11 ms·

Getty Images is suing the creators of Stable Diffusion

70 points by LunarAurora 4y ago

colesantiago 4y ago
Wait, Hold on, that is clearly not a getty images watermark is it?, that is the AI generating its own interpretation of a what it appears to look like a watermark /s In all seriousness, I'm not surprised by this as I keep saying, this is quite obviously not fair use as Stability AI has a for profit service (Dreamstudio) and Stability AI didn't even seek a license from Getty to use their images in their training data. All you have to do is this: 1. Just ask for permission. 2. Pay for a license from Getty Images? That is all, it's really that simple. Getty is not even against AI Art tools / generation: > When asked what remedies against Getty Images would be seeking from Stability AI, Peters said the company was not interested in financial damages or stopping the development of AI art tools, but in creating a new legal status quo (presumably one with favorable licensing terms for Getty Images). We will see more of this with other companies (perhaps bigger ones) seeking more lawsuits from Stability AI as it's evident to see the infringing images in the training data.
- prepend 4y ago
  I don’t think StabilityAI (or anyone) should pay Getty for training. Should an artist pay Getty for leafing through their images or visiting a museum and closely studying? Stability isn’t deriving images from Getty, they are getting “inspired.” I fear that if this lawsuit succeeds that eventually just by existing, I’ll be forced to license the world I see in order to perceive it and incorporate it into my consciousness. How will digital consciousnesses work with licensing? Will an AI be forced to pay a license fee because it uses copyrighted images as part of its consciousness? What happens if it can’t pay? Is it shut off? Is it forced into slavery? Maybe the upside is that copyright can be revisited with the maximalists not in power. I think Getty benefits from unjust copyrights that last decades.
  - pk-protect-ai 4y ago
    Apart from sci-fi futuristic of an "AI consciousness", i'd use the same arguments. Neural networks do not copy or use the original images in the inferences. They just vaguely remember, what was fed them during the training, mixed this with the noise to produce weights. Weights those are the same for a billions of images. The difference between human looking at an artwork and then reproducing something in the same style and Stable Diffusion doing the same, is that SD spend hours instead of decades to learn, and consume much less energy as well (an average human consumes about 58kWh per day https://home.uni-leipzig.de/energy/energy-fundamentals/04.htm https://home.uni-leipzig.de/energy/energy-fundamentals/04.ht...)
    - grantcas 4y ago
      [dead]
  - batmenace 4y ago
    I would argue that there is a difference to the 'inspiration' you mention. As I see it, what SD does with Getty's database is more akin to me as an artist taking the Getty pictures and making a collage from the photos (actively using them). [There is a separate point around the value of the Getty database. Routinely, companies are sold with their customer list / database as a main selling point. Getty has undoubtable value through the sheer size of collected work. Nobody could expect that we just assign 'no' value to it, even if it can be accessed (with a watermark) for free by most.]
    - sinuhe69 4y ago
      You can prove your point by manually make a collage and see if you can get a similar result, which I highly doubt.
    - Auracle 4y ago
      What SD does is nothing like a collage, though. It's not picking and choosing from images that it has stored and mixing them. If you tell it to make a human dog, it's not picking one image of a human and one of a dog and cutting them up and pasting them back together. It'll take the concept of what makes a human and a concept of what makes a dog and put those together. That's a pretty big difference.
- theGnuMe 4y ago
  It’ll be derivative fair use.
  - colesantiago 4y ago
    Not really, kind of clear the watermark is from Getty Images with no licence, no partnership, not even removing it from the training data and with no permission, all the while making money from the hosted service (with the trained model) with Dreamstudio. Just because it's a scrambled watermark doesn't mean it's transformative. Also, these images are copyrighted and it being generated by an AI (supposedly) turns it into a public domain image, which is incompatible with fair use.
    - theGnuMe 4y ago
      It’s not a copy so…. Let me ask this, if you paint a realistic copy of a photo is that copyright infringement? And where do you draw the line: https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-andy-warhol-found-for-the-visual-arts-inc-v-goldsmith#:~:text=Conclusion%3A,establish%20infringement%20of%20her%20photographs https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-a....
      - colesantiago 4y ago
