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Well I am focusing in the commerical distribution aspect here, not the training aspect. Furthermore, for the case of image generators one could easily imagine t

by golol 3y ago

Well I am focusing in the commerical distribution aspect here, not the training aspect. Furthermore, for the case of image generators one could easily imagine that Midjourney could use only publicly and legally viewable/accessible artworks. That would certainly be sufficient to have attain capabilities it currently has, as most artworks are publicly available. The point is to find a way to deploy genAI which is just as powerful and is copyright-okay, at least from the commercial distribution side. As a side note, I personally believe that if you publish something for everyone to see and interact with, your consent to what I do with it is morally not so important. There are certain things I could do which would make me mean or disrespectful to you, like to make a parody of your work, but none of them go so far in being immoral that you should have any legal power to stop me from doing them.

hammyhavoc 3y ago
If what you said is correct then why do things like this happen? https://80.lv/articles/meta-has-reportedly-trained-its-ai-with-pirated-books-despite-warnings-from-lawyers/ https://80.lv/articles/meta-has-reportedly-trained-its-ai-wi... There's plenty of stuff in the public domain. There's also a big war chest they could pay authors and publishers via, they also know what they've trained it on. Unethical. Just because something is publicly available doesn't mean you are permitted to use it as you see fit. As we've seen, generative AI can regurgitate what it was trained on: https://spectrum.ieee.org/midjourney-copyright https://spectrum.ieee.org/midjourney-copyright You're still missing the understanding of consent. If we are going to paint with broad strokes, are you supporting this? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/deepfake-nude-westfield-high-school-nj-b2440793.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/deepfake-nude-westfield-h... You can't tell me that's in any way OK—right? If you can agree that isn't OK then I must also assume that you can see from my perspective that something being publicly available or even privately available doesn't mean that I have consented to you doing as you please. Consent is important. It comes before everything, including commercialization and intent.
- golol 3y ago
  > If what you said is correct then why do things like this happen? You misunderstand what I am saying. I am interested in finding a way to deploy genAI that has no copyright issues from the commercial deployment side. I am not saying that this is what companies are doing right now. But I want to see if it is possible to provide the service they are providing, without the copyright issues. My point is not that midjourney didn't use non-publicly viewable data in their training, it is that they did not need to. I am confident their services can be replicated without using non-publicly viewable works. Then the copyright issues that remain are those of training on publicly-viewable but not copyright-owned works, and distributing the results commercially. These I am addressing in my OP. > Just because something is publicly available doesn't mean you are permitted to use it as you see fit. Again I am not so interested in discussing the training aspects, as many people would, for example, agree that training on publicly available data for scientific reasons, or to make some internal model whose results never get shown to the public, is quite okay. It is imo the easier issue to deal with so it is not the focus of my post. > If we are going to paint with broad strokes, are you supporting this? The issue of deepfakes can be dealt with on a level that does not involve copyright. It is not relevant to genAI vs copyright for me. > I must also assume that you can see from my perspective that something being publicly available or even privately available doesn't mean that I have consented to you doing as you please. For me, morally, I am allowed to think about your work in any way I wish, and I am also allowed to use pen and paper, a drawing board, or a computer to assist me in my considerations of your work. It is just my responsibility that the products of my considerations do not reach the public eye if they are be harmful, criminal or infringing etc. If I draw profit from your publicly available work, that is not necessarily to the detriment of you. If I use your posts on reddit to train my companies internal application filtering model then I am not taking anything away from you, and I am not infringing on your copyright. If, however, I train a model that copies your very funny tweeting style, and create a bot that makes twitter posts based on that, then I am potentially taking something away from you and potentially infringing on your copyright, depending on the similarity of my posts to your posts. If I create some PR-consulting company that creates tweets for customers and claims to own and sells the right to that intellectual property to their customers, then I am quite likely infringing on copyright because my model might have produced works for which you actually own the rights.
orangesite 3y ago
Wow… well I'm of the opinion that folk who believe my consent is morally not so important should go back to kindergarten for a refresher course on playing nice with others.
- golol 3y ago
  > There are certain things I could do which would make me mean or disrespectful to you, like to make a parody of your work, but none of them go so far in being immoral that you should have any legal power to stop me from doing them. Being mean is not and should not in general be a crime. There is asshole-immorality and should-be-illegal-immorality. In certain extreme circumstances, being mean is a crime (insult, extortion, harrassment, slander etc.), but it is not in general. Just consider parody, it is in often mean, from a plain view, but it is generally fair use.

