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On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

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Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#251

Post by IanCal »

sandworm101 wrote: post #118
madeofpalk wrote: post #36

> But I can't even get cartoons to most people for free now, without doing unpaid work for the profit-making companies who own the most use channels of communication This is the sticking point for me. OpenAI isn't a profit-making company, but it's certainly a valuable company. A valuable company that is built from the work of content others created without transferring any value back to them. Regardless of legalities…

>> If you think OpenAI is less valuable because it can't use copyrighted content, then it should give some of that value back to the content. But we are allowed to use copyrighted content. We are not allowed to copy copyrighted content. We are allowed to view and consume it, to be influenced by it, and under many circumstances even outright copy it. If one doesn't want anyone to see/consume or be influenced by one's…

I do think it's worth remembering there's a difference between "legal" and "good".

It's entirely legal for me to leave the pub every time it comes up to my round. It's legal for me to get into a lift and press all the buttons.

It's not unreasonable I think for people to be surprised at what is now possible. I'm personally shocked at the progress in the last few years - I'd not have guessed five years ago that putting a picture online might result in my style being easily recreated by anyone for the benefit mostly of a profitable company.

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#252

Post by lp0_on_fire »

ben_w wrote: post #119
caconym_ wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's literally built into their corporate rules for how to take investment money, and when those rules were written they were criticised because people didn't think they'd ever grow enough for it to matter. How is OpenAI compensating the owners of IP they trained their models on? Or is that not what you mean? It's certainly how I read the part of the GP comment you quoted.

So far, looks like funding a UBI study. As the IP owners are approximately "everyone" in law, UBI is kinda the only way to compensate all the IP owners. https://openai.com/our-structure

> As the IP owners are approximately "everyone" in law

That makes no sense. If I write a book by myself, post part of it on my website and OpenAI ingests part of it - how does that make anyone besides me myself and I an "owner" of the IP?

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#253

Post by j0hnyl »

madeofpalk wrote: post #36

> But I can't even get cartoons to most people for free now, without doing unpaid work for the profit-making companies who own the most use channels of communication This is the sticking point for me. OpenAI isn't a profit-making company, but it's certainly a valuable company. A valuable company that is built from the work of content others created without transferring any value back to them. Regardless of legalities…

I think a model that would make more sense is to punish bad behavior in the form of infringement, so if someone monetizes an AI output that infringes on someone's copyright/trademark, then go after that person. Otherwise we are going to be completely stuck for the sake of some kind of outdated mentality around intellectual property.

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#254

Post by cmiles74 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #118
madeofpalk wrote: post #36

> But I can't even get cartoons to most people for free now, without doing unpaid work for the profit-making companies who own the most use channels of communication This is the sticking point for me. OpenAI isn't a profit-making company, but it's certainly a valuable company. A valuable company that is built from the work of content others created without transferring any value back to them. Regardless of legalities…

>> If you think OpenAI is less valuable because it can't use copyrighted content, then it should give some of that value back to the content. But we are allowed to use copyrighted content. We are not allowed to copy copyrighted content. We are allowed to view and consume it, to be influenced by it, and under many circumstances even outright copy it. If one doesn't want anyone to see/consume or be influenced by one's…

The artist in the article clearly states that his work was free to use only if it was not used to make a profit, those were the terms of their license. In the artist's opinion, OpenAI violated that license by training their tool on their work and then selling that tool.

This artist doesn't complain about work similar to their own being generated, and their artwork is very clearly not clothing.

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#255

Post by 8note »

spamizbad wrote: post #148
jMyles wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that boundary something that the internet is likely to be able to recognize or enforce though? In 100 years? In 500? What are we building for here?

If the boundary isn't enforced you'll likely see art move increasingly to a patronage system, whereby a select elite will get to choose what art is suitable for your consumption. Maybe you'll like that, maybe you won't.

We have a patronage system today. See: services like patreon

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#256

Post by bluefirebrand »

Aeolun wrote: post #211
tedivm wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I firmly believe that training models qualifies as fair use. I think it falls under research, and is used to push the scientific community forward. I also firmly believe that commercializing models built on top of copyrighted works (which all works start off as) does not qualify as fair use (or at least shouldn't) and that commercializing models build on copyrighted material is nothing more than license laundering. C…

If I read a lot of stories in a certain genre that I like, and I later write my own story, it’s almost by definition going to be a mish-mash of everything I like. Should I pay the authors of the books I read when I sell mine?

We shouldn't hold individual humans and ML models to the same standards, because ML models themselves are products capable of mass production and individual humans are not even remotely at the same scale.

If you write that book, chances are you will gain some fans that are also fans of other authors in that genre.

If ML models write that genre, they can flood that genre so full that human artists won't be able to complete.

It's not even a remotely equivalent scenario

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#257

Post by madeofpalk »

bawolff wrote: post #170
madeofpalk wrote: post #36

> But I can't even get cartoons to most people for free now, without doing unpaid work for the profit-making companies who own the most use channels of communication This is the sticking point for me. OpenAI isn't a profit-making company, but it's certainly a valuable company. A valuable company that is built from the work of content others created without transferring any value back to them. Regardless of legalities…

> Put it this way - you remove all the copyrighted, permission-less content from OpenAIs training, what value does OpenAI's products have? If you think OpenAI is less valuable because it can't use copyrighted content, then it should give some of that value back to the content Couldn't we say the same thing about search engines? What value would google have without content to search for? Is the conclusion we should ma…

Google does transfer value back to the websites, by sending them traffic.

However, Google does get a lot of criticism when they do slurp up content and serve it back without sending traffic back to the websites! Yelp and others have testified to Congress complaining about this!

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#258

Post by gedy »

bayindirh wrote: post #225
unfamiliar wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it is. What you describe is similar to any other industry disruption, and I don’t think those are unethical. I’d actually argue that preventing disruption is often (not always) unethical, because you artificially prolong an inefficient or inferior alternative.

So you're saying that, we should stop pursuing art and prose? Because when you fine tune midjourney with 30 or so images of an artist, it can create any image with the artist's style. You removed the value and authenticity that artist in 30 minutes, you applauded it, and defended that it should be the norm. OK then, we can close down all entertainment business, and generate everything with AI, because it can mimic st…

> Because when you fine tune midjourney with 30 or so images of an artist, it can create any image with the artist's style.

Artists style is not copyrightable, at least in the US.

And if they changed that because of "AI"? My word, the lawsuits that would arise between artists...

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#259

Post by crooked-v »

rimeice wrote: post #5

The sooner anyone making profit from models trained on creators proprietary content start paying for the content they’re using the better for creators, society and even the AI companies. It’s pretty tiring hearing people argue about whether copyright law applies to AI companies or not. It applies. Just get on and sort out a proper licensing model.

I think it's worth noting that Adobe Firefly and iStock already have generators that use only licensed content.

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#260

Post by the_gastropod »

unfamiliar wrote: post #178
Osmose wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we are humans and our capability of abusing those rights is limited. The scale and speed at which LLMs can abuse copyrighted work to threaten the livelihoods of the authors of those works is reason enough to consider it unethical.

I don’t think it is. What you describe is similar to any other industry disruption, and I don’t think those are unethical. I’d actually argue that preventing disruption is often (not always) unethical, because you artificially prolong an inefficient or inferior alternative.

Don't even try to stop my grocery-store-sample-hoarding robot army, Wegmans! You're being unethical in your pathetic attempt to prevent your sampling disruption!
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