        > It’s not a copy so…. You're saying it can't be a 1:1 Getty Images watermark but it also can't be generated in a vacuum, so how did that 'recognisable watermark that apparently for some reason resembles a Getty Images watermark but it isn't' get in there? Either way, under the law, derivative works are still under the copyright holder. > Copyright protection for the owner of the original copyright extends to derivative works. This means that the copyright owner of the original work also owns the rights to derivative works. Therefore, the owner of the copyright to the original work may bring a copyright infringement lawsuit against someone who creates a derivative work without permission. https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/what-are-derivative-works-under-copyright-law https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/what-are-derivative-works... But here is the kicker, it all comes down to, permission. https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/eula https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/eula > No Machine Learning, AI, or Biometric Technology Use. Unless explicitly authorised in a Getty Images invoice, sales order confirmation or licence agreement, you may not use content (including any caption information, keywords or other metadata associated with content) for any machine learning and/or artificial intelligence purposes, or for any technologies designed or intended for the identification of natural persons. Additionally, Getty Images does not represent or warrant that consent has been obtained for such uses with respect to model-released content.
operator-name 4y ago
It'll be interesting to see some presedence for LAION's data laundering. As some background, Getty Images have partnered with BRIA, a similar company (https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/26/shutterstock_getty_openai_dall_e/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/26/shutterstock_getty_op...)
bilekas 4y ago
I see Getty's point of view considering if images were used for training towards a commercial end then there could be a case. But it really is an interesting question about if the training model is "legally" considered inspiration. Still a strange question for me but will be very interesting to see the results of this. It was always going to happen eventually.
- freejazz 4y ago
  It cannot be legally considered "inspiration": "1. the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative." Stable Diffusion does not have a mental process.
haswell 4y ago
Every time the argument about how Stable Diffusion models haven't copied anything but have instead “learned” by “seeing”, and generated work is “inspired by” that learning, I can’t help but feel that proponents of that argument are falling into an anthropomorphization trap. These words all provide a reference point to help humans understand the technology, but regardless of any apparent similarities, SD does not “see” the way humans see, or become “inspired” the way humans are inspired. I suspect that if humans had the ability to operate on billions of images to systematically gain “inspiration”, the state of copyright law and rules around fair use would not look the way they do today. The fact that artists are all on a relatively level playing field, innate talents notwithstanding, seems at the core of the historical precedents set by artists drawing inspiration from each other. I’d argue that generative AI isn’t adding a new player to that game, but altering that game entirely. All of the more simplistic analogies seem similar to claiming that automobiles are really the same as bicycles, just faster. Except automobiles resulted in major shifts in both behavior and policy, and there’s a reason people don’t ride bicycles on the autobahn. Generative AI is transformative and exciting tech, but we need to stop pretending it’s human, if only because it’s important that policy makers don’t see this technology as human-like intelligence. That argument may benefit ethically questionable models in the short term, but seems legitimately dangerous when considering other emerging AI use cases and the possibility that AIs will be handling decision making for critical systems in the near future.
- lern_too_spel 4y ago
  They're arguing that Stable Diffusion doesn't violate copyright law, so Getty doesn't have a case. You seem to be saying that existing copyright law is no longer sufficient. You're talking past each other.
- stuckinhell 4y ago
  You are right. Also corporations don't care about "fairness" or people. My megacorp sees our AI has an upcoming "secret sauce"/"edge" for our platform. They have sued companies in the past just to stall them, while we work on competing features and I expect them to do the same again. AI is going to be a major competitive edge for corporations, and lawfare between Winners and Losers will be intense. I say corporations because I don't think normal people will have the capital to train AI's or even run them. The difference between midjourney and stable diffusion is great example to look at these days. Midjourney is making waves things like 80's movie shrek and skyrim.
ChoGGi 4y ago
> Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque said “I believe they are ethically, morally and legally sourced and used,” before adding: “Some folks disagree so we are doing opt out and alternate datasets/models that are fully cc.” Opt out isn't how it works sir.
- wodenokoto 4y ago
  Yup. Don’t put it online if you don’t want it to be seen!
  - haswell 4y ago
    I strongly disagree with this sentiment. People put things online because they deem the risks of doing so acceptable vs. the the reward of accessibility and exposure. That calculation changes in a world where generative AI tools exist. If we achieved quantum computing tomorrow, all of the norms around what is considered safe would change overnight. We would not retroactively tell people they had it coming if suddenly people were getting breached left and right because the assumptions they had relied on are no longer relevant.
- hnfong 4y ago
  That's how Google works.
