430
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
430 points (97.4% liked)
News
23625 readers
4127 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Doesn’t modern art include works that are simply paint streaks left on canvas from someone quickly swinging a brush with paint on it at a distance?
Why is the phrase used by an AI prompt not considered more effort than that? The former requires no thought, only movement. The latter requires an understanding of language, critical thinking and the ability to envision an end result that isn’t just a paint splatter.
Because in a Jackson Pollock painting, the artist was in complete control of his paintbrush as it swung through the air. Not to mention the choice of brush, the amount of paint, the color, etc. If there is a blue streak in the upper left, it's because Pollock wanted a blue streak in the upper left.
An AI prompt is more like handing your camera to a passerby in Paris and saying, "Please take a photo of me with the Eiffel Tower in the background". If your belt is visible in the photo, it's because the passerby wanted it there. That's why the passerby, not you, has a copyright over the result.
Your first paragraph is just nonsense. Please go try to swing a paintbrush and get every drop exactly where you want. It’s not possible. It’s literally why pollock painted that way.
Being in control does not mean achieving what you "want" or intend.
You are in control of your car, even if you unintentionally hit a tree. Likewise, Pollock controls his paintbrush, it is held by his hand which only he can move. If he flicks paint on his friend's new jacket that might not be his intent, yet he is still 100% responsible for that outcome.
Your words.
Yes, he wanted a blue streak in the upper left. That doesn't mean he intended every last drop of blue paint exactly as it landed. He is nevertheless responsible for every drop of paint, because he controlled the paintbrush and he is the one who caused them to fall where they fell.
Likewise, a surgeon wants to cure a patient with a scalpel. He doesn't necessarily intend every complication that happens to the patient. He is nevertheless fully responsible, because he fully controlled the scalpel that caused those complications.
Your logic literally applies the exact same to ai generated art. It’s quite clear you haven’t even tried it if you think that the artists are just asking for an entire image and then saying “all right. I’m all done here”.
Listen. I don’t think ai art should have a copyright either, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the logic you’re coming up with. Control net (or even just basic Adobe Photoshop now) allows anyone to do exactly what you are saying a “real” artist does.
The basic legal test has to do with control over the output. A prompt is not control. If you tell Stable Diffusion "draw a dog playing chess" then you do not control the creative choices made in the image. Thus, they are not protected.
That's why Pollock paintings can be copyrighted: the key creative choices were controlled by Pollock. He wanted some blue streaks in one area and some red streaks in a different area.
To the extent that AI output can be controlled, it can be copyrighted. If you take a photo and tell an AI, "desaturate this photo" then there is only one possible outcome. The lack of color in the product was fully under your control. Likewise if you say, "Copy dog.gif from my Documents folder to the bottom left corner of the image".
On the other hand if you say, "Add a dog to the image", then not so much. Who determined what the dog would look like? Not you. So the dog is in the public domain.
And once in the public domain, it will likely remain there even if you iterate your prompts, like "Elongate the snout and widen the eyes". For the same reason that you generally cannot copyright an image of the Mona Lisa even with minor alterations.
So if I tell the ai - create a canvas 12" x 12" and put 00FF13 colored paint via a 1" brush aligned 13 degrees in the upper left quadrant 2 inches down and to the right, then another in the bottom right quadrant 3" from the bottom and 2" from the right of 1200FF paint, is that not way more specific than buying paint at a store, doing some guestimation mixing of colors and splattering some on a canvas haphazardly?
Just trying to understand where the line of ML assisted art becomes non-artistic/non-copywritable. Is there a technical criteria? what about artists woh use Photoshop with ML derived filters for their final product? are those also not owned by the artist the moment that the ml tool is applied?
What if you create the model yourself with only your own training data? e.g. you are the only sole creator of the entire tool/model itself.
So many possibilities that create questions...
The cases where copyright was denied involved prompt-driven generative AI. At some point the artist admitted that some of the creative decisions were made by the AI.
In your first example, you made all the creative decisions. The same is true of many filters, for example if I apply a "50s cinema filter" then I know exactly what it will do. The AI doesn't get to make any decisions.
On the other hand, if you tell the AI to "add some clouds to the image" and the algorithm decides where they go, then the sky it produces is not protected. Only the elements you controlled are.
You clearly don’t understand how (lots of sophisticated) AI art is made. At what point does the generative capabilities in Photoshop (which you can give prompts to) become not controlling the output? At which point does control net (which literally allows you to pose models and replace every single thing about a scene along with numerous other features) become “controlling the output”.
