4 ms·

Entered "Mickey Mouse", "Batman", "Microsoft", "Calvin and Hobbes", and "pokemon" into the generation field. All of the above appear to generate copyrighted/tr

by ISL 4y ago

Entered "Mickey Mouse", "Batman", "Microsoft", "Calvin and Hobbes", and "pokemon" into the generation field. All of the above appear to generate copyrighted/trademarked images. Careful.

sabertoothed 4y ago
This is super tricky. I wonder how this plays out in the end.
- spoonjim 4y ago
  Well T-shirt companies already let you upload any image you want, and usually have a human reviewer checking for copyright violations. So depending on the risk profile of the manufacturer they will either use the same system or just wing it and hope to not get noticed.
- ISL 4y ago
  My guess is that 2-5 years from now, copyright/trademark suits will have removed the current iterations of Stable Diffusion from widespread use. The idea and technology is awesome, but one must be very careful with the training data.
avian 4y ago
Whenever there's a discussion about copyright and AI-generated images, there will be people claiming that AI can't possibly reproduce images it has been trained on. Stable Diffusion and similar software supposedly only learns higher concepts and hence no one can claim that its outputs are derived works. The rationale I often see mentioned for this argument is that the model is very much smaller (in terms of bytes) than the set of images used to train it, so verbatim images can't possibly be stored in it. Yet, there are plenty of examples where it will reproduce well-known works out of it. People have reported images with recognizable watermarks [1]. How do you reconcile this fact with the previous claim? Is there a special part of the model that stores Mickey Mouse, Batman and Getty Images watermark verbatim, but other less-well known artists' art gets reduced to mere concepts? When you put in a prompt "magnificent owl" and get out an unrecognizable owl artwork out of the machine, I wonder. Is that really a novel artwork, or is unrecognizable merely because it was done by some random person uploading their art to an unknown DeviantArt account 5 years ago that was seen by 10 people in total since, just barely changed enough by the AI that a similarity search through billions of images in the training set won't find it? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33044611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33044611
- not2b 4y ago
  For a well-known cartoon figure, the issue isn't copyright, it's trademark. If someone types "Mickey Mouse" and this site has Stable Diffusion design a Mickey Mouse shirt and sell it, they are infringing Disney's trademark: they are selling a Mickey Mouse shirt without Disney's permission. It's the same if they hire an artist to do an original Mickey Mouse design. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I think it's much more likely that trademark issues will bring the hammer down on some of these projects than copyright issues, because I think it will be easier to persuade a judge: they let people type "Calvin and Hobbes" and make and sell a "Calvin and Hobbes" shirt to them, and we don't have a license to do that.
  - Galaxeblaffer 4y ago
    Is it also illegal for me to upload an image of the mouse and get it printed on a t-shirt ?
    - drcongo 4y ago
      Technically, yep
  - mpaepper 4y ago
    I see it this way: I provide a means for users to generate what they like, but I'm not mass selling those designs. If a single person uses tshirt pens to paint mickey mouse on their shirt, Disney would probably not sue them. Also there is no way knowing whether I sold any mickey mouse shirts.
    - function_seven 4y ago
      If you allowed users to upload their own images, and those images were of Mickey Mouse, and you printed them and sold them, Disney would have a pretty easy claim against you. You're not just selling a neutral tool here, you're actually printing the potentially infringing art. > Also there is no way knowing whether I sold any mickey mouse shirts. Think this statement through. I can come up with a couple of ways for a rights-holder to figure out if you're selling merchandise that infringes on their marks. They can attempt to order one themselves. They can see a tweet where someone shares the cool t-shirt they bought from you. You're probably not actually in much danger here, but I would still take the hazard seriously if I were you. Be careful.
rhacker 4y ago
It's not illegal, it's just potentially expensive.
f1shy 4y ago
But in that case, the problem wouldn't be mine, but the one making money out of it, wouldn't it?

by ISL 4y ago

Entered "Mickey Mouse", "Batman", "Microsoft", "Calvin and Hobbes", and "pokemon" into the generation field. All of the above appear to generate copyrighted/trademarked images. Careful.

sabertoothed 4y ago

This is super tricky. I wonder how this plays out in the end.

spoonjim 4y ago
Well T-shirt companies already let you upload any image you want, and usually have a human reviewer checking for copyright violations. So depending on the risk profile of the manufacturer they will either use the same system or just wing it and hope to not get noticed.
ISL 4y ago
My guess is that 2-5 years from now, copyright/trademark suits will have removed the current iterations of Stable Diffusion from widespread use. The idea and technology is awesome, but one must be very careful with the training data.

avian 4y ago

Whenever there's a discussion about copyright and AI-generated images, there will be people claiming that AI can't possibly reproduce images it has been trained on. Stable Diffusion and similar software supposedly only learns higher concepts and hence no one can claim that its outputs are derived works. The rationale I often see mentioned for this argument is that the model is very much smaller (in terms of bytes) than the set of images used to train it, so verbatim images can't possibly be stored in it. Yet, there are plenty of examples where it will reproduce well-known works out of it. People have reported images with recognizable watermarks [1]. How do you reconcile this fact with the previous claim? Is there a special part of the model that stores Mickey Mouse, Batman and Getty Images watermark verbatim, but other less-well known artists' art gets reduced to mere concepts? When you put in a prompt "magnificent owl" and get out an unrecognizable owl artwork out of the machine, I wonder. Is that really a novel artwork, or is unrecognizable merely because it was done by some random person uploading their art to an unknown DeviantArt account 5 years ago that was seen by 10 people in total since, just barely changed enough by the AI that a similarity search through billions of images in the training set won't find it? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33044611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33044611

not2b 4y ago
For a well-known cartoon figure, the issue isn't copyright, it's trademark. If someone types "Mickey Mouse" and this site has Stable Diffusion design a Mickey Mouse shirt and sell it, they are infringing Disney's trademark: they are selling a Mickey Mouse shirt without Disney's permission. It's the same if they hire an artist to do an original Mickey Mouse design. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I think it's much more likely that trademark issues will bring the hammer down on some of these projects than copyright issues, because I think it will be easier to persuade a judge: they let people type "Calvin and Hobbes" and make and sell a "Calvin and Hobbes" shirt to them, and we don't have a license to do that.
- Galaxeblaffer 4y ago
  Is it also illegal for me to upload an image of the mouse and get it printed on a t-shirt ?
  - drcongo 4y ago
    Technically, yep
- mpaepper 4y ago
  I see it this way: I provide a means for users to generate what they like, but I'm not mass selling those designs. If a single person uses tshirt pens to paint mickey mouse on their shirt, Disney would probably not sue them. Also there is no way knowing whether I sold any mickey mouse shirts.
  - function_seven 4y ago
    If you allowed users to upload their own images, and those images were of Mickey Mouse, and you printed them and sold them, Disney would have a pretty easy claim against you. You're not just selling a neutral tool here, you're actually printing the potentially infringing art. > Also there is no way knowing whether I sold any mickey mouse shirts. Think this statement through. I can come up with a couple of ways for a rights-holder to figure out if you're selling merchandise that infringes on their marks. They can attempt to order one themselves. They can see a tweet where someone shares the cool t-shirt they bought from you. You're probably not actually in much danger here, but I would still take the hazard seriously if I were you. Be careful.

rhacker 4y ago

It's not illegal, it's just potentially expensive.

f1shy 4y ago

But in that case, the problem wouldn't be mine, but the one making money out of it, wouldn't it?