An IP attorney’s reading of the Stable Diffusion class action lawsuit • Hacker News Board

Re: An IP attorney’s reading of the Stable Diffusion class action lawsuit

#221

Post by sebzim4500 » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 9:41 PM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #213

l33tman wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The processes seem pretty alike to me (as a neuroscientist and AI researcher). Things will only move on from here, the next generation of these tools won't use a training set of 5B images and complicated month long training procedures, they will allow the "ingestion" of a style by you showing it a single instance once of a target image and it will immediately know the style (just like a human artist would). I'm not p…

I find this take interesting. So would you also argue that saving an image into computer memory is the same as memorizing an image for a human? Those processes are viewed very different by the law, but if we anthropomorphize computers should we not view them the same? Also I wonder where you get the view that future ML systems will not require large amounts of learning? I don't see any development in current systems…

> Those processes are viewed very different by the law, but if we anthropomorphize computers should we not view them the same?

Not only do I think the two processes are essentially the same, but I can't think of any laws in my jurisdiction (the UK) which actually distinguish between them.

E.g. we are allowed to make copies of digital media for personal use.

Re: An IP attorney’s reading of the Stable Diffusion class action lawsuit

#222

Post by tadfisher » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 9:46 PM UTC

EamonnMR wrote: post #165

hehdhdhkf wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the form to remove my reddit comments from chat gpt training data? Or my blog posts from gpt training data? I have a paragraph on the Internet that someone read and got an idea - I want my royalties. These artists complaints are ridiculous, and are being made by people who don’t understand how things work. If some other person draws a picture in their “style”, no one has to ask permission. That’s not a thing…

> Where is the form to remove my reddit comments from chat gpt training data? Or my blog posts from gpt training data? More pointedly, how do I keep my GPL'd code from spewing, license free, out of CodePilot?

I think that's the point of this blog post: it doesn't matter if the inputs are copyrighted, it matters if the output is infringing. It appears to be almost impossible to directly recreate a source image with SD, but it seems Copilot tends to produce a single input as its output, verbatim. Copilot isn't doing "synthesis" as does SD, it's acting more like a search engine.

Re: An IP attorney’s reading of the Stable Diffusion class action lawsuit

#223

Post by tadfisher » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 9:48 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #201

jeroenhd wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An artist's style is not copyrightable so I doubt it makes much of a difference. My guess is that showing good faith will make the lawsuit go over easier, because there's nothing illegal about paying someone to copy someone else's style (and not just a replica).

But the artist's work itself is copyrightable. Any use of that work without permission (and thus attribution/compensation) is the problem.

Fair use is a thing.

Re: An IP attorney’s reading of the Stable Diffusion class action lawsuit

#224

Post by sebzim4500 » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 9:50 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #50

quitit wrote: post #4

Interestingly it shows the tenuous nature of the plaintiffs case, even before getting into the plaintiff's large errors. Since reasonably simplified information about SD is available and/or the plaintiff could have involved an expert to review his claims - it does raise a question if the function of the lawsuit is more about rattling chains rather than the merits of their argument. I.E. A deliberate ploy to extract a…

Ultimately, this is just something that has to be solved with legislation, not a court case. It's too novel a setup for a court case to deal with under existing frameworks. I think one issue is just that of scale. I personally tend to agree that there's something icky with just slurping up literally everyone's content, then producing a tool that will then proceed to put them out of business en masse . But proving tha…

Even in the strictest possible strengthening of IP law, where you need the artists written permission before feeding their data into a neural network, I think the market for artists is doomed.

Disney can train a model from every frame of their video library as well as whatever they can find which is unambiguosly public domain. Then they could hire a few hundred artists to draw whatever the model is bad at by the end of this process for finetuning.

Re: An IP attorney’s reading of the Stable Diffusion class action lawsuit

#225

Post by sebzim4500 » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 9:52 PM UTC

sebstefan wrote: post #37

> Stability AI has already announced that it is removing users’ ability to request images in a particular artist’s style I hope it returns when they win and get rid of this legal bullying.

I think this restriction was more about trying to shut up some very vocal people on social media and less about the law.

Copying an artists style is legal in every jurisdiction in which Stability operates.

Re: An IP attorney’s reading of the Stable Diffusion class action lawsuit

#226

Post by theRealMe » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 9:55 PM UTC

lofaszvanitt wrote: post #220

xeyownt wrote: post #101

I don't understand how using an image as input to a model is a copyright infringement. If the image is freely viewable (say you can browse to it), and you just look at it, are you violating any rights? It seems that violation would only come if you would use the model to produce images that are derivative of that original image, the same way a counterfeiter would make a copy of it. Have the skill to copy is not the s…

Think of it as this way: in order to create 5 very different illustrations you need to talk with 5 people. in the end 5 people will get money when they finish with their work. an AI consumes these artists past output and instead of paying to these artists it will gather income to the owner. So by using the output of 5 people who have spent decades on perfecting their craft, the AI generates income by stealing their w…

Throughout history almost all skills have been learned/copied from other people. Especially things like art are learned by studying previous work.

What specifically is the defining reason that people can learn by copying other peoples styles but ai cannot?

