In a subtle way, this case exposes that copyright law itself is unrighteous and fundamentally unethical. Most people have bought into the thinking behind copyri

In a subtle way, this case exposes that copyright law itself is unrighteous and fundamentally unethical. Most people have bought into the thinking behind copyright laws (as children of their time), which makes it hard to see how it could be wrong (illustrating the Stockholm -and related- syndromes). But trying to make the case where using copyrighted images as data for a neural network as being wrong, because it "feels wrong" to those whose sense of fairness is calibrated against the concepts behind copyright law, highlights that the case cannot logically be made. "But they made use of the 'copyrighted' images, they are profitting off of them" - which copyright law is supposed to protect against: only the copyright holder should derive financial benefit from the material. It appears now that is not just hard to enforce, but it ultimately doesn't make sense, it just enormously complicated the world (giving rise to a whole class of well-paid lawyers).