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Screenshot of a tumblr post by hbmmaster:
the framing of generative ai as ātheftā in popular discourse has really set us back so far like not only should we not consider copyright infringement theft we shouldnāt even consider generative ai copyright infringement
who do you think benefits from redefining ātheftā to include āmaking something indirectly derivative of something created by someone elseā? because I can assure you itās not artists
okay Iām going to mute this post, Iāll just say,
if your gut reaction to this is that you think this is a pro-ai post, that you think ānot theftā means ānot badā, I want you to think very carefully about what exactly ātheftā is to you and what it is about ai that you consider āstealingā.
do you also consider other derivative works to be āstealingā? (fanfiction, youtube poops, gifsets) if not, why not? whatās the difference? because if the difference is actually just āwell itās fine when a person does itā then you really should try to find a better way to articulate the problems you have with ai than just saying itās āstealing from artistsā.
I dislike ai too, Iām probably on your side. I just want people to stop shooting themselves in the foot by making anti-ai arguments that have broader anti-art implications. I believe in you. you can come up with a better argument than just calling it ātheftā.
AI images try to replicate the style of popular artists by using their work, often including work that was behind a paywall and taken without payment, thus denying the artists revenue. AI has taken something from the artist, and cost the artist money. Until such a time as we come up with a new word for this new crime, weāll call it by the closest equivalent: theft.
Also, someone did an experiment and typed āmovie screenshotā into an AI and it came back with a nearly identical image from Endgame. Not transformative enough to be anything but copyright infringement.
Defining ātaken something behind a paywall and thus denied them revenueā as theft is the exact same argument movie studios make when you pirate a movie. Theft implies that the original is gone. If I steal your car, you donāt have a car. If I pirate a movie, we both have that movie. As someone who supports piracy, I would be careful to conflate piracy with theft. I think thatās the entire point the post is making.
Fuck AI slop. Thereās enough other arguments against it. It destroys the environment and artistsā livelihoods. We can point that out without supporting corporate copyright talking points.
I think libel is a good word to start using
This assumes they would otherwise pay for it, and that they measurably harmed the artistās revenue. Those arenāt a given.
Use of copyrighted material without permission and possible deprivation of revenue. It doesnāt need to be a single word.
Iād argue itās much closer to piracy or freebooting. Generally, its use doesnāt hurt artists, seeing as a random user isnāt going to spend hundreds or thousands to hire a talented artist to create shitposts for them. Doesnāt necessary make it okay, but it also doesnāt directly hurt anyone. In cases of significant commercial use, or copyright infringement, Iād argue its closer to freebooting: copying anotherās work, and using it for revenue without technically directly damaging the original. Both of these are crimes, but both are more directly comparable and less severe than actual theft, seeing as the artist loses nothing.
Copyrighted material is fed into an AI as part of how it works. This doesnāt mean than anything that comes out of it is or is not copyrighted. Copyrighted matterial is also used in Photoshop, for example, but as long as you donāt use Photoshop to infringe on somsone elseās copyright, there isnāt anything intrinsically wrong with Photoshopās output.
Now, if your compaint is that much of the training data is pirated or infringes on the licensing its released under, thats another matter. Endgame isnāt a great example, given that it can likely be bought with standard copyright limitations, and ignoring that, its entirely possible Disney has been paid for their data. We do know huge amounts of smaller artists have had their work pirated to train AI, though, and because of the broken nature of our copyright system, they have no recourse - not through the fault of AI, but corrupt, protectionist governments.
All that said, theres still plenty of reasons to hate AI (and esspecially AI companies) but I donāt think the derivative nature of the work is the primary issue. Not when theyāre burning down the planet, flooding our media with propaganda, and bribing goverments, just to create derivative, acceptable-at-best āāāartāāā. Saying AI is the problem is an oversimplification - we canāt just ban AI to solve this. Instead, we need to address the problematic nature of our copyright laws, legal system, and governments.
No, it is theft. They use an artistās work to make an image they would otherwise pay the artist to make (a worse version, but still). And given how Iāve seen an image with a deformed patreon logo in the corner, they didnāt pay what they should have for the images. They stole a commission.
And it is copyright violation. There have been successful lawsuits over much less than a direct image of RDJ in the iron man suit with the infinity stones on his hand. And if they wonāt pay an artistās rates, thereās no way theyād pay whatever Disney would charge them
Yes, thereās a lot of problems with AI. And yes, AI is a part of larger issues. That doesnāt mean theft isnāt also an issue with AI.