vfclists 4y ago
Getty doesn't own anything. It is a company which has even been known to sue the original creators of images for images they never licensed to Getty. They have been trawling the web for images and making spurious claims of rights over them and questionable legal threats. The business model only makes sense in an environment where corporations lobby for laws enabling them to seek rents over resources which have been freely available and whose copyrightability is even questionable. Frankly I put them up there with patent trolls and those evil corporations which claim patents over seeds which farmers round the world have developed and improved over generations. But in a legal and commercial environment where rounded corners can be patented why should we be surprised?
- freejazz 4y ago
  "Getty doesn't own anything." Is this supposed to be a factual statement? Getty owns the rights to its photo library. How is that even in question?
andrewdubinsky 4y ago
We don't see the prompt used to generate these "copies". It could be they provided the image in question to work from. In which case it would be very similar, but not identical. It's important to note, this is not a faithful representation once you look at it closely. The text is always mangled into nonsense and things like brands or logos are never close enough to be even a passing likeness. This is no different from a painter using a photograph of a subject to create a portrait, which is subsequently sold. Or recording a song on the radio to learn to play the guitar, then using that song as inspiration to write a new song. That being said, I suspect they are removing all watermarked images from training databases right now.
- haswell 4y ago
  > This is no different from a painter using a photograph of a subject to create a portrait, which is subsequently sold. > Or recording a song on the radio to learn to play the guitar, then using that song as inspiration to write a new song. I’d argue that it is very different from those things. The AI software is not human, and the precedent set for painters and musicians is based on a foundation of human capability. It’s no different in the same way a horse drawn carriage is no different from an F1 race car.
totony 4y ago
Crazy how everyone is sueing stability ai but no one is sueing openai. Is this how society rewards openness? This will just end up with more concentration of power
- colesantiago 4y ago
  OpenAI at least got permission from Shutterstock. "The data we licensed from Shutterstock was critical to the training of DALL-E,” said Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO." https://www.shutterstock.com/press/20435 https://www.shutterstock.com/press/20435
  - papichulo4 4y ago
    OK, so this might still play out as a win. - Stability AI pays Getty a fee, which they really should, to some degree/percentage, if they're making money off this. - But the amount should be for a proper use license, rather than focus on being punitive. Perhaps they work out another kind of deal. This is what the execs figure out together. - Then they re-train on the entire set, sans watermark, now with the full blessing of Getty, and the resulting Stable Diffusion v3.0 release ends up being mind blowing!
    - freejazz 4y ago
      They should be punished because they violated the law.
- ImprobableTruth 4y ago
  I mean, duh? Why would anyone with half a brain sue Midjourney, when it's unknown what it's trained on, let alone OpenAI, who are additionally backed by Microsoft? It's pretty clear what case has the best chance.
  - Auracle 4y ago
    At this point, Midjourney v4 very well might only be trained on other Midjourney images. I would think that legally that would make things even murkier.
seydor 4y ago
AI is becoming the new bittorrent
upghost 4y ago
I feel like this is the only legal defense required: https://xkcd.com/659/ https://xkcd.com/659/ TL;DC once you take apart the thing and put the lego pieces back in the box, there's no more thing, only pieces
- bluefirebrand 4y ago
  Based on this, if I take apart your car in your driveway and store all of the pieces in my garage, I didn't steal your car, right? I merely disassembled your car, at which point it ceased to exist and was no longer your car. And then I took the pieces of not-your-car for myself. If this sounds silly to you, it should. Clearly the issue is that these ML models are being trained on stuff that isn't theirs. You can argue that they never "stole" the images because it's computer data. So now software piracy is fine right? All content on the internet, even uploaded to freely viewable image libraries, has some manner of license. I could just go on DeviantArt and grab some person's work and start making T-Shirts for sale, but that wouldn't be legal would it? So why should it be just assumed that the license allows training on AI models? This needs to be tested in court.
  - hnfong 4y ago
    > I didn't steal your car, right? Comparing theft to "intellectual" property that can be trivially copied often doesn't make sense and can lead one to wrong conclusions. > So now software piracy is fine right? Finally something almost on topic. But that's just begging the question. And it's not software we're talking about, but images. Training neural networks on massive datasets is a pretty new phenomenon, I don't think anyone can say definitely whether it's copyright infringement or not, because... > This needs to be tested in court. Exactly. I'm glad we agree on at least something. Historically the UK courts have taken a (overly IMHO) strict attitude (eg. https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=57171429-4dea-425d-ac59-5c92cbf63941 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=57171429-4dea... ) to copyrights so I'd guess the outcome won't be too favorable to Stable Diffusion, but it wouldn't it be funny to read your assertions in case they win.
