love affairs so that AI bros can grab it and mint a dime is... strange.

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#173

Post by naasking » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

nologic01 wrote: post #134

Can somebody explain how this will not kill any incentive to publish anything? Why would any human spend their limited lifespan to create a piece of work that will be grabbed without permission, approximated algorithmically (at least on the surface) and reused in infinite possible small variations without any attribution or remuneration whatsoever? This feels like a reversion to medieval times with minimal trade betw…

> Why would any human spend their limited lifespan to create a piece of work that will be grabbed without permission

Creative people will create regardless of financial incentives. Fan fiction and free art is already everywhere, for instance.

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#174

Post by ptx » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 2:08 PM UTC

> Orrick spends the rest of his ruling explaining why he found the artists’ complaint defective, which includes various issues, but the big one being that two of the artists — McKernan and Ortiz, did not actually file copyrights on their art with the U.S. Copyright Office. [...] The other problem for plaintiffs is that it is simply not plausible that every Training Image used to train Stable Diffusion was copyrighted (as opposed to copyrightable)

What? I thought everything was copyrighted by default under the Berne Convention?

That's the reason for the existence of CC0 [0], after all. Their FAQ says: "Copyright and other laws throughout the world automatically extend copyright protection to works of authorship and databases, whether the author or creator wants those rights or not."

[0] https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC0_FAQ#What_is_CC0.3F

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#175

Post by harshreality » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 2:08 PM UTC

raincole wrote: post #142

My perspective is there are two different main issues about AI (especially Stable Diffusion). One is how it works consistently with the current law. Ml model is basically a highly lossy compressed data format. If you collect millions of copyrighted images, merge them into a super big image, then compress it into a .jpg. Are you allowed to redistribute this .jpg file? To me, it's mostly depending on how lossy (low qua…

That's a difficult question because the boundaries of similarity/derived works for copyright purposes are determined by judges and juries based on their intuitions. There's no mathematical similarity testing, and trying to formulate such a thing would be challenging.

What's similar enough to a pop music theme, that has a grand total of a few lines of unique music, to be a copyright violation? How many bars have to be copied, and what kinds of minor variances do or don't avoid a violation? If you're inspired by a haiku, and change 5 of 17 syllables, is that still a copyright violation? Who knows.

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#176

Post by naasking » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 2:09 PM UTC

nirvdrum wrote: post #117

corethree wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The final decision made by this article is one I agree with with or without money and I have no incentive the game. Every piece of creation you and I make us the sum total of our experiences and that includes copy written work. Holding an LLM guilty for that is like holding the human brain guilty for memorizing copyrighted work.

And yet these systems are incapable of genuine creativity. If they were, they would be taught rules & techniques and set off to their own devices to draw, like humans. But, they can't and they're not. LLMs and humans don't learn or create in the same way. Moreover, there's no reason we should grant LLMs the full rights and privileges of humans.

> And yet these systems are incapable of genuine creativity.

Define "genuine creativity".

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#177

Post by kaibee » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 2:09 PM UTC

PierceJoy wrote: post #156

bakugo wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I agree that the scale is different, but even the way you’ve phrased it sounds pretty comparable to how humans learn and produce art. Besides scale, how is it different?

The colour of the bits is different. https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#178

Post by AndrewKemendo » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 2:10 PM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #165

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seemed to miss the part where the judge said that the only things that can be claimed as copyrighted are those things that were submitted to the USPTO for specific narrow coptright "The other problem for plaintiffs is that it is simply not plausible that every Training Image used to train Stable Diffusion was copyrighted (as opposed to copyrightable), or that all DeviantArt users’ Output Images rely upon (theoret…

17 USC §411 ( https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/411 ): > Except for an action brought for a violation of the rights of the author under section 106A(a), and subject to the provisions of subsection (b),[1] no civil action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until preregistration or registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title. [NB:…

Exactly what I was baiting for and you took it:

"there is nothing preventing you from registering your copyright well after you first published the material"

Your point is exactly what people in power want. IT IS CODIFIED IN LAW that unless you go through a kafkaesque process, your work can be reused and you get no compensation for it.

That is precisely the OPPOSITE of "just" and the law was written by capitalists for capitalists.

Just look at the original precedent case: https://casetext.com/case/vacheron-constantin-le-coultre-wat... "two successive applications for a certificate of registration were refused by the Register of Copyrights upon the ground that the subject matter was not a work of art within the requirements of the Act"

Perfect - so we set up a kafkaesque process that is opaque and up to a handful of unelected elite to make rulings on art (oh please) and if you don't do this then it's Legal and therefore right.

Diogenes remains dissapointed

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#179

Post by bawolff » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 2:10 PM UTC

nologic01 wrote: post #134

Can somebody explain how this will not kill any incentive to publish anything? Why would any human spend their limited lifespan to create a piece of work that will be grabbed without permission, approximated algorithmically (at least on the surface) and reused in infinite possible small variations without any attribution or remuneration whatsoever? This feels like a reversion to medieval times with minimal trade betw…

> Why would any human spend their limited lifespan to create a piece of work that will be grabbed without permission, approximated algorithmically (at least on the surface) and reused in infinite possible small variations without any attribution or remuneration whatsoever?

Because many people make art for art's sake.

Besides popular art works always essentially had this yet people still made them. The difference is in scale not kind.

Or to put it in another context - why would anyone work on an open source project when their work can be reused without (explicit) permission, cloned and reused in infinite small varations without any renumeration and essentially no credit (when was the last time you actually looked at the CREDITS file in an open source project? Have you ever?)

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#180

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 2:10 PM UTC

nologic01 wrote: post #134

Can somebody explain how this will not kill any incentive to publish anything? Why would any human spend their limited lifespan to create a piece of work that will be grabbed without permission, approximated algorithmically (at least on the surface) and reused in infinite possible small variations without any attribution or remuneration whatsoever? This feels like a reversion to medieval times with minimal trade betw…

~99% of art is extremely derivative.

Why does it matter if some artist uses ChatGPT to knock-off your style indirectly rather than directly?

I mean, sure, ChatGPT is better at it than most artists. Is that the problem? The quality of knock-offs is too good now?

Take any new song - and any music head can list several songs it is just like. Take any new movie - and most screenwriters could go on for hours how it's almost exactly 10 different movies. Etc.

There is nothing new under the Sun.