AI is a nazi-built, kitten blood-powered puppy kicking machine built from stolen ambulance parts. Even if stealing those ambulance parts is a lesser sin than killing those kittens, itās still a problem that needs to be fixed. Of course, AI will never be good, so we need to get rid of the whole damn thing.
But were they (the AI users) going to pay for the content? I have never paid for a Patreon, given that I donāt really have any disposable income. Why would I start, just because AI exists? Just because a sale may be made in some contexts, doesnāt mean it has been made.
Its a copyright violation when material is made that violates existing copyright. It isnāt copyright infringement to take data from media, or to create derivative works.
Disney has lawers. Small artists donāt.
Banning AI doesnāt stop the Nazis from running the government or influencing the populus, it doesnāt stop them burning the planet, it doesnāt stop them from pirating work and otherwise exploiting artists. Hell, politicians have been doing all of these things without repercussions for a century. If you want the rich and powerful to stop pirating and freebooting artistās work, maybe the first step is to ban that (or rather, enforce it) rather than a technology two steps removed?
In your head is AI being used solely by common people for fun little prompts? If you build this machine that replaces the artist, corporations can and will use it that way.
Big movie studios will use it to generate parts (and eventually all) of a movie. They can use this as leverage to pay the artists less and hire fewer of them. Animators, actors, voice actors.
If a movie studio pirated work and used it in a film, thatās against copyright and we could sue them under current law.
But if they are paying openAI for a service, and it uses copyrighted material, since openAI did the stealing and not the studio then itās not clear if we can sue the studio.
Logically we would pursue openAI then, but youāre arguing that we shouldnāt because itās ātwo steps removedā.
Seems like itās being argued that because of the layer of abstraction that is created when large quantities of media is used, rather than an individualās work, that itās suddenly a victimless crime. That because whatās being done is not currently illegal it must not be immoral either.
Only if its profitable, and given that AI output is inherently very limited, it wonāt be. AI can only produce lower quality, derivative works. In isolation, some works might not be easy to distinguish, but thats only on a small scale and in isolation.
You can sue the studio. In the same way, you would sue the studio if an artist working there (or even someone directing artists) creates something the violates copyright, even by accedent. If they publish a work that infringes on copyright, you can sue them.
By that logic, anything that takes inspiration, no matter now broad, or uses anothers work in any way, no matter how transformative, should be prevented from making their own work. That is my point. AI is just an algorithm to take thousands of images and blends them together. It isnāt evil, any more than a paint brush is. What is, is piracy for commercial use, and non-transformative copyright infringement. Both of these are already illegal, but artists canāt do anything about it, not because companies havenāt broken the law, but rather because an independent author trying to take, for example, Meta to court is going to bankrupt themselves.
Edit: Also notable in companies using/not using AI, is the fact that even transformative and āāāoriginalāāā AI work cannot be copyrighted. If Disney makes a movie thats largely AI, we can just share it freely without paying them.
This is literally already happening. The SAGAFTRA screen actors guild had to negotiate new contracts against studios that were using AI as a bargaining chip to lower their wages
It isnāt current AI voice tech that was an issue. It was the potential for future AI they were worried about. AI voices as they are now, are of similar quality to pulling someone off the street and putting them in front of a mid-range mic. If you care about quality at all, (without massive changes to how AI tech functions) youāll always need a human.
And to be clear, what about AI makes it the problem, rather than copyright? If I can use a voice synthesizer to replicate an actors voice, why is that fine and AI not? Should it not be that reproduction of an actorās voice is right or wrong based on why its done and its implications rather than because of the technology used to replicate it?
Edit: And to be clear, just because a company can use it as an excuse to lower wages, doesnāt mean its a viable alternative to hiring workers. Claims that they could replace their workers with AI is just the usual capitalist bullshit excuses to exploit their workers.
If your argument is that āAI is just a tool and Capitalism is the real boogeyman, againā then I absolutely agree with you.
My gripe is that openAI and Meta are clearly scraping from copyrighted media but because of the scale of the scraping itās not āstealingā in the traditional sense. While weāre bickering about the semantics of legality, this tool is being weaponised to further wealth inequality.
And to be clear, Iāve been referencing the AI companies and movie studios, not the technology itself.