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Their legal worry probably makes sense, but my suspicious mind also feels like it's in their long-term interest maybe not to open pandora's box too much on lett

Their legal worry probably makes sense, but my suspicious mind also feels like it's in their long-term interest maybe not to open pandora's box too much on letting AI art in, because wouldn't one of Getty's competitive advantages be the relationships it has with (I imagine) hundreds of thousands of artists? And so if they let AI art in then suddenly the historic artist relationship means less (because a lot more people can now contribute) and they may end up competing against new and emerging low-cost AI art marketplaces? Not sure, just speculating future scenarios and not eroding ones own competitive moat.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
The US Copyright Office asserts that AI generated images can’t be copyrighted. Getty lives and dies by copyright and artificial scarcity/control of image rights. For stock images and non current/news events, Stable Diffuison and its successors are the future.
- henryfjordan 4y ago
  No they do not. They assert that the AI can't be the "author", it has to be a human. It's exactly the same as trying to assign copyright to your camera. Even though it generated the image from photons, it was the human pressing the button that mattered.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-copyright-office-rules-ai-art-cant-be-copyrighted-180979808/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-copyright-offic... > An image generated through artificial intelligence lacked the “human authorship” necessary for protection > Both in its 2019 decision and its decision this February, the USCO found the “human authorship” element was lacking and was wholly necessary to obtain a copyright, Engadget’s K. Holt wrote. Current copyright law only provides protections to “the fruits of intellectual labor” that “are founded in the creative powers of the [human] mind,” the USCO states. In his most recent appeal, Thaler argued this “human authorship” requirement was unconstitutional, but the USCO has proven unwilling to “depart from a century of copyright jurisprudence.” Lots of posts on the topic here: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=copyright+office+ai https://hn.algolia.com/?q=copyright+office+ai
    - henryfjordan 4y ago
      In that case the human asserted he had absolutely 0 involvement in the matter, less than even using buttons on a camera. If you say "I directed the computer" or "I gave the AI a prompt", that would be enough to support your copyright claims.
    - advisedwang 4y ago
      Take a look at the decision: https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/a-recent-entrance-to-paradise.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/... The person was still trying to get the AI marked as the owner. In fact in the application "does not assert that the Work was created with contribution from a human author" which the office acceded to but did not actually agree or disagree with. So it still says nothing about whether a human can have copyright over a image they used an AI to make. It is another example that the AI itself having copyright is rejected.
      - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
        I feel like recent considerations on the need to be creative in producing prompts for AIs like Stable Diffusion to work on/with promotes the argument that a human is sufficiently involved in the process (some times!) to warrant a claim to ownership of the copyright. If they trained the AI then I think it would be a no-brainer in favour of the human being a creative input into the creation of the work. Just my personal opinion.
      - anigbrowl 4y ago
        A distinction without a difference, since this was just someone who was hoping to be the beneficial owner of an AI with an enforceable copyright interest. Recall the failure of the photographer who allowed monkeys to play with his camera equipment, leading one of them to take a selfie photo that became famous. The photographer asserted copyright on the basis that he had brought his camera there, befriended the monkeys, and set his equipment up in such a way that even a monkey could use it and get a quality image, but his claim to authorship was rejected and so he was unable to realize any profit from selling the photo - although I'm sure he made it up on speaking tours telling the story of how he got it. To be sure, AI created art is done in response to a prompt provided by a human, but unless that human has done all the training and calculation of weights, they can't claim full ownership on the output from the model. There's a stronger case where a human supplies an image prompt and the textual input describes stylistic rather than structural content.
  - _1 4y ago
    Wasn't there an issue a few years back about a photo taken by a monkey was non-copyrightable?
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...
    - henryfjordan 4y ago
      Yes and the ruling GP is citing is basically about that scenario but with a computer instead of a monkey. The monkey pressed the buttons on the camera without human direction, and so was the "author". Since the monkey is not a human, no copyright existed. In this case, the human claims the computer had no input at all, it did it by itself, hence no copyright. However we all know that computers can't do things by themselves in the same way as a monkey. The USCO accepts whatever explanation you give them though, so they had to go by the stated facts. In any case where the human operator of the computer actually does want copyright of the images, all they have to do is say "I setup the computer to generate the images" and they will own the copyright.
      - jackblemming 4y ago
        “I setup the monkey to take the picture”
- freejazz 4y ago
  How are you going to sell stock images if you can't copyright them??
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    One could sell ML API credits to generate the images. For sure, industry revenue volume would decline if once an image is generated, you can’t lock those specific bits up behind copyright.
- holoduke 4y ago
  You still need computing power to generate those images, so definitely room for commercial activity there. Getty could precompute billions of images and enlarge their inventory.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    Sure, bt why should anyone waste time browsing their inventory when they can just make up their own?
7952 4y ago
My guess is that they will want to exploit their archive to train their own commercial model. And to integrate AI into their existing product to modify their images.
bdcravens 4y ago
Any marketplace will eventually deal with low quality at scale without serious intervention. Amazon. Github when there's financial incentive for commits. eBay. Your local flea market. etc

toomuchtodo 4y ago

The US Copyright Office asserts that AI generated images can’t be copyrighted. Getty lives and dies by copyright and artificial scarcity/control of image rights. For stock images and non current/news events, Stable Diffuison and its successors are the future.

