It's certainly not allowed to be an exact copy. It's also not simply allowed to be an inexact copy, mind. For your specific example, it depends on how inexact

It's certainly not allowed to be an exact copy. It's also not simply allowed to be an inexact copy, mind. For your specific example, it depends on how inexact the "copy" actually is. The four factors of fair use are: 1) the purpose and character of your use 2) the nature of the copyrighted work 3) the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and 4) the effect of the use upon the potential market. At some point your algorithm might be so lossy that the court rules that the amount and substantiality of what is taken is sufficiently low that your output may count as fair use. (eg. if the end result is something like [1] ) Say we argue for the sake of argument that -say- Stable Diffusion is some sort of lossy compression algorithm. it turns out that -on average- SD only notes down a few bits per image that it trains on. Thus it easily meets the amount and substantiality factor. If you argue that SD is not a compression algorithm (and I really don't think it is), you may start to meet some of the other factors as well. The analysis under EU law is a bit different, since there's no fair use per-se. But there's a separate rule for scraping which applies. [1] https://fairuse.stanford.edu/2014/12/22/much-photo-need-alter-avoid-copyright-infringement-hint-cheshire-cat/ https://fairuse.stanford.edu/2014/12/22/much-photo-need-alte...