3 ms·

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 ba

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.

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.