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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 prod
by 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 agoBut 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 agoit 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.