Nightshade: An offensive tool for artists against AI art generators

I'm not privy to what goes on inside your head, I can only reply to what you say.

>Then, instead of debating what I meant to say (you know, the actual point of the conversation), you took my words verbatim.

The actual point of the conversation is about intelligent entities (either natural or artificial) copying each other's artistic styles. My answers have been within that framework.

>techniques can be copyrighted ... even patented, or protected via trade secrets.

First, what do you mean by "technique"? We're talking about art, right? Like, the way a person grabs a brush or pencil, or how they mix their colors...? That sort of thing?

Second:

>A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention.

Now, I may be mistaken, but I don't think an artistic technique counts as an invention. An artist might invent some kind of implement that their technique involves, in which case they can patent that device. I don't think the technique itself is patentable. If you think I'm wrong then please cite a patent on an artistic technique.

Third, how do you imagine an artist using a trade secret to protect their technique? Unless they do something really out there, most skilled artists should be able to understand what they're doing just by looking at the final product.

>I'll repeat this as well: "Fair use"

Okay, repeat it. I don't know why, since I never said that copying someone else's style or technique is fair use. What I said was that it cannot possibly be copyright infringement, because neither styles nor techniques are copyrighted.

>It's a legal defense when you are accused of stealing someone else's work

I'm not going to reply to any of this until you clean up the language you're using. "Steal" is inapplicable here, as it involves the removal of physical items from someone else's possession. What are you saying? Are you talking about illegal distribution, are you talking about unauthorized adaptations, are you talking about plagiarism, or what?

>"research for commercial purposes is not fair use,"

Sorry, what? What does that even mean? What constitutes "research" as applied to a human creation? If you say there's a crapload of case law that backs this up then I'm forced to ask you to cite it, because I honestly have no idea what you're saying.

the goals of artists and the developers of OP,

versus

the goals of AI engineers,

and how it seems to me similar to the is/ought disctinction.

In my original analogy, it’s generally considered lawful to have a lock on your door, or not to do so, and the issue of a lock or lack thereof is moot when one is invited to enter, just as it is lawful to enter a premises when invited or during exigent circumstances, such as breaching entry to render lifesaving aid by emergency services or firefighters.

By that same token, no amount of locks or other barriers to entry will prevent ingress by a vampire once invited inside.

To me, much of the ballyhoo about OP seems like much ado about big cats eating faces, like a person publicly decrying the rise in vampire attacks after inviting that same vampire inside for dinner. It’s a nonstarter.

Copyright law is broken, because of the way that the law is written as much as the way that it’s enforced, and also broken because of the way that humans are. Ideas are not copyrightable, and while historically their implementations or representations were, going forward, neither implementations nor representations are likely to receive meaningful/effective protections from copyright itself, but only from legal enforcement of copyright law.

After the recent expiry of Disney’s copyright on Steamboat Willie, the outpouring of praise, support, excitement, and original work from creators shows me that copyright law in its current incarnation doesn’t perform its stated goals of promoting the creation of arts and sciences, and so should be changed, and in the meantime ignored and actively disobeyed, as any unjust law ought to be, regardless of what the law is or does.

In light of our obligation to disobey unjust laws, I applaud efforts like OP to advance the state of the art in computer science, while at the same time encouraging others working on AI to actively circumvent such efforts for the selfsame reason.

I similarly encourage artists of all kinds to make art for art’s sake while monetizing however they see fit, without appealing to red herrings like the legality or lack thereof of end users appreciating their art and incorporating it into their own artistic output, however they may choose to do so.

Like all art, code and its outputs is also First Amendment protected free speech.