6 ms·

The same argument could be used to defend image generation models. (And, personally, I'm favorable to that argument for both.)

cj 3y ago
It's a blurry line, I think. Imagine a prompt "Photo of person, Shutterstock ID 132456, with blue eyes instead of brown eyes, watermark removed" If the prompt returns Shutterstock photo #123456 without the watermark (and with the different color eyes) but otherwise a near identical photo, I think most people would agree the output shouldn't be free to use without buying the original photo license from shutterstock. To a certain extent, we're betting that these models won't accept or reply to prompts that are that specific (e.g. referencing a specific image for sale on shutterstock by its ID number). Or even just providing the photo in the prompt and asking the model to remove the watermark and upscale the image to a higher resolution. I'm fearful that LLM's will become (or already are?) an easy copyright bypass tool that can be abused, in the example above, to put companies like shutterstock out of business. This is the sort of problem regulation might help with. I haven't read OpenAI's TOS, but I'm curious who owns the output of the model and whether OpenAI is transferring copyright/licensing liability onto the user or if OpenAI is representing that output from the model is 100% free to be used in any way the user wants.
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  I feel like those kinds of issues could be easily solved in court: "What prompt was used to generate this image? Oh, shameless copyright laundering? Rule in favor of the plaintiff. Case Dismissed"
- colordrops 3y ago
  You could say the same of an artist. If you ask an artist to paint a facimile with modifications, they would. That doesn't mean all of their output is "tainted" by copyright just because they learned to paint by referencing existing works.

cj 3y ago

It's a blurry line, I think. Imagine a prompt "Photo of person, Shutterstock ID 132456, with blue eyes instead of brown eyes, watermark removed" If the prompt returns Shutterstock photo #123456 without the watermark (and with the different color eyes) but otherwise a near identical photo, I think most people would agree the output shouldn't be free to use without buying the original photo license from shutterstock. To a certain extent, we're betting that these models won't accept or reply to prompts that are that specific (e.g. referencing a specific image for sale on shutterstock by its ID number). Or even just providing the photo in the prompt and asking the model to remove the watermark and upscale the image to a higher resolution. I'm fearful that LLM's will become (or already are?) an easy copyright bypass tool that can be abused, in the example above, to put companies like shutterstock out of business. This is the sort of problem regulation might help with. I haven't read OpenAI's TOS, but I'm curious who owns the output of the model and whether OpenAI is transferring copyright/licensing liability onto the user or if OpenAI is representing that output from the model is 100% free to be used in any way the user wants.

OkayPhysicist 3y ago
I feel like those kinds of issues could be easily solved in court: "What prompt was used to generate this image? Oh, shameless copyright laundering? Rule in favor of the plaintiff. Case Dismissed"
colordrops 3y ago
You could say the same of an artist. If you ask an artist to paint a facimile with modifications, they would. That doesn't mean all of their output is "tainted" by copyright just because they learned to paint by referencing existing works.