anigbrowl 4y ago
Oh irony. I don't know the legal merits of Getty's claim since it's filed in UK court and presumably argues on the basis of UK commercial law, but it's not like Getty any stranger to appropriating the work of others and claiming ownership of it. https://petapixel.com/2016/11/22/1-billion-getty-images-lawsuit-ends-not-bang-whimper/ https://petapixel.com/2016/11/22/1-billion-getty-images-laws...
- hulitu 4y ago
  What is strange: you see in a paper a picture of a building and below "Copyright Getty images ". I mean WTF ? If they take a picture of me, they own the copyright to my image ?
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    A picture of you (rather than one made by you) involves 'personal rights' or 'rights of publicity', rather than copyright. Out in public, you basically don't have any (in the US), the open air is considered fair game for anyone to record images. BUT that does not mean your image could be used to sell a product. Commercial photographers will generally ask for your signature on a release document, perhaps in exchange for a fee. Art/documentary/news photography is more of a free-for-all.
bell-cot 4y ago
I'm no great Getty Images fan...but when you train your "AI" on photos that you didn't bother to license, then it produces images which have a clear "Getty Images" copyright watermark on them - yeah. Time to throw out any pretense that your "AI" is anything more than a standing plea of "Guilty" in every copyright lawsuit that you're hit with.
- saithir 4y ago
  > have a clear "Getty Images" copyright watermark If they had clearly copied Getty Images watermarks, sure... The problem is, they don't.
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  For all anyone knows they only trained on public domain images that Getty is more than happy to license to you.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    > For all anyone knows... I'd bet that Getty's is-this-our-image? technology and where-did-we-get-this-one? database can very easily figure out whether or not that is true. And already has. In any case, adding the other guy's copyright notice to work that you claim is your original stuff smells to me like telling the judge to stick it where the sun don't shine.
colesantiago 4y ago
They should just pay a licence fee to Getty Images to use their images. Just like OpenAI did for Shutterstock before they released DALL-E. https://www.shutterstock.com/press/20435 https://www.shutterstock.com/press/20435 As for individuals, once the licence fee is paid I expect Stability AI to remove infringing training material (with artists requesting to opt out), update their model significantly and publish a new an improved model that (perhaps not completely guaranteed) convinces individuals to switch. This may be in the form of an updated hosted model on Dreamstudio. Although for the open source model, well this is in muddy waters. Maybe this isn't going to happen with all individuals but with the mess that Stability AI created for themselves that is the consequence of prematurely releasing the model trained on copyrighted material and getting caught for it. https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/12/a-startup-wants-to-democratize-the-tech-behind-dall-e-2-consequences-be-damned/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/12/a-startup-wants-to-democra...
- BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
  > As for individuals, once the licence fee is paid I expect Stability AI to remove infringing training material (with artists requesting to opt out), update their model significantly and publish a new an improved model that (perhaps not completely guaranteed) convinces individuals to switch. It seems like it would be really challenging to improve the model for users while removing a lot of the training material. I'll be interested to see if and how it happens!
jaggs 4y ago
The thing most people don't really understand is that generative AI is not 'using' scraped Getty images in the conventional sense. The data that is used is collated to create a form of pattern of art. The system then creates a piece of art using the rules that the model gives. It's like saying 'create me a Van Gogh' style painting using these rules. There's no direct copying or cloning going on. See this for a clearer explanation - https://i.redd.it/2f00l6vsso6a1.jpg https://i.redd.it/2f00l6vsso6a1.jpg
- scantis 4y ago
  Right... And resizing a jpg to lower resolution isn't actually taking the original jpg, but a "sample" free of copyright. When you also go so far to mirror the image, it is practically a new creation. Applying some filter and changing the colors, maybe removing the background... well you can glue anything together in photoshop and is basically a remix. That is something completely new, loosely based on something found somewhere online right? But where exactly is the line in the sand? Reshape, resize, +1 on color map? When have I infringed on a copyright of a picture? I would argue as soon as the diffusion model has comercial use, royalties are due for the original creators. In any case the data set has to be cited properly. Otherwise it is piracy, which is very very cool, if you don't make money of it.