“All decisions have to be controlled by the artist” isn’t how art works either. See any sort of public art, or even the paintings you make by literally just pouring paint on a canvas or hanging a bucket of paint by a string and having it move across a canvas and drip.
At the point where a creative decision is made that the user did not control, that element is not eligible for copyright.
So to return to my example: suppose a photographer takes a photo of a model and asks an AI to add a dog to the image. Unless the dog comes from one of their other photos, they can't copyright it (although they can still copyright the model).
Now suppose another photographer takes a photo of Mt Everest. They ask the same AI to add a dog to the image, which results in the same (or very similar) dog. The first photographer can't sue the second one for copyright infringement, because the first one didn't create that dog and therefore has no rights over it.
That's like asking "How many alterations do I have to make to an image of the Mona Lisa to transform it into something I can copyright it as my own work?"
The answer is: it's up to the judge. See: Lynn Goldsmith vs Andy Warhol
An artist pouring paint on canvas or hanging a bucket of paint on a string can still plausibly tell a judge that they controlled the output. The behavior of such mechanical devices is fully predictable by the user. Or they might claim that they controlled some elements of the output but not others. Then they can copyright the elements they controlled.
Of course if they want to lose their copyright, then they are free to tell everyone that they didn't really have any control over the output. See: Monkey selfie.
You can copyright a tangible thing that you personally created but you can't claim a copyright over the interaction of the public with what you created.
To the extent that members of the public contribute tangible creative elements to the work (for example inviting the public to decorate your work), those contributors will share the copyright with you over the final result.
Your logic means that every single photo touched by the “content aware delete” in Photoshop is ineligible for copyright which is hilariously incorrect. Your logic would not hold up in court (and hasn’t!).
No. No it’s not. The fact you still can’t understand the difference between controlling an image with tools and asking an AI to do everything for you is pretty dang clear. Your logic resides entirely on the user doing everything which is not how art works. Many, many, many, MANY pieces of art do not involve the artist doing anything except setting up the initial conditions and seeing what happens. Since your beliefs hinge so heavily on the fact that you think the artist has to control all aspects of the creation you are refusing to even notice that copyright has held up for these cases, cases not involving AI at all, cases hundreds of years old.
And here we see you misunderstanding why the monkey selfie wasn’t copyrightable. It was not because the artist didn’t control the output. It was because non-humans cannot hold copyright. This is the true reason that AI art shouldn’t be copyrightable. But even legal experts agree that if he had taken it to court that he would have gotten copyright on the monkey selfie. https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/monkey-selfie-copyright-lessons-originality-photographs-and-internet-jurisdiction
Your logic around this is not only flawed, it’s just absolutely incorrect and has been shown to be incorrect in court. Control of the artist is not the only arbiter of copyright and you seem to not even have a basic grasp of how basic features like content aware delete in Photoshop even work. I can guess pretty solidly that you have never touched Photoshop nor bothered with something like control net in order to understand the implications of their use as a tool in art are.
I didn't say anything about "content aware delete"
You still haven't grasped that copyright can be applied to some elements of a photo, but not others.
I've said many times that copyright protects the creative decisions in a work, which you can't seem to distinguish from "doing everything".
Now explain why Andy Warhol could not claim copyright over "Orange Prince". It has nothing to do with nonhumans or AI.
I'll give you a hint: it has to do with creative decisions. Or lack thereof.
Your logic is just absolutely horrendous and outright wrong. Please stop spreading misinformation.
If you want to make sure AI art can’t be copyrighted there are other actual logical reasons that I’ve already covered. Arguing with you when you clearly don’t understand what you’re talking about is incredibly annoying though so I’m gonna wish you a good day.
On the contrary, I'm just repeating what courts have already ruled.
You're the one spreading misinformation. For instance, you just suggested using AI to delete something would invalidate copyright over the rest of the image, which is simply nonsense.
Hmm.. what about pendulum painting? Where you put paint in a bucket, put a hole in it, and let it swing back and forth over the canvas?
On one side he chooses paint and size of hole and initial path and so on, but on the other hand he let nature and physics do the actual painting for him.
In this case, it sounds like all the key creative choices (eg form, color, background) were made by the artist.
No they weren’t. Their brush was being influenced by every piece they had seen before. None of those arguments are any different than the resin was in control of the prompt when they requested the image. This is nothing more than human/biological exceptionalism.
Copyright law is absolutely based on human exceptionalism, because it is meant to incentivize humans.
Indeed. ‘Fountain’ is widely recognised as a major landmark and it’s just a urinal in a museum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)