by golol 3y ago

hammyhavoc 3y ago

If what you said is correct then why do things like this happen? https://80.lv/articles/meta-has-reportedly-trained-its-ai-with-pirated-books-despite-warnings-from-lawyers/ https://80.lv/articles/meta-has-reportedly-trained-its-ai-wi... There's plenty of stuff in the public domain. There's also a big war chest they could pay authors and publishers via, they also know what they've trained it on. Unethical. Just because something is publicly available doesn't mean you are permitted to use it as you see fit. As we've seen, generative AI can regurgitate what it was trained on: https://spectrum.ieee.org/midjourney-copyright https://spectrum.ieee.org/midjourney-copyright You're still missing the understanding of consent. If we are going to paint with broad strokes, are you supporting this? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/deepfake-nude-westfield-high-school-nj-b2440793.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/deepfake-nude-westfield-h... You can't tell me that's in any way OK—right? If you can agree that isn't OK then I must also assume that you can see from my perspective that something being publicly available or even privately available doesn't mean that I have consented to you doing as you please. Consent is important. It comes before everything, including commercialization and intent.

golol 3y ago
> If what you said is correct then why do things like this happen? You misunderstand what I am saying. I am interested in finding a way to deploy genAI that has no copyright issues from the commercial deployment side. I am not saying that this is what companies are doing right now. But I want to see if it is possible to provide the service they are providing, without the copyright issues. My point is not that midjourney didn't use non-publicly viewable data in their training, it is that they did not need to. I am confident their services can be replicated without using non-publicly viewable works. Then the copyright issues that remain are those of training on publicly-viewable but not copyright-owned works, and distributing the results commercially. These I am addressing in my OP. > Just because something is publicly available doesn't mean you are permitted to use it as you see fit. Again I am not so interested in discussing the training aspects, as many people would, for example, agree that training on publicly available data for scientific reasons, or to make some internal model whose results never get shown to the public, is quite okay. It is imo the easier issue to deal with so it is not the focus of my post. > If we are going to paint with broad strokes, are you supporting this? The issue of deepfakes can be dealt with on a level that does not involve copyright. It is not relevant to genAI vs copyright for me. > I must also assume that you can see from my perspective that something being publicly available or even privately available doesn't mean that I have consented to you doing as you please. For me, morally, I am allowed to think about your work in any way I wish, and I am also allowed to use pen and paper, a drawing board, or a computer to assist me in my considerations of your work. It is just my responsibility that the products of my considerations do not reach the public eye if they are be harmful, criminal or infringing etc. If I draw profit from your publicly available work, that is not necessarily to the detriment of you. If I use your posts on reddit to train my companies internal application filtering model then I am not taking anything away from you, and I am not infringing on your copyright. If, however, I train a model that copies your very funny tweeting style, and create a bot that makes twitter posts based on that, then I am potentially taking something away from you and potentially infringing on your copyright, depending on the similarity of my posts to your posts. If I create some PR-consulting company that creates tweets for customers and claims to own and sells the right to that intellectual property to their customers, then I am quite likely infringing on copyright because my model might have produced works for which you actually own the rights.

orangesite 3y ago

Wow… well I'm of the opinion that folk who believe my consent is morally not so important should go back to kindergarten for a refresher course on playing nice with others.

golol 3y ago
> There are certain things I could do which would make me mean or disrespectful to you, like to make a parody of your work, but none of them go so far in being immoral that you should have any legal power to stop me from doing them. Being mean is not and should not in general be a crime. There is asshole-immorality and should-be-illegal-immorality. In certain extreme circumstances, being mean is a crime (insult, extortion, harrassment, slander etc.), but it is not in general. Just consider parody, it is in often mean, from a plain view, but it is generally fair use.