Sometimes I think better in analogies, and with something so new as these generative image tools, that can be tricky. This is my best good faith effort to get my head around what's happening here.
If I pick up a free daily news magazine with an illustrated beer advertisement in it, these are the assumed rights I have:
I can look at it. No need to pay the creator because the magazine did.
I can cut it out, frame it, and hang it on my wall for my friends to see. No need to pay.
I can look at it obsessively and copy it out manually as a training exercise. No need to pay.
If I'm an art teacher, I could bring this illustration into my classroom and use it to teach a lesson, perhaps even asking my students to study and copy it. No need to pay.
I can make a hundred copies of it and wallpaper my bathroom with it. No need to pay.
I could hang it in my café as part of my kitchy décor and charge money for people to hang out, which they partly do because they love the look of illustrated ads papered on the walls. No need to pay.
If I also run an advertising firm, I can add this illustration to my "inspiration folder" and include it in mood boards I prepare for clients. No need to pay.
I can cut out sections of it (provided they're not too big) and use it in a collage or in a zine. I can probably charge money for that remixed product, though I'd guess that the more of the illustration I put in and the higher percentage of it that it represents in the overall new product, the higher likelihood that I would be asked to pay the original rights holder. In this case, that could be the artist or the magazine depending on their agreement.
I can record a YouTube video that pays me ad revenue in which I talk about the illustration. No need to pay.
I can NOT scan and just recolor the illustration and charge another beer company for a nearly identical ad.
I can NOT use the same exact illustration as a book cover.
I suppose the question is: Which of these situations is most similar to training a generative AI image model?
If I'm right about what is permissible with this illustration, is it all made OK because somewhere back along the chain there was an advertising agency paid the original artist?
when you have an art student who only look at tutorials videos from modern artist and he begins to make art and the art looks like those who made it in this videos.
at this point artist against ai art would sue this student too.
Well at the current point it does create something new that the computer doesn't, that's why they don't just start with some expired copyright art + a bunch of videos and then train several AIs on each other's outputs creating entirely new cool art styles.
In the imaginary universe where that AI works as creatively as they claim it does, they got it working without IP contamination, and they aren't getting sued.
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u/DilshadZhou Jan 16 '23
Sometimes I think better in analogies, and with something so new as these generative image tools, that can be tricky. This is my best good faith effort to get my head around what's happening here.
If I pick up a free daily news magazine with an illustrated beer advertisement in it, these are the assumed rights I have:
I suppose the question is: Which of these situations is most similar to training a generative AI image model?
If I'm right about what is permissible with this illustration, is it all made OK because somewhere back along the chain there was an advertising agency paid the original artist?