Are we supposed to halt technological progress to avoid antiquated job destruction?

Re: An IP attorney’s reading of the Stable Diffusion class action lawsuit

#227

Post by sebzim4500 » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 9:56 PM UTC

shanebellone wrote: post #43

I've been saying this since it came out... Stable Diffusion is equivalent to hip-hop sampling in the 80s and 90s. The outcome is obvious.

I think there is a pretty big difference though. In the case of sampling you can play the original against the new media and show that they are 'the same'. I have no idea how you would go about doing something similar for Stable Diffusion. "Those three pixels look different when you remove image X from the training set" is probably not a convincing argument to anyone.

Re: An IP attorney’s reading of the Stable Diffusion class action lawsuit

#228

Post by Maursault » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 9:59 PM UTC

Maursault wrote: post #219

theRealMe wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll be honest, this sounds like you have made a decision on your stance and now you’re building false distinctions to reinforce your own bias. You said a lot of words, but I believe your argument comes down to “computers are super powered compared to humans doing the same thing”? Is that accurate? Because magnitude of ability, to me, makes no difference at all. It’s perfectly acceptable for a human to study the artw…

I think you're both barking up the wrong tree. A person, and even an animal, possibly even a plant or members of other kingdoms and domains, sees. A computer does not see any more than a lens sees, or to the extreme, a computer can not see any more than an empty paper towel roll can see. The computer, lens and empty paper towel roll have no "I," no ego. In order to see, there must be something, or more accurately, so…

I should have known my comment was doomed for downvoting. Many coders here. Many among them believe Strong AI is attainable. Everyone has self-bias, tends to believe their beliefs are correct and true. Anyone that believes Strong AI is attainable will evaluate that belief as correct, even with insurmountable evidence to the contrary. It is not a deficiency of programming that Strong AI will never be achieved, rather, it is an insurmountable problem of philosophy. No one takes philosophy seriously except philosophers. Coders, by and large a large percentage of them, because they are creators, often take themselves too seriously, and going right along with that is their beliefs, which they find near impossible to relinquish, even when it is shown beyond doubt their beliefs are not realistic. Strong AI can never be attained due to what computers are and the way computers work, and also what code is and how code works. This is not to say striving for Strong AI is a bad idea, because it isn't. Great things will come from that struggle, just not Strong AI.

No one knows why we are conscious. We have sliced the brain up a thousand ways and we will slice it up a million more and will never find consciousness because it is an emergent property of healthy brain, just like light is an emergent property of a working light bulb. No matter how you disassemble a light bulb, you will never find the light, though I grant you'll eventually figure out how light is produced, the assumption that a light bulb contains light is wrong headed. It's just a metaphor.

There is no worse slander than the truth: Strong AI can not be achieved, not with digital computers and programming and machine learning, and most likely by no other method either. Please, please grow up, and set aside your childish beliefs, because we need you now more than ever, here, in the real world.

Re: An IP attorney’s reading of the Stable Diffusion class action lawsuit

#229

Post by ben_w » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 9:59 PM UTC

hnfong wrote: post #175

ben_w wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't. Information comes with many different rights: copy -right is the right to make copies; "moral rights" were mentioned in a few of my UK job contracts and that's "the right to be identified as the author of a work"; database rights are for collections of statements of fact that are not eligible for copyright but which were deemed to be worth protecting anyway for much the same reasons. Even if copyright is tot…

Moral rights is indeed "the right to be identified as the author of a work". I don't think it means the author has a right to all similar styles. If I can legally ask somebody to paint me something in the style of a famous (living) artist, that person presumably having seen and studied their famous works for a while, why should I not be able to ask the AI to do the same thing? (I understand there might be people who…

Moral arguments aren't very consistent, in my experience — when I first heard someone suggest that people start with feelings and then create a narrative (not necessarily coherent) to fit those feelings, a lot of the weird things started to make a lot more sense.

I'm told that for people who think Rolex watches are important, a fake Rolex is much worse than not having a Rolex at all: the item is a signal much like a peacock tail, the signal is de-valued by making things easy.

Re: An IP attorney’s reading of the Stable Diffusion class action lawsuit

#230

Post by haswell » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 10:05 PM UTC

CWuestefeld wrote: post #107

dns_snek wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want to live in a future where artists don't make original art, musicians don't make music, book writers don't write, and so on, all because AI companies can replicate 1000 different copies in their style or merely remix it for marginally $0 cost, washed of all original copyright? > All knowledge workers and creatives are going to face this in the future. It’s going to suck This is not a given. It's up to us a…

> a future where artists don't make original art, musicians don't make music, book writers don't write, and so on, all because AI companies can replicate 1000 different copies in their style This argument is assuming its own conclusion, that such a situation must be bad. But I don't think that's necessarily true. If somebody can make 1000 different derivatives that the public likes as much as the originals , then it…

This reduces the motivation to create art to a monetary one, and the value people derive from art to a purely aesthetic one.

In our future AI-infested world, I'll personally seek out "certified non-AI" creators because part of what inspires me is not just the content, but the creation of it.

Art is not just a destination.