70 points by LunarAurora 4y ago

Wait, Hold on, that is clearly not a getty images watermark is it?, that is the AI generating its own interpretation of a what it appears to look like a watermark /s In all seriousness, I'm not surprised by this as I keep saying, this is quite obviously not fair use as Stability AI has a for profit service (Dreamstudio) and Stability AI didn't even seek a license from Getty to use their images in their training data. All you have to do is this: 1. Just ask for permission. 2. Pay for a license from Getty Images? That is all, it's really that simple. Getty is not even against AI Art tools / generation: > When asked what remedies against Getty Images would be seeking from Stability AI, Peters said the company was not interested in financial damages or stopping the development of AI art tools, but in creating a new legal status quo (presumably one with favorable licensing terms for Getty Images). We will see more of this with other companies (perhaps bigger ones) seeking more lawsuits from Stability AI as it's evident to see the infringing images in the training data.

prepend 4y ago
I don’t think StabilityAI (or anyone) should pay Getty for training. Should an artist pay Getty for leafing through their images or visiting a museum and closely studying? Stability isn’t deriving images from Getty, they are getting “inspired.” I fear that if this lawsuit succeeds that eventually just by existing, I’ll be forced to license the world I see in order to perceive it and incorporate it into my consciousness. How will digital consciousnesses work with licensing? Will an AI be forced to pay a license fee because it uses copyrighted images as part of its consciousness? What happens if it can’t pay? Is it shut off? Is it forced into slavery? Maybe the upside is that copyright can be revisited with the maximalists not in power. I think Getty benefits from unjust copyrights that last decades.
- pk-protect-ai 4y ago
  Apart from sci-fi futuristic of an "AI consciousness", i'd use the same arguments. Neural networks do not copy or use the original images in the inferences. They just vaguely remember, what was fed them during the training, mixed this with the noise to produce weights. Weights those are the same for a billions of images. The difference between human looking at an artwork and then reproducing something in the same style and Stable Diffusion doing the same, is that SD spend hours instead of decades to learn, and consume much less energy as well (an average human consumes about 58kWh per day https://home.uni-leipzig.de/energy/energy-fundamentals/04.htm https://home.uni-leipzig.de/energy/energy-fundamentals/04.ht...)
  - grantcas 4y ago
    [dead]
- batmenace 4y ago
  I would argue that there is a difference to the 'inspiration' you mention. As I see it, what SD does with Getty's database is more akin to me as an artist taking the Getty pictures and making a collage from the photos (actively using them). [There is a separate point around the value of the Getty database. Routinely, companies are sold with their customer list / database as a main selling point. Getty has undoubtable value through the sheer size of collected work. Nobody could expect that we just assign 'no' value to it, even if it can be accessed (with a watermark) for free by most.]
  - sinuhe69 4y ago
    You can prove your point by manually make a collage and see if you can get a similar result, which I highly doubt.
  - Auracle 4y ago
    What SD does is nothing like a collage, though. It's not picking and choosing from images that it has stored and mixing them. If you tell it to make a human dog, it's not picking one image of a human and one of a dog and cutting them up and pasting them back together. It'll take the concept of what makes a human and a concept of what makes a dog and put those together. That's a pretty big difference.
theGnuMe 4y ago
It’ll be derivative fair use.
- colesantiago 4y ago
  Not really, kind of clear the watermark is from Getty Images with no licence, no partnership, not even removing it from the training data and with no permission, all the while making money from the hosted service (with the trained model) with Dreamstudio. Just because it's a scrambled watermark doesn't mean it's transformative. Also, these images are copyrighted and it being generated by an AI (supposedly) turns it into a public domain image, which is incompatible with fair use.
  - theGnuMe 4y ago
    It’s not a copy so…. Let me ask this, if you paint a realistic copy of a photo is that copyright infringement? And where do you draw the line: https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-andy-warhol-found-for-the-visual-arts-inc-v-goldsmith#:~:text=Conclusion%3A,establish%20infringement%20of%20her%20photographs https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-a....
    - colesantiago 4y ago
      > It’s not a copy so…. You're saying it can't be a 1:1 Getty Images watermark but it also can't be generated in a vacuum, so how did that 'recognisable watermark that apparently for some reason resembles a Getty Images watermark but it isn't' get in there? Either way, under the law, derivative works are still under the copyright holder. > Copyright protection for the owner of the original copyright extends to derivative works. This means that the copyright owner of the original work also owns the rights to derivative works. Therefore, the owner of the copyright to the original work may bring a copyright infringement lawsuit against someone who creates a derivative work without permission. https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/what-are-derivative-works-under-copyright-law https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/what-are-derivative-works... But here is the kicker, it all comes down to, permission. https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/eula https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/eula > No Machine Learning, AI, or Biometric Technology Use. Unless explicitly authorised in a Getty Images invoice, sales order confirmation or licence agreement, you may not use content (including any caption information, keywords or other metadata associated with content) for any machine learning and/or artificial intelligence purposes, or for any technologies designed or intended for the identification of natural persons. Additionally, Getty Images does not represent or warrant that consent has been obtained for such uses with respect to model-released content.

