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Do you know what's different about the photograph or the recording? They are still their own separate works! If a painter paints a person for commission, and

Do you know what's different about the photograph or the recording? They are still their own separate works! If a painter paints a person for commission, and then that person also commissions a photographer to take a picture of them, is the photographer infringing on the copyright of the painter? Absolutely not; the works are separate. If a recording artist records a public domain song that another artist performs live, is the recording artist infringing on the live artist? Heavens, no; the works are separate. On the other hand, these "AI's" are taking existing works and reusing them. Say I write a song, and in that song, I use one stanza from the chorus of one of your songs. Verbatim. Would you have a copyright claim against me for that? Of course, you would! That's what these AI's do; they copy portions and mix them. Sometimes they are not substantial portions. Sometimes, they are, with verbatim comments (code), identical structure (also code), watermarks (images), composition (also images), lyrics (songs), or motifs (also songs). In the reverse of your painter and photographer example, we saw US courts hand down judgment against an artist who blatantly copied a photograph. [1] Anyway, that's the difference between the tools of photography (creates a new thing) and sound recording (creates a new thing) versus AI (mixes existing things). And yes, sound mixing can easily stray into copyright infringement. So can other copying of various copyrightable things. I'm not saying humans don't infringe; I'm saying that AI does by construction. [1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-hears-arguments-andy-warhol-copyright-dispute-2022-10-12/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-hears-argu...

williamcotton 4y ago
I'm not sure sure that originality is that different between a human and a neural network. That is to say that what a human artist is doing has always involved a lot of mixing of existing creations. Art needs to have a certain level of familiarity in order to be understood by an audience. I didn't invent 4/4 time or a I-IV-V progression and I certainly wasn't the first person to tackle the rhyme schemes or subject matter of my songs. I wouldn't be surprised if there were fragments from other songs in my lyrics or melodies, either from something I heard a long time ago or perhaps just out of coincidence. There's only so much you can do with a folk song to begin with! BTW, what happened after the photograph is that there were less portrait artists. And after the recording there were less live musicians. There are certainly no less artists nor musicians, though!
- ghoward 4y ago
  > I'm not sure sure that originality is that different between a human and a neural network. That is to say that what a human artist is doing has always involved a lot of mixing of existing creations. I disagree, but this is a debate worth having. This is why I disagree: humans don't copy just copyrighted material. I am in the middle of developing and writing a romance short story. Why? Because my writing has a glaring weakness: characters, and romance stands or falls on characters. It's a good exercise to strengthen that weakness. Anyway, both of the two people in the (eventual) couple developed from my real life, and not from any copyrighted material. For instance, the man will basically be a less autistic and less selfish version of myself. The woman will basically be the kind of person that annoys me the most in real life: bright, bubbly, always touching people, etc. There is no copyrighted material I am getting these characters from. In addition, their situation is not typical of such stories, but it does have connections to my life. They will (eventually) end up in a ballroom dance competition. Why that? So the male character hates it. I hate ballroom dance during a three-week ballroom dancing course in 6th grade, the girls made me hate ballroom dancing. I won't say how, but they did. That's the difference between humans and machines: machines can only copyright and mix other copyrightable material; humans can copy real life. In other words, machines can only copy a representation; humans can copy the real thing. Oh, and the other difference is emotion. I've heard that people without the emotional center of their brains can take six hours to choose between blue and black pens. There is something about emotions that drives decision-making, and it's decision-making that drives art. When you consider that brain chemistry, which is a function of genetics and previous choices, is a big part of emotions, then it's obvious that those two things, genetics and previous choices, are also inputs to the creative process. Machines don't have those inputs. Those are the non-religious reasons why I think humans have more originality than machines, including neural networks.
  - williamcotton 4y ago
    Asked to give practical advice to starting writers, he said, “Read.” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/books/early-cormac-mccarthy-interviews-rediscovered.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/books/early-cormac-mccart...

williamcotton 4y ago

I'm not sure sure that originality is that different between a human and a neural network. That is to say that what a human artist is doing has always involved a lot of mixing of existing creations. Art needs to have a certain level of familiarity in order to be understood by an audience. I didn't invent 4/4 time or a I-IV-V progression and I certainly wasn't the first person to tackle the rhyme schemes or subject matter of my songs. I wouldn't be surprised if there were fragments from other songs in my lyrics or melodies, either from something I heard a long time ago or perhaps just out of coincidence. There's only so much you can do with a folk song to begin with! BTW, what happened after the photograph is that there were less portrait artists. And after the recording there were less live musicians. There are certainly no less artists nor musicians, though!

ghoward 4y ago
> I'm not sure sure that originality is that different between a human and a neural network. That is to say that what a human artist is doing has always involved a lot of mixing of existing creations. I disagree, but this is a debate worth having. This is why I disagree: humans don't copy just copyrighted material. I am in the middle of developing and writing a romance short story. Why? Because my writing has a glaring weakness: characters, and romance stands or falls on characters. It's a good exercise to strengthen that weakness. Anyway, both of the two people in the (eventual) couple developed from my real life, and not from any copyrighted material. For instance, the man will basically be a less autistic and less selfish version of myself. The woman will basically be the kind of person that annoys me the most in real life: bright, bubbly, always touching people, etc. There is no copyrighted material I am getting these characters from. In addition, their situation is not typical of such stories, but it does have connections to my life. They will (eventually) end up in a ballroom dance competition. Why that? So the male character hates it. I hate ballroom dance during a three-week ballroom dancing course in 6th grade, the girls made me hate ballroom dancing. I won't say how, but they did. That's the difference between humans and machines: machines can only copyright and mix other copyrightable material; humans can copy real life. In other words, machines can only copy a representation; humans can copy the real thing. Oh, and the other difference is emotion. I've heard that people without the emotional center of their brains can take six hours to choose between blue and black pens. There is something about emotions that drives decision-making, and it's decision-making that drives art. When you consider that brain chemistry, which is a function of genetics and previous choices, is a big part of emotions, then it's obvious that those two things, genetics and previous choices, are also inputs to the creative process. Machines don't have those inputs. Those are the non-religious reasons why I think humans have more originality than machines, including neural networks.
- williamcotton 4y ago
  Asked to give practical advice to starting writers, he said, “Read.” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/books/early-cormac-mccarthy-interviews-rediscovered.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/books/early-cormac-mccart...