this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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This is a bad faith reading. The argument isn't that "someone else did it first" - the argument is that the concern over copyright is suspiciously sudden. No one has gotten mad about danbooru - or Reddit, or Facebook, or any of the other billions of sites that use content created by others to draw users and make a profit from ad revenue. Why are people mad about some neckbeard's $3/month patreon based on an unoriginal art style, but not about Facebook (etc) destroying the entire thing that used to be called journalism? Danbooru literally stole the work, why is no one mad about that? Why are they only mad when someone figuratively steals the work?
AI art has a similar potential to do to set what Facebook did to journalism - I just wrote a long post about it in another reply in this thread so I won't repeat it all here - but, wealthy corporations will be able to use AI art to destroy the career of being an artist. That's what's dangerous about AI.
No, what is bad faith is to dismiss the valid concerns of artists just because there is a different issue that they have to deal with also.
Many of these artists already struggle with unauthorized sharing of their works. Some go through great lengths to try to take down their works from image boards, others simply accept it as being a reality of the internet. The thing is, even those who accept unauthorized sharing of their works, do so in hopes that their official profiles will be linked back and they might still benefit from it through their shops, crowdfunding or commissions. Something that is very much not a thing with AI, because AI does not credit or link back to the works that were used to train it, even when it accepts prompts to directly imitate their style. I understand that this is due to how AI works, that ultimately it doesn't keep the works themselves... but for the artists that makes no difference. To them, all that matters is that people copied their works to get similar artworks for free, without asking their permission or offering any compensation. That they are losing customers and work opportunities to something that relied on their work to function to begin with.
Pointing fingers at Danbooru not only glosses over many particularities of the matter, but it's a low effort attempt to call artists hypocrites and disregard their concerns. But who said they aren't mad about Danbooru? AI using it for training is itself a whole series of new violations that only compound to it. One thing does not excuse the other, much on the contrary.
And if you want to talk about journalism, there definitely is a lot to discuss there, but that's not the topic here.
First off, I'm going to stop writing out "computer generated imagery" and start saying CGI, please understand I mean this kind of AI art we're taking about, not avengers movies special effects.i know it's already a taken acronym but I hate calling it AI, so, until we come up with something better...
A big part of what I'm saying is that the CGI issue is just this, but weirder. And I'm not saying it's not weird - it definitely is - but this particular concern, to me, seems disingenuous because of the above quote. All CGI does is change some of the venues people in group A scour.
Regarding credit - this is kind of sticky. There are two (well, more than 2, but 2 relevant here) parts of IP law: copyright and license.
Copyright is a default, you-don't-have-to-do-anything protection against people profiting off of your work. I right click/save your photo, I put it on my site and sell copies for $50. This is legally actionable. It's not criminal - but it's actionable. Profit is a requirement here; if I share your work with my friend - or even post it on my non-monetized website - there's not really anything you can do. I can even tell everyone it's mine - copyright law does not care. You would have to be able to prove that I'm profiting somehow or else I'll be able to use a fair use defense. (And it will be a legitimate use of fair use.)
License law governs our ability to allow people to use our work. Legally, we're allowed to write contracts and have others sign them which outline parameters of permission. These are legally actionable - but only if the other party signs. Most of what we see in terms of DMCA takedowns is people who are profiting off the work; the copyright owner basically says, take my shit down, or but a license for $x. Both parties need to agree to a licensing agreement - but, again, most of the time, it's not really optional, because the person is infringing on the copyright.
If the person isn't infringing on copyright, they don't have to do anything. This is what fair use is for: we all have the right to learn and grow and share from each other's work - with the exception that, if your try to make money off it, that's not going to fly.
So, unless there's copyright infringement, an artist has to right to demand a name check or a link back. I mean, you can ask, but I can just say no.
Profit is vital here - if a person isn't making money off their CGI, legally, they're in the clear.
But the thing is, the models one uses to create CGI with stable diffusion or whatever, they have their own licenses - the kind that are like terms of service. "You can use this, but by doing so you're agreeing to the license terms." And models that have been trained on "illegitimate" content have licenses that bar the user from (directly) profiting from the work.
(This is why patreon is the main source of income for infringers - and patreon shuts them down if you complain, even without any legal documentation. But, again, I feel this community is microscopic. Sure, it's sketchy and shitty, but it's on such a minute scale compared to other infringements.)
So, if you really think that the very few people who are making $5/month are a bigger issue than the film industry legally using "free" CGI to suppress artist wages, then I really feel like your priorities are misaligned.
I definitely don't mean that artists are hypocrites. Artists just want to do their thing and get credit and maybe even money. They're the victims - regardless of whether I'm right or type right, in either case, artists are the victims. Tho tbh I'm lowkey offended at your implication that only an artist should be concerned about artists losing revenue via CGI. And, also, I'm not saying "danbooru did it first" and wagging my finger at you for not breaking their door down.
I'm saying that the reason the art was used to train these models is because it was on danbooru. Or Reddit, or imgur, or whatever.
(I think danbooru is actually as much a software company as a image site? So I'm not even sure if they're the right name to use. I always use their name because Stable Diffusion uses their tag system, but idk if that's fair.)
Blaming Stable Diffusion for danbooru's infringement is sideways. Like, imagine I plugged the power in my house to piggyback off of yours. Then my friend comes over and plugs his gaming rig in and draws a shit ton of power. Are you going to be mad at him, or me?
Regarding journalism - what I meant by that is that artists are facing the same threat journalists faced, and if we don't start fighting the fight that will save them, they won't be saved. And the "you trained your model on my shit without asking" argument is not going to save them.
First of all, copyright infringement is not a wire that when you cut off one side the other one is also unplugged. When you take down one infringer, every other one that took it from them is still up. C&D'ing Danbooru is not going to take their works off AI models.
Secondly, the easy answer here is both. I don't see why you think "your friend" gets to get away scot-free. They are mooching just the same and you think they gotta get a free pass? Did you read what I said about linking? Even in your analogy, maybe I already complained to you, maybe I agreed to let you use it if you hand out my business cards, but then comes your friend offering my power cord along with Steve and Mary's to the whole neighboorhood and not even telling where he got that.
Also, no, profiting is not required for it to be a copyright violation liable to pursuing. The rights owners can take down any work that is not licensed by them. Generally they only don't bother because having an eternal whack-a-mole with the internet is expensive and tiresome. But that doesn't mean it's fair use. Fair use has specific requirements.
No idea why you think this is just about $5 patreons though. Seems like most of the major models have been trained on copyrighted works without authorization.