operator-name 4y ago

It'll be interesting to see some presedence for LAION's data laundering. As some background, Getty Images have partnered with BRIA, a similar company (https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/26/shutterstock_getty_openai_dall_e/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/26/shutterstock_getty_op...)

bilekas 4y ago

I see Getty's point of view considering if images were used for training towards a commercial end then there could be a case. But it really is an interesting question about if the training model is "legally" considered inspiration. Still a strange question for me but will be very interesting to see the results of this. It was always going to happen eventually.

freejazz 4y ago
It cannot be legally considered "inspiration": "1. the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative." Stable Diffusion does not have a mental process.

haswell 4y ago

Every time the argument about how Stable Diffusion models haven't copied anything but have instead “learned” by “seeing”, and generated work is “inspired by” that learning, I can’t help but feel that proponents of that argument are falling into an anthropomorphization trap. These words all provide a reference point to help humans understand the technology, but regardless of any apparent similarities, SD does not “see” the way humans see, or become “inspired” the way humans are inspired. I suspect that if humans had the ability to operate on billions of images to systematically gain “inspiration”, the state of copyright law and rules around fair use would not look the way they do today. The fact that artists are all on a relatively level playing field, innate talents notwithstanding, seems at the core of the historical precedents set by artists drawing inspiration from each other. I’d argue that generative AI isn’t adding a new player to that game, but altering that game entirely. All of the more simplistic analogies seem similar to claiming that automobiles are really the same as bicycles, just faster. Except automobiles resulted in major shifts in both behavior and policy, and there’s a reason people don’t ride bicycles on the autobahn. Generative AI is transformative and exciting tech, but we need to stop pretending it’s human, if only because it’s important that policy makers don’t see this technology as human-like intelligence. That argument may benefit ethically questionable models in the short term, but seems legitimately dangerous when considering other emerging AI use cases and the possibility that AIs will be handling decision making for critical systems in the near future.

lern_too_spel 4y ago
They're arguing that Stable Diffusion doesn't violate copyright law, so Getty doesn't have a case. You seem to be saying that existing copyright law is no longer sufficient. You're talking past each other.
stuckinhell 4y ago
You are right. Also corporations don't care about "fairness" or people. My megacorp sees our AI has an upcoming "secret sauce"/"edge" for our platform. They have sued companies in the past just to stall them, while we work on competing features and I expect them to do the same again. AI is going to be a major competitive edge for corporations, and lawfare between Winners and Losers will be intense. I say corporations because I don't think normal people will have the capital to train AI's or even run them. The difference between midjourney and stable diffusion is great example to look at these days. Midjourney is making waves things like 80's movie shrek and skyrim.

ChoGGi 4y ago

> Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque said “I believe they are ethically, morally and legally sourced and used,” before adding: “Some folks disagree so we are doing opt out and alternate datasets/models that are fully cc.” Opt out isn't how it works sir.

wodenokoto 4y ago
Yup. Don’t put it online if you don’t want it to be seen!
- haswell 4y ago
  I strongly disagree with this sentiment. People put things online because they deem the risks of doing so acceptable vs. the the reward of accessibility and exposure. That calculation changes in a world where generative AI tools exist. If we achieved quantum computing tomorrow, all of the norms around what is considered safe would change overnight. We would not retroactively tell people they had it coming if suddenly people were getting breached left and right because the assumptions they had relied on are no longer relevant.
hnfong 4y ago
That's how Google works.

