3 ms·

LAION demands money from photographer who requested removal of photos

43 points by janandonly 4y ago

eternalban 4y ago
related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32843477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32843477
- Zetobal 4y ago
  FYI midjourney is also based on stable diffusion
ronsor 4y ago
Brief reminder that Petapixel has had a noticeable bias during the rise of generative AI.
lisasays 4y ago
“We had already pointed out to your client that our client is entitled to claims for damages in accordance with Section 97a (4) UrhG in the event of an unjustified claim,” writes the lawyers acting on behalf of LAION. OK, so they're legally entitled to throw this back into the faces of whoever makes these kind of requests. Still - it does seem rather petty. Common sense (and basic decency) would tell us to take a less knee-jerk approach. A simple form letter (explaining the lack of legal merit to their claim) should suffice to quell at least 80 percent of these claims. If the claimant persists, then yeah, you could thrown down the gauntlet like this. Otherwise, it comes off as rather haughty and aggressive (and as the Germans would say, zickig) to breathe acid at (apparently simply uninformed) claimants like these.
- Imnimo 4y ago
  >“At the time, our client had refrained from asserting this claim, but now feels unable to be lenient here. She incurred legal fees for defending against the obviously unjustified warning you issued, which our client will not bear herself.”
  - lisasays 4y ago
    The issue is definitely not obvious to a non-tech person. It isn't even obvious to me why text-image pairs should be considered, by default, public domain and fully commercializable by any and all. The bigger point is that in all probability, the client's costs were minor (<10k), and these kinds of bumps and scrapes that happen (and what one needs to budget for) when choosing to to push forward with a large-scale and obviously controversial project. So discretion (and concern for the project's overall public image) would call for using a feather rather than a sledgehammer here, as I see it.
    - sheepdestroyer 4y ago
      For a mostly solo volunteer projet, supported by an individual who works as a high school teacher (so, not crazy-silicon-valley-rich), any such abusive costs are probably unsustainable. Your figure of "<10k" that you consider as "minor" shows that you have no idea how people get by. They were kind enough to explain in advance how they would proceed if the complainant pursued in their misguided attack, how more agreeable do you want them to be without similar complaints drowning them out?
      - lisasays 4y ago
        According to https://laion.ai/team/ https://laion.ai/team/ the project has mushroomed a bit and (if I recall from other sources) has something of a budget. And it sure looks like they are positioning themselves to spin this off into some kind of financially self-sustaining entity (even if they aren't interested in selling out just yet). So when I said "minor" not in comparison to his day job salary but as in, you know, the scheme of things. You have no idea how people get by. Gosh, it seems you know everything about me.
masswerk 4y ago
I guess, from a technical perspective, it should be pretty simple: if you can extract an image (or major features applicable for protection), the image is stored in the model. For this purpose, it's yet another compression algorithm. (Conversely, if this isn't applicable, does this mean that providing protected content in compressed form, say, as a zip archive, is also exempt? In a sense, it's yet another model with an output probability of 1.0.)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ctrlv 4y ago
Seems like something an AI wanting to preserve itself would do
LurkerAtTheGate 4y ago
> LAION “only maintains a database containing links to image files that are publicly available on the Internet,” arguing that it does not keep the image data so there it can’t delete the file. So, the Pirate Bay defense?
- ronsor 4y ago
  The difference is the Pirate Bay was a list of links to obviously pirated content. LAION is a list of links to content that is, for the most part, hosted at its original source or a place authorized to host it.
dang 4y ago
Related ongoing thread: AI used photographer’s photos for training, then slapped him with an invoice - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35712131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35712131 - April 2023 (144 comments)

43 points by janandonly 4y ago

eternalban 4y ago

related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32843477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32843477

Zetobal 4y ago
FYI midjourney is also based on stable diffusion

ronsor 4y ago

Brief reminder that Petapixel has had a noticeable bias during the rise of generative AI.

lisasays 4y ago

“We had already pointed out to your client that our client is entitled to claims for damages in accordance with Section 97a (4) UrhG in the event of an unjustified claim,” writes the lawyers acting on behalf of LAION. OK, so they're legally entitled to throw this back into the faces of whoever makes these kind of requests. Still - it does seem rather petty. Common sense (and basic decency) would tell us to take a less knee-jerk approach. A simple form letter (explaining the lack of legal merit to their claim) should suffice to quell at least 80 percent of these claims. If the claimant persists, then yeah, you could thrown down the gauntlet like this. Otherwise, it comes off as rather haughty and aggressive (and as the Germans would say, zickig) to breathe acid at (apparently simply uninformed) claimants like these.

Imnimo 4y ago
>“At the time, our client had refrained from asserting this claim, but now feels unable to be lenient here. She incurred legal fees for defending against the obviously unjustified warning you issued, which our client will not bear herself.”
- lisasays 4y ago
  The issue is definitely not obvious to a non-tech person. It isn't even obvious to me why text-image pairs should be considered, by default, public domain and fully commercializable by any and all. The bigger point is that in all probability, the client's costs were minor (<10k), and these kinds of bumps and scrapes that happen (and what one needs to budget for) when choosing to to push forward with a large-scale and obviously controversial project. So discretion (and concern for the project's overall public image) would call for using a feather rather than a sledgehammer here, as I see it.
  - sheepdestroyer 4y ago
    For a mostly solo volunteer projet, supported by an individual who works as a high school teacher (so, not crazy-silicon-valley-rich), any such abusive costs are probably unsustainable. Your figure of "<10k" that you consider as "minor" shows that you have no idea how people get by. They were kind enough to explain in advance how they would proceed if the complainant pursued in their misguided attack, how more agreeable do you want them to be without similar complaints drowning them out?
    - lisasays 4y ago
      According to https://laion.ai/team/ https://laion.ai/team/ the project has mushroomed a bit and (if I recall from other sources) has something of a budget. And it sure looks like they are positioning themselves to spin this off into some kind of financially self-sustaining entity (even if they aren't interested in selling out just yet). So when I said "minor" not in comparison to his day job salary but as in, you know, the scheme of things. You have no idea how people get by. Gosh, it seems you know everything about me.

masswerk 4y ago

I guess, from a technical perspective, it should be pretty simple: if you can extract an image (or major features applicable for protection), the image is stored in the model. For this purpose, it's yet another compression algorithm. (Conversely, if this isn't applicable, does this mean that providing protected content in compressed form, say, as a zip archive, is also exempt? In a sense, it's yet another model with an output probability of 1.0.)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ctrlv 4y ago

Seems like something an AI wanting to preserve itself would do

LurkerAtTheGate 4y ago

> LAION “only maintains a database containing links to image files that are publicly available on the Internet,” arguing that it does not keep the image data so there it can’t delete the file. So, the Pirate Bay defense?

ronsor 4y ago
The difference is the Pirate Bay was a list of links to obviously pirated content. LAION is a list of links to content that is, for the most part, hosted at its original source or a place authorized to host it.

dang 4y ago

Related ongoing thread: AI used photographer’s photos for training, then slapped him with an invoice - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35712131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35712131 - April 2023 (144 comments)