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On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney
361–370 of 957 posts
Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> "...clearly states that his work was free to use only if it was not used to make a profit" Replace "use" with "copy". No one may copy the work to make a profit. Fair Use has long been an exemption to copyright, with Learning an example of Fair Use. But no one expected AIs to learn so quickly. I don't think it is clear either way, and will end up in SCOTUS. Free and redistribute the material
>> Fair Use has long been an exemption to copyright,
The proper construction is that copyright is an exemption from the freedom of speech. Fair use is a partial description of freedom of speech, a description to narrow the limits of copyright rather than to broaden the already limitless bounds of freedom of speech.
The default for expression is that it is allowed except if copyrighted, as opposed to copyrighted except when covered by fair use.
Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney
#363> 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…
Same for patents
Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
Computers and machines have been capable of mass production for decades, and humans have used them as tools. In the past 170 years, these tools of mass production have already diminished many thousands of professions that were staffed by people who had to painstakingly craft things one at a time. Why is art some special case that should be protected, when many other industries were not? Why should we kill this techno…
> Why is art some special case that should be protected, when many other industries were not? It shouldn't be. As soon as someone makes an AI that can produce it's own artwork without requiring ingesting every piece of stolen artwork it can, then I'm on board. But as long as it needs to be trained on the work of humans it should not be allowed to displace those people it relied on to get to where it is. Simple as tha…
Are there any humans that can produce artwork without ingesting inspiration from other art? Do you know any artists that lived in a box their whole life and never saw other art? Do you know any writers who'd never read a book?
Are they any human artists who can't, if requested, draw or write something that's a copy of some other person's drawings or writings?
Also, FYI, you can't steal digital artwork. You can only commit copyright infringement, which is not the same crime as theft, because theft requires depriving the owner of something in their possession.
Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair use is a defence you can use when you infringe copyright [edit for clarity] or in other words the action you take would otherwise infringe. It's not fair use because you want it to be, and it's not at all legally clear if this defence is valid in the case of AI training. But it's not clear it isn't, either. This is basically what all the noise and PR money is about, currently, in hope that shaping the narrative…
Fair use is not copyright infringement! It’s a limitation placed on copyright to balance the interests of copyright holders with the public interest.
and it seems unlikely to benefit society to let Microsoft and Google to hoover up 100% of creative works, then use that to compete with everyone in that industry to such an extent they can no longer make a living
Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> 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…
>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. It's important to consider in any legalistic argument over copyright that, unlike conventional property rights which are to some degree prehistoric, copyright is a recent legal construct that was developed for…
Copyright only makes any sense for goods with a high fixed cost of production and low to zero marginal cost. Any further use beyond solving that problem is pure rent seeking behavior
Also, with computers being functional copyright has become a tool of social control; any function in a physical object can be taken away from you at a whim with no recourse so long as a computer can be inserted into the object. Absent a major change in how society sees copyright I envision a very bleak totalitarian future arising from this trend.
Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course this all depends on jurisdiction, but e.g. in the US for example fair use does not show up [oops, see note] in the limitations and exceptions in the copyright definition (like e.g. government use does), but relies on case law, the "fair use doctrine". This means quite literally it is a framework for understanding the defence of a particular use based on precedent: the defendant(s) argued it. It's a bit of a…
I think it makes a difference, because it shifts the burden of proof. If fair use is a kind of infringement, then it’s up to the “infringer” to prove fair use. I think that’s ethically and legally backwards: the copyright holder should have to prove that the use was not fair.
Ethics aside, and again US specific, but the supreme court literally defines it as an affirmative defence.
Even this is a bit murky though, as a district court has argued it goes beyond that.
Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney
#368It has to be very hard to overcome the bad vibes of being in a situation like this. The technology seems indecipherable to a non-techie. The law seems indecipherable to a layman. The ethics seem indecipherable to everyone. With so much confusion, to feel that one has been treated justly it might not be enough to participate in a class-action lawsuit resolving what happened. It would help with public trust if there we…
I think the ethics are pretty clear.
1. Don't do things to people that they don't want to be done to them. 2. Do as you would be done by.
It really is that simple.
Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair use is an argument to explain why you violated the license/copyright. It relies on the fact that you did make a copy without permission.
Fair use is not a copyright violation! It’s a limitation placed on copyright to balance the interests of copyright holders with the public interest.
It's seems just like a poor choice of words and semantic argument around the term "violate". Fair use is an affirmative defense — you concede you did this thing that would be illegal if not for this other extenuating information/circumstance. This is similar to claiming self-defense in a murder case — yes I killed that person, but it's not murder since I can show it was self-defense.
In this case it would be 'yes, I used this copyrighted work in a way that would be infringement were it not a fair use, but here's why it's fair-use.'
Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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...
Doesn't matter. You pay the artist for their style of rendering things. Consider XKCD, PHD Comics, Userfriendly, etc. At least 50% of the charm is the style, remaining 50% is the characters and the story arc. You can't copyright style of a Rolex, but people pay a fortune to get the real deal. Same thing. > My word, the lawsuits that would arise between artists... Artists imitate/copy artists as a compliment, at least…
No, you pay them for the finished product. The STYLE is independent. Lots of artists have similar styles. They don't all pay each other for copying their styles.