vfclists 4y ago

Getty doesn't own anything. It is a company which has even been known to sue the original creators of images for images they never licensed to Getty. They have been trawling the web for images and making spurious claims of rights over them and questionable legal threats. The business model only makes sense in an environment where corporations lobby for laws enabling them to seek rents over resources which have been freely available and whose copyrightability is even questionable. Frankly I put them up there with patent trolls and those evil corporations which claim patents over seeds which farmers round the world have developed and improved over generations. But in a legal and commercial environment where rounded corners can be patented why should we be surprised?

freejazz 4y ago
"Getty doesn't own anything." Is this supposed to be a factual statement? Getty owns the rights to its photo library. How is that even in question?

andrewdubinsky 4y ago

We don't see the prompt used to generate these "copies". It could be they provided the image in question to work from. In which case it would be very similar, but not identical. It's important to note, this is not a faithful representation once you look at it closely. The text is always mangled into nonsense and things like brands or logos are never close enough to be even a passing likeness. This is no different from a painter using a photograph of a subject to create a portrait, which is subsequently sold. Or recording a song on the radio to learn to play the guitar, then using that song as inspiration to write a new song. That being said, I suspect they are removing all watermarked images from training databases right now.

haswell 4y ago
> This is no different from a painter using a photograph of a subject to create a portrait, which is subsequently sold. > Or recording a song on the radio to learn to play the guitar, then using that song as inspiration to write a new song. I’d argue that it is very different from those things. The AI software is not human, and the precedent set for painters and musicians is based on a foundation of human capability. It’s no different in the same way a horse drawn carriage is no different from an F1 race car.

totony 4y ago

Crazy how everyone is sueing stability ai but no one is sueing openai. Is this how society rewards openness? This will just end up with more concentration of power

colesantiago 4y ago
OpenAI at least got permission from Shutterstock. "The data we licensed from Shutterstock was critical to the training of DALL-E,” said Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO." https://www.shutterstock.com/press/20435 https://www.shutterstock.com/press/20435
- papichulo4 4y ago
  OK, so this might still play out as a win. - Stability AI pays Getty a fee, which they really should, to some degree/percentage, if they're making money off this. - But the amount should be for a proper use license, rather than focus on being punitive. Perhaps they work out another kind of deal. This is what the execs figure out together. - Then they re-train on the entire set, sans watermark, now with the full blessing of Getty, and the resulting Stable Diffusion v3.0 release ends up being mind blowing!
  - freejazz 4y ago
    They should be punished because they violated the law.
ImprobableTruth 4y ago
I mean, duh? Why would anyone with half a brain sue Midjourney, when it's unknown what it's trained on, let alone OpenAI, who are additionally backed by Microsoft? It's pretty clear what case has the best chance.
- Auracle 4y ago
  At this point, Midjourney v4 very well might only be trained on other Midjourney images. I would think that legally that would make things even murkier.

seydor 4y ago

AI is becoming the new bittorrent

upghost 4y ago

I feel like this is the only legal defense required: https://xkcd.com/659/ https://xkcd.com/659/ TL;DC once you take apart the thing and put the lego pieces back in the box, there's no more thing, only pieces

bluefirebrand 4y ago
Based on this, if I take apart your car in your driveway and store all of the pieces in my garage, I didn't steal your car, right? I merely disassembled your car, at which point it ceased to exist and was no longer your car. And then I took the pieces of not-your-car for myself. If this sounds silly to you, it should. Clearly the issue is that these ML models are being trained on stuff that isn't theirs. You can argue that they never "stole" the images because it's computer data. So now software piracy is fine right? All content on the internet, even uploaded to freely viewable image libraries, has some manner of license. I could just go on DeviantArt and grab some person's work and start making T-Shirts for sale, but that wouldn't be legal would it? So why should it be just assumed that the license allows training on AI models? This needs to be tested in court.
- hnfong 4y ago
  > I didn't steal your car, right? Comparing theft to "intellectual" property that can be trivially copied often doesn't make sense and can lead one to wrong conclusions. > So now software piracy is fine right? Finally something almost on topic. But that's just begging the question. And it's not software we're talking about, but images. Training neural networks on massive datasets is a pretty new phenomenon, I don't think anyone can say definitely whether it's copyright infringement or not, because... > This needs to be tested in court. Exactly. I'm glad we agree on at least something. Historically the UK courts have taken a (overly IMHO) strict attitude (eg. https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=57171429-4dea-425d-ac59-5c92cbf63941 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=57171429-4dea... ) to copyrights so I'd guess the outcome won't be too favorable to Stable Diffusion, but it wouldn't it be funny to read your assertions in case they win.

