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

catandgirl.com

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

#831

Post by apersona »

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?

You are not a machine.

Have you noticed that authors and artists love sharing their inspirations? Let's say you're an up-and-coming author. In an interview, you list your sources of inspiration.

Using your logic, why does the creative community celebrate you and your inspirations instead of crying foul like they are with LLMs?

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

#832

Post by johhns4 »

dorkwood wrote: post #824

I was arguing with an artist the other day about this. I said that Midjourney copies the work of artists the same way that all human artists "copy" each other (checkmate, in my opinion). They pointed out that Midjourney wasn't a person and that I shouldn't treat it like one. They went on to say that it was a bit like enlisting a cheetah in a sprinting event, and that the game was still fair because the rule book didn…

I think you made the point for him, "the entire game falls apart if you let [AI] play by the same rules as a human."

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

#833

Post by CaptainFever »

edent wrote: post #826
CaptainFever wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. The requirement of consent is still not necessarily always ethical.

Yes. Yes it is. There is a very narrow window where you can argue about the proportionality of state's monopoly on violence to coerce someone. There you can argue about the competing ethical needs to keep society safe vs a criminal's lack of consent to be imprisoned. But that's not what we're discussing. Should a large company be able to ignore consent in order to create a product for profit? No.

Since you brought up coercion as a reason for consent, do note that when your works are used, no action is being done upon you. So what coercion is being done here?

On the other hand, copyright proponents are the ones trying to coerce other people, restricting them from using what they already have access to via the use of copyright laws, backed by state violence. We do not consent to copyright laws.

Of course, the copyright of corporations producing AI is protected by state violence as well. But I do not regard that as legitimate either, so people should try and make that more open (pirating the models) instead of trying to close down their own works.

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

#834

Post by mock-possum »

dartos wrote: post #27
mock-possum wrote: post #3

I have no patience for midjourney’s hacky-ass discord interface so - is anyone with access able to weigh in on how effectively one can generate images aping the style of ‘cat and girl?’

What’s hacky about it? They’re using the discord chat bot interaction tools to make interactions for their chat bot. They also have a UI on their website, not sure if it’s still closed or not.

It’s hacky to use a chat bot as a command line interface for a process that would greatly benefit from a proper GUI. It’s poor UX on purpose and it offends me.

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

#835

Post by unnamed76ri »

transcriptase wrote: post #756
unnamed76ri wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in this case, 10s of thousands of rights holders are just getting nothing as of the start of 2024 and I can tell you, Spotify certainly did not “come together” with any of us.

Didn’t they basically say they’re no longer going to bother paying for songs earning under $3 USD per year . It seems like the only people that will be impacted are the abusive auto-generated spammer accounts with thousands of garbage tracks uploaded garnering 1200 streams a year by people accidentally playing them via Google Home misinterpretations etc.

1000 streams per year for each song. That’s not just that auto-generated junk. That’s a majority of ALL music on Spotify.

So yes an individual song might be $3 per year but that just shows how poor their royalties are to begin with. And tries to obscure the fact that artists don’t just release one song ever.

There’s thousands of artists who maybe even were somewhat successful at some point in their career but would have a lot of songs in their back catalog that don’t get that many streams annually. Suddenly they’ve gone from not making enough per stream from Spotify, to just getting paid nothing at all.

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

#836

Post by mock-possum »

MWil wrote: post #19
mock-possum wrote: post #3

I have no patience for midjourney’s hacky-ass discord interface so - is anyone with access able to weigh in on how effectively one can generate images aping the style of ‘cat and girl?’

this is what I get explicitly asking for "Cat and Girl" in the style of Dorothy Gambrell. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1098302916395270235/1...

That’s what I was afraid of.

This comic reads like someone complaining about an imaginary problem, not a real one.

(The images generated here are lovely though)

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

#837

Post by sethish »

joe_the_user wrote: post #728
kibbi wrote: post #414

I'd find it hard to argue against this, or the Penny Arcade's statements, since I'm having trouble understanding their concrete arguments in between the rhetoric. I'd be hesitant to even discuss this in their comment sections or social media channels. One might ask: Under what circumstances would AI art be acceptable then? For example, does it really matter if these models are created by large corporations? I don't s…

Under what circumstances would AI art be acceptable then? I hate to make a sort-of standard Internet retort but artists (and "society") don't have any obligation to reserve some space for AI art to be OK within culture. Maybe such a possibility exists and maybe it doesn't. But given that present AI is something like a complex but semi-literal average of the art works various largish companies could find, it seems rea…

And society doesn't have to keep paying artists. It's a terrible, distopian future, but there's nothing to say we can't.

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

#838

Post by mock-possum »

refulgentis wrote: post #30
mock-possum wrote: post #3

I have no patience for midjourney’s hacky-ass discord interface so - is anyone with access able to weigh in on how effectively one can generate images aping the style of ‘cat and girl?’

oddly, seemingly impossible. https://imgur.com/a/7HAfL5w (5 trials)

Yeah that’s what I was afraid of.

It’s hard to be sympathetic to someone complaining about something that’s not actually happening to them :/

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

#840

Post by tripzilch »

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…

OP's argument was about right and wrong, not about legal and illegal. There's a difference.

You'd have to argue the entirety, everything about copyright law being ethical, to make your version of the argument.

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