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Database of artists used to train Midjourney AI garners criticism

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Re: Database of artists used to train Midjourney AI garners criticism

#31

Post by foota »

makeitdouble wrote: post #11
thurn wrote: post #3

One positive aspect of the status quo in the United States is that AI-generated images are not currently eligible for copyright. I think this is a great direction to go in, I highly doubt Wizards of the Coast or whoever is going to want their premium products to lose copyright protections, so they'll need to keep paying artists. I'd love for us to lean into this -- you can make all the AI art you want, but it automat…

Won't they move to trademark protection instead, as it's a lot more flexible with less restrictions ? Basically the same way Disney let copyright go but will fight for trademark to the bitter end ?

I don't think you can broadly use trademark protection though, can you?

Re: Database of artists used to train Midjourney AI garners criticism

#32

Post by GaggiX »

Osmose wrote: post #20

Looking at the source tweet[1], this isn't a list of artists specifically used to train Midjourney, but instead is a list of artists used to pre-render additives that can be added to an existing prompt much faster than an arbitrary addition. The assumption is that these artists probably are in the Midjourney dataset, but Midjourney doesn't specifically go out and find these artists' art and steal it—they steal art in…

Yeah I was wondering what it meant to prerender them but yeah this has little to do with the actual training dataset, it's really just a list of artists. The assumption is that people are going to use them frequently independent if it has an effect or not.

Re: Database of artists used to train Midjourney AI garners criticism

#33

Post by bjt »

tbrownaw wrote: post #30
thurn wrote: post #3

One positive aspect of the status quo in the United States is that AI-generated images are not currently eligible for copyright. I think this is a great direction to go in, I highly doubt Wizards of the Coast or whoever is going to want their premium products to lose copyright protections, so they'll need to keep paying artists. I'd love for us to lean into this -- you can make all the AI art you want, but it automat…

> status quo in the United States is that AI-generated images are not currently eligible for copyright. Aren't they? I thought it was just that the copyright holder has to be a recognized legal entity (so, the copyright would have to belong to the human operator or their employer, not to the ai model itself).

From the article:

> Last September, the US Copyright Review Board decided that an image generated using Midjourney’s software could not be copyright due to how it was produced.

Re: Database of artists used to train Midjourney AI garners criticism

#34

Post by foota »

foota wrote: post #31
makeitdouble wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't they move to trademark protection instead, as it's a lot more flexible with less restrictions ? Basically the same way Disney let copyright go but will fight for trademark to the bitter end ?

I don't think you can broadly use trademark protection though, can you?

From [1] "Not every character qualifies for trademark protection, however. For a character to be trademarked, the character cannot be too similar to other existing trademarked characters and must be used to brand products or services. Once a character meets these requirements, the owner can file for trademark protection."

So I don't know if you could apply trademark to e.g., every card in magic, but maybe only to the key characters?

1: https://www.mekiplaw.com/how-to-trademark-a-character-an-eas....

Re: Database of artists used to train Midjourney AI garners criticism

#35

Post by johnnyanmac »

kmeisthax wrote: post #8
srackey wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely unenforceable. How can you even tell if an image was made by AI? What if AI created an outline that was worked on by a human artist (or vice versa)? Who would the burden of proof be on? Steam has a “no AI art” policy, and it’s rapidly turning into a “no obvious AI art policy”. How could they tell?

The thing about AI art is that, absent lots of prompt engineering, seed grinding, and touchups, you're likely to have a bunch of images that are obvious tells if your entire project is AI. Anyone trying to hide it would be spending time equivalent to just making the art themselves. There's also another advantage to having a "no obvious AI art" policy; and that's to cut down on spam. AI is extremely useful to people w…

>Anyone trying to hide it would be spending time equivalent to just making the art themselves.

Microsoft and every other tech company is indeed investing billions in the tech. I'm sure each company can fund the entire (woefully underpaid) art industry by themselves, let alone the 10 or so tech hubs altogether.

But they are happy to throw money at AI instead for the payoff of being the next big tech brand.

Re: Database of artists used to train Midjourney AI garners criticism

#36

Post by [deleted] »

thurn wrote: post #3

One positive aspect of the status quo in the United States is that AI-generated images are not currently eligible for copyright. I think this is a great direction to go in, I highly doubt Wizards of the Coast or whoever is going to want their premium products to lose copyright protections, so they'll need to keep paying artists. I'd love for us to lean into this -- you can make all the AI art you want, but it automat…

[deleted]

Re: Database of artists used to train Midjourney AI garners criticism

#37

Post by tavavex »

bsder wrote: post #17
srackey wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely unenforceable. How can you even tell if an image was made by AI? What if AI created an outline that was worked on by a human artist (or vice versa)? Who would the burden of proof be on? Steam has a “no AI art” policy, and it’s rapidly turning into a “no obvious AI art policy”. How could they tell?

> Completely unenforceable. Complete wrong. You just flip the defaults--something is AI unless you can prove otherwise. This is done already and has precedent. Producing porn requires that you keep artifacts demonstrating that who the performers were, that they were of age, etc. If you claim a work is not AI generated, you should have to produce some artifacts to back up that claim. In the case of a corporation, that…

I'm really struggling to conceptualize a world where every picture that's drawn must have a full notary log of how exactly it was produced, all for the sake of removing generative AI.

Besides, it's not that easy of a problem - a lot of corporate artists are salaried workers, they don't get specified commissions with an attached bill per work, but are paid a salary so the company can ask them to draw whatever they need throughout the process. Considering this, all artists would need to retain "intermediate artifacts".

And then, how do these artifacts work for other ways of doing art? What about traditional artists whose work gets scanned in after completion - would they have to keep a camera on hand to take photographs as they're working? What about an animated film - would every intermediate step in production, from character design to storyboarding to environmental design etc etc need to have a full record for every single sketch?

Re: Database of artists used to train Midjourney AI garners criticism

#38

Post by johnnyanmac »

skydhash wrote: post #14
srackey wrote: post #4

I get why artists are trying to stop them, but this battle has already been lost. These tools have been out too long, open source models proliferate freely, and jurisdictions that don’t care about IP law will continue publishing these models. By the time it works it’s way through the courts the situation will be even worse.

Lockpicking tools are widely available, and designs of locks can be found on the web if someone search hard enough. But entering another's home is illegal. It's why businesses pay for licenses even if cracked softwares exists. I hope that artists win these and make using or creating an illegal model an high-risk activity, not worth it for any commercial activity.

I don't even care about it being illegal. As said above, US can completely ban such tech and China will keep on trucking along.

I just want artists affected to be paid, and actually paid. Not "paid" the way spotify artists are. if you're making a billion off of 100 artists' work, you better be making each affected artist a millionaire in royalties.

Re: Database of artists used to train Midjourney AI garners criticism

#39

Post by cyberax »

This is going to be completely ineffective in the long run. There is a lot of public-domain art, especially for more historical images.

And for the newer styles and for the general image "vocabulary", the model trainers can just buy enough samples legitimately. I'm surprised that Getty Images is not pushing their collection to trainers.

Re: Database of artists used to train Midjourney AI garners criticism

#40

Post by dkasper »

coldbrewed wrote: post #25
newZWhoDis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

A society without art is a society without joy or self awareness. A society with only AI created art is a facsimile of joy or self awareness. If we're trying to remove the parts of society that challenge and inspire us then we'll be left with cultural mush that doesn't challenge, critique, explore, or even play.

I don’t think the current tools are doing much to the creation of “art”, it’s mostly replacing run of the mill graphic design work like logos and ads and cover art, or maybe some higher end stuff like automating workflows.
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