The problem I see here is that ML-generated art may be based on real art. While human painter may repeat style of fragments of work of other artist as homage, computer software does it more as plagiarism. This isn't much different than issues surrounding Microsoft GitHub Copilot.
It is 100% legal for me to blatantly copy the artistic style of Ilya Kuvshinov. I could even sell such work as my own - because it would be. I'd be seen as a derivative or knock-off artist but it can be done. As far as I can tell the real issue is that the AI does it far better - and much faster - than people can. Creating heavily derivative works that, if nonfamiliar with Kuvshinov's work, could possibly be mistaken as being theirs.
That the AI has learned that artist signatures/watermarks are a "feature" of some artwork and so sometimes adds its own has only reinforced people's mistaken belief that it is stealing art when that simply isn't how neural networks like this work at all.
Speaking of - how many people doing style studies of Ilya's work reached out for permission first? I'd wager zero. Because that isn't a thing artists tend to reach out and ask for permission to do. So why should an AI be expected to ask permission first?
[0] Quite literally only to illustrate my point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrvZTeLP96E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DadJAu0Ogs
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gc8DhwMZDKU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U4RSCK-Tn0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPWOy7NxYho
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nc--w5NfCM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0K3F9al2Js
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5l8y1HZ1zc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDRS9im1q4s
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4zBoHcIo4mc