anigbrowl 4y ago

Oh irony. I don't know the legal merits of Getty's claim since it's filed in UK court and presumably argues on the basis of UK commercial law, but it's not like Getty any stranger to appropriating the work of others and claiming ownership of it. https://petapixel.com/2016/11/22/1-billion-getty-images-lawsuit-ends-not-bang-whimper/ https://petapixel.com/2016/11/22/1-billion-getty-images-laws...

hulitu 4y ago
What is strange: you see in a paper a picture of a building and below "Copyright Getty images ". I mean WTF ? If they take a picture of me, they own the copyright to my image ?
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  A picture of you (rather than one made by you) involves 'personal rights' or 'rights of publicity', rather than copyright. Out in public, you basically don't have any (in the US), the open air is considered fair game for anyone to record images. BUT that does not mean your image could be used to sell a product. Commercial photographers will generally ask for your signature on a release document, perhaps in exchange for a fee. Art/documentary/news photography is more of a free-for-all.

bell-cot 4y ago

I'm no great Getty Images fan...but when you train your "AI" on photos that you didn't bother to license, then it produces images which have a clear "Getty Images" copyright watermark on them - yeah. Time to throw out any pretense that your "AI" is anything more than a standing plea of "Guilty" in every copyright lawsuit that you're hit with.

saithir 4y ago
> have a clear "Getty Images" copyright watermark If they had clearly copied Getty Images watermarks, sure... The problem is, they don't.
UncleEntity 4y ago
For all anyone knows they only trained on public domain images that Getty is more than happy to license to you.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  > For all anyone knows... I'd bet that Getty's is-this-our-image? technology and where-did-we-get-this-one? database can very easily figure out whether or not that is true. And already has. In any case, adding the other guy's copyright notice to work that you claim is your original stuff smells to me like telling the judge to stick it where the sun don't shine.

colesantiago 4y ago

They should just pay a licence fee to Getty Images to use their images. Just like OpenAI did for Shutterstock before they released DALL-E. https://www.shutterstock.com/press/20435 https://www.shutterstock.com/press/20435 As for individuals, once the licence fee is paid I expect Stability AI to remove infringing training material (with artists requesting to opt out), update their model significantly and publish a new an improved model that (perhaps not completely guaranteed) convinces individuals to switch. This may be in the form of an updated hosted model on Dreamstudio. Although for the open source model, well this is in muddy waters. Maybe this isn't going to happen with all individuals but with the mess that Stability AI created for themselves that is the consequence of prematurely releasing the model trained on copyrighted material and getting caught for it. https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/12/a-startup-wants-to-democratize-the-tech-behind-dall-e-2-consequences-be-damned/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/12/a-startup-wants-to-democra...

BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
> As for individuals, once the licence fee is paid I expect Stability AI to remove infringing training material (with artists requesting to opt out), update their model significantly and publish a new an improved model that (perhaps not completely guaranteed) convinces individuals to switch. It seems like it would be really challenging to improve the model for users while removing a lot of the training material. I'll be interested to see if and how it happens!

jaggs 4y ago

The thing most people don't really understand is that generative AI is not 'using' scraped Getty images in the conventional sense. The data that is used is collated to create a form of pattern of art. The system then creates a piece of art using the rules that the model gives. It's like saying 'create me a Van Gogh' style painting using these rules. There's no direct copying or cloning going on. See this for a clearer explanation - https://i.redd.it/2f00l6vsso6a1.jpg https://i.redd.it/2f00l6vsso6a1.jpg

scantis 4y ago
Right... And resizing a jpg to lower resolution isn't actually taking the original jpg, but a "sample" free of copyright. When you also go so far to mirror the image, it is practically a new creation. Applying some filter and changing the colors, maybe removing the background... well you can glue anything together in photoshop and is basically a remix. That is something completely new, loosely based on something found somewhere online right? But where exactly is the line in the sand? Reshape, resize, +1 on color map? When have I infringed on a copyright of a picture? I would argue as soon as the diffusion model has comercial use, royalties are due for the original creators. In any case the data set has to be cited properly. Otherwise it is piracy, which is very very cool, if you don't make money of it.