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It applies - but how it applies is simply not settled. Clearly, there is no statistical model that can launder IP. If someone uses Midjourney to produce someone

It applies - but how it applies is simply not settled. Clearly, there is no statistical model that can launder IP. If someone uses Midjourney to produce someone else's IP, that user (not Midjourney) would be in violation of copyright if they use it in a way that does not conform to the license, such as by creating their own website of cat and girl comics and running Adsense on it. However, if other artists are inspired by this style of comic, and it influences their work - that is simply fair use. If that artist is some rando using a tool like Midjourney - that is inspired by the art but doesn't reproduce it - it is not at all clear to me that this is not also fair use.

tsimionescu 3y ago
The point is that Midjourney itself, the model weights, is possibly a derivative work of all of the works that went into its training. The fact that it can produce almost identical copies of some of them, especially if not carefully prevented from doing so through secondary mechanisms, is obvious proof that it directly encodes copies of some of these works. That already clearly means that they couldn't publish the model directly even if they wanted to, since they don't have the right to distribute copies of those works, even if they are represented in a weird lossy encoding. Whether it's legal for them to give access to the model through an API that prevents returning copyrighted content is a much more complex legal topic.
- encomiast 3y ago
  > possibly a derivative work of all of the works that went into its training. or… it is possibly a transformative work of the all the works that went into it's training, which would lead to a strong fair use argument. Given how permissive the courts have been with transformative work, this seems like an easier argument to make.
  - poncho_romero 3y ago
    But again, we’ve seen these models spit out verbatim text and images that are copyrighted (many examples throughout this thread). That doesn’t strike me as “transformative work.”
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      it is possible that those works are not transformative, but 99.9% of the output is. Human artists can also create copies when instructed to. That doesn't mean that the rest of their work isn't transformative, or that the process of leading isn't fair use. Similarly, the law doesn't bar artists from learning, but provides recourse, when and if artists create and sell copes.
romwell 3y ago
>Clearly, there is no statistical model that can launder IP. Of course. The model isn't making a decision as to what may be used as training data. The humans training it do. >If someone uses Midjourney to produce someone else's IP, that user (not Midjourney) would be in violation of copyright That's like saying that if a user unpacks the dune _full_movie.zip I'm sharing online, it's them who have produced the copyrighted work. And me, the human who put the movie Dune into that zip file, is doing no wrong. Clearly, there is no compression algorithm that can launder IP, right? >However, if other artists are inspired by this style of comic, and it influences their work - that is simply fair use The AI isn't inspired by anything. It's not a sentient being, it's not making decisions, and its behavior isn't regulated by laws because it does not have a behavior of its own. Humans decide what goes into an AI model, and what goes out. And humans who train AI models on art don't get "inspired". They transform it into a derivative work — the AI model. One that has been shown to be awfully close to dune_full_movie.zip if you use the right unpacking tools. But even that isn't necessary. Using work of others in your own work without permission and credit usually goes by less inspiring words: plagiarism, theft, ripping off. Regardless of whether you reproduce the work 1:1, and whether you can be punished by law for it. >tool like Midjourney - that is inspired by the art but doesn't reproduce it Never in the history of humanity has the word inspired meant something that a tool can do. If it's "inspired" (which is something only sentient beings can do), then we should be crying out about human right abuses the way the AI models are trained and treated. If it's just a tool, it's not "inspired". You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either pay your computer minimum wage for working for you, or stop saying that it can get "inspired" by art (whether it's training an AI model or creating a zip file).
- jeremyjh 3y ago
  Yeah, "influenced" would have been a better word choice.

tsimionescu 3y ago

The point is that Midjourney itself, the model weights, is possibly a derivative work of all of the works that went into its training. The fact that it can produce almost identical copies of some of them, especially if not carefully prevented from doing so through secondary mechanisms, is obvious proof that it directly encodes copies of some of these works. That already clearly means that they couldn't publish the model directly even if they wanted to, since they don't have the right to distribute copies of those works, even if they are represented in a weird lossy encoding. Whether it's legal for them to give access to the model through an API that prevents returning copyrighted content is a much more complex legal topic.

encomiast 3y ago
> possibly a derivative work of all of the works that went into its training. or… it is possibly a transformative work of the all the works that went into it's training, which would lead to a strong fair use argument. Given how permissive the courts have been with transformative work, this seems like an easier argument to make.
- poncho_romero 3y ago
  But again, we’ve seen these models spit out verbatim text and images that are copyrighted (many examples throughout this thread). That doesn’t strike me as “transformative work.”
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    it is possible that those works are not transformative, but 99.9% of the output is. Human artists can also create copies when instructed to. That doesn't mean that the rest of their work isn't transformative, or that the process of leading isn't fair use. Similarly, the law doesn't bar artists from learning, but provides recourse, when and if artists create and sell copes.

romwell 3y ago

>Clearly, there is no statistical model that can launder IP. Of course. The model isn't making a decision as to what may be used as training data. The humans training it do. >If someone uses Midjourney to produce someone else's IP, that user (not Midjourney) would be in violation of copyright That's like saying that if a user unpacks the dune _full_movie.zip I'm sharing online, it's them who have produced the copyrighted work. And me, the human who put the movie Dune into that zip file, is doing no wrong. Clearly, there is no compression algorithm that can launder IP, right? >However, if other artists are inspired by this style of comic, and it influences their work - that is simply fair use The AI isn't inspired by anything. It's not a sentient being, it's not making decisions, and its behavior isn't regulated by laws because it does not have a behavior of its own. Humans decide what goes into an AI model, and what goes out. And humans who train AI models on art don't get "inspired". They transform it into a derivative work — the AI model. One that has been shown to be awfully close to dune_full_movie.zip if you use the right unpacking tools. But even that isn't necessary. Using work of others in your own work without permission and credit usually goes by less inspiring words: plagiarism, theft, ripping off. Regardless of whether you reproduce the work 1:1, and whether you can be punished by law for it. >tool like Midjourney - that is inspired by the art but doesn't reproduce it Never in the history of humanity has the word inspired meant something that a tool can do. If it's "inspired" (which is something only sentient beings can do), then we should be crying out about human right abuses the way the AI models are trained and treated. If it's just a tool, it's not "inspired". You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either pay your computer minimum wage for working for you, or stop saying that it can get "inspired" by art (whether it's training an AI model or creating a zip file).

jeremyjh 3y ago
Yeah, "influenced" would have been a better word choice.