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

reuters.com

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

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be too rude, but you’re not an attorney and couldn’t be more wrong. The law has never been more transparent. The public has nearly complete access to every docket in the country. Moreover, the level of jurisprudence has never been higher. Moreover, I’ve lost a case or two in my time, but it was never because of a lack of a warchest.

> Moreover, the level of jurisprudence has never been higher. I'm confused as to what this sentence means. The level of {the study/philosophy/science of law} has never been higher?

That there has been a steady march forward in the quality of judicial output. There are still dumb judges and crooked judges, but overall, my experience is that younger judges are more willing to listen and be educated than judges of yesteryear.

Additionally, Westlaw is hated by all for its pricing, but it’s almost impossible to comprehend how significantly it’s improved, and equalized, legal research.

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

#162

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…

I despise the underlying belief here. That belief that the only reason people create art is based on desires for fame and monetary gain. Which is so demonstrably incorrect that it boggles my mind.

This is where centuries of copyright law have gotten us, brainwashing people into thinking ideas are property ("intellectual property") and should be treated as rivalrous goods, and that the only reason to be an artist is to profit. Brainwashing people into thinking the only way we'll have art in the world is if we maximize the profits of commercial artists.

Take one brief look at the internet, music, video, podcasts, a museum, the walls and refrigerators in people's homes, a kindergarten class room, an art class, or hell, this very forum. And you'll see that it's universally true that people like creating stuff because people like creating stuff. For free. Because it's fun and stimulating. That's inherent in us. We do not need laws to prop up an artificial business model for humans to maintain our drive to create.

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

#163

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…

The problem is these discussions are being had by STEM/tech people who don't respect or value art or the effort behind it, not by artists. They simply do not get the concerns that artists have. It truly boggles the mind that people equate machines that can output thousands and thousands of images in short time spans in any ingested style... with humans who have to hone styles and can only produce a result every so of…

Is it because it seems the value can be imitated so easily?

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

#164

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 would contribute to MIT or Apache licensed open source.

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

#165

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.

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: 106A(a) is right of attribution].

It's the law, as enacted by Congress (even though it is probably a violation of the TRIPS Agreement, an international treaty signed by the US).

But note there is nothing preventing you from registering your copyright well after you first published the material, although the work has to be registered before infringement if you want statutory damages (the big $$$$) instead of just actual damages.

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

#166
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because a Diffusion model can. This isn't a given, it is something that has yet to be decided in this case. (Edit: if you look at studies that look for examples of SD reproductions, the best examples still similar to what a human trying to reproduce the image from memory would create) > Your denial that there is a demonstrable difference between human and machine attention There are demonstrable differences between…

>Is this good faith? I already stipulated that the images are publicly accessible. Are you suggesting that somehow artists should be able to block the AI from viewing a properly licensed instance of a copyrighted image? That pretty much results in a ban on general ai. No it, results in a ban on general ai that doesn't compensate rights owners .

So you have a general AI, it sees someone wearing a t-shirt containing a licensed, copyrighted image.

This AI now needs to pay the copyright holder of that image?

How I think it should work is the sa.e for any other intelligent system. Systems can view publicly available images, memorize them, and even reproduce them for certain fair uses. The systems have to pay for a license to right holders for the non fair uses of reproductions.

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

#167
post #143
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just not that different from people seeing works and learning or being inspired, so how do you "ban AI" without adding more crazy DRM/DMCA stuff for legitimate use?

[flagged]

Um, it's extremely comparable. You basically just described the human process, but used bigger numbers lol.

Go on any art site, whether it's drawings or writing, and a massive amount of the human learning and inspiration you see is just copying from others, too. People drawing their favorite characters, writing fan fiction that copies from their favorite books, etc.

This is so extremely comparable to AI it's weird to me that you don't see it.

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

#168
post #143
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just not that different from people seeing works and learning or being inspired, so how do you "ban AI" without adding more crazy DRM/DMCA stuff for legitimate use?

[flagged]

They're not amalgamations. They're not collages. The algorithm isn't memorizing the training data.

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

#170

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.

For me this argument will hold water when we can put LLMs in jail if they commit a criminal act. Until then, an LLM is not a human and not entitled to be treated like one. Moreover, at least in the case of music, people have been successfully sued when their song strongly resembles another copyrighted work. Thus "holding the human brain guilty for memorizing copyrighted work" is actually the status quo.

You'll still be able to successfully sue people "when their [AI generated] song strongly resembles another copyrighted work".

The question is that vague resemblance is subject to copyright.

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