henryfjordan 4y ago
No they do not. They assert that the AI can't be the "author", it has to be a human. It's exactly the same as trying to assign copyright to your camera. Even though it generated the image from photons, it was the human pressing the button that mattered.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-copyright-office-rules-ai-art-cant-be-copyrighted-180979808/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-copyright-offic... > An image generated through artificial intelligence lacked the “human authorship” necessary for protection > Both in its 2019 decision and its decision this February, the USCO found the “human authorship” element was lacking and was wholly necessary to obtain a copyright, Engadget’s K. Holt wrote. Current copyright law only provides protections to “the fruits of intellectual labor” that “are founded in the creative powers of the [human] mind,” the USCO states. In his most recent appeal, Thaler argued this “human authorship” requirement was unconstitutional, but the USCO has proven unwilling to “depart from a century of copyright jurisprudence.” Lots of posts on the topic here: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=copyright+office+ai https://hn.algolia.com/?q=copyright+office+ai
  - henryfjordan 4y ago
    In that case the human asserted he had absolutely 0 involvement in the matter, less than even using buttons on a camera. If you say "I directed the computer" or "I gave the AI a prompt", that would be enough to support your copyright claims.
  - advisedwang 4y ago
    Take a look at the decision: https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/a-recent-entrance-to-paradise.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/... The person was still trying to get the AI marked as the owner. In fact in the application "does not assert that the Work was created with contribution from a human author" which the office acceded to but did not actually agree or disagree with. So it still says nothing about whether a human can have copyright over a image they used an AI to make. It is another example that the AI itself having copyright is rejected.
    - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
      I feel like recent considerations on the need to be creative in producing prompts for AIs like Stable Diffusion to work on/with promotes the argument that a human is sufficiently involved in the process (some times!) to warrant a claim to ownership of the copyright. If they trained the AI then I think it would be a no-brainer in favour of the human being a creative input into the creation of the work. Just my personal opinion.
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      A distinction without a difference, since this was just someone who was hoping to be the beneficial owner of an AI with an enforceable copyright interest. Recall the failure of the photographer who allowed monkeys to play with his camera equipment, leading one of them to take a selfie photo that became famous. The photographer asserted copyright on the basis that he had brought his camera there, befriended the monkeys, and set his equipment up in such a way that even a monkey could use it and get a quality image, but his claim to authorship was rejected and so he was unable to realize any profit from selling the photo - although I'm sure he made it up on speaking tours telling the story of how he got it. To be sure, AI created art is done in response to a prompt provided by a human, but unless that human has done all the training and calculation of weights, they can't claim full ownership on the output from the model. There's a stronger case where a human supplies an image prompt and the textual input describes stylistic rather than structural content.
- _1 4y ago
  Wasn't there an issue a few years back about a photo taken by a monkey was non-copyrightable?
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...
  - henryfjordan 4y ago
    Yes and the ruling GP is citing is basically about that scenario but with a computer instead of a monkey. The monkey pressed the buttons on the camera without human direction, and so was the "author". Since the monkey is not a human, no copyright existed. In this case, the human claims the computer had no input at all, it did it by itself, hence no copyright. However we all know that computers can't do things by themselves in the same way as a monkey. The USCO accepts whatever explanation you give them though, so they had to go by the stated facts. In any case where the human operator of the computer actually does want copyright of the images, all they have to do is say "I setup the computer to generate the images" and they will own the copyright.
    - jackblemming 4y ago
      “I setup the monkey to take the picture”
freejazz 4y ago
How are you going to sell stock images if you can't copyright them??
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  One could sell ML API credits to generate the images. For sure, industry revenue volume would decline if once an image is generated, you can’t lock those specific bits up behind copyright.
holoduke 4y ago
You still need computing power to generate those images, so definitely room for commercial activity there. Getty could precompute billions of images and enlarge their inventory.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  Sure, bt why should anyone waste time browsing their inventory when they can just make up their own?

7952 4y ago

My guess is that they will want to exploit their archive to train their own commercial model. And to integrate AI into their existing product to modify their images.

bdcravens 4y ago

Any marketplace will eventually deal with low quality at scale without serious intervention. Amazon. Github when there's financial incentive for commits. eBay. Your local flea market. etc