Disney sues Midjourney

[Scribe]

Fair use till you try to sell it, right?

If you drew it yourself? Yep.

 

[Waller]

And why should I care about businesses? They don't care about me. or about anyone. And they're disposable and replacable.

You’re talking about people. You’re saying that people are disposable and replaceable. You say you desire the ‘destruction’ of 90% of the population. You tell us your dream is to burn other peoples’ livelihoods to the ground.

No offence, dude, but you sound like a sociopath. Tyler Durden wasn’t the hero of that film. I think you took away the wrong message.

 

[Bohandas]

And that is why we need regulation. Thank you for giving me the basis of the point.

Regulation to protect the consumer. Or to protect people from businesses. Yes.

But not regulation on people.

 

[Bohandas]

You’re talking about people. You’re saying that people are disposable and replaceable. You say you desire the ‘destruction’ of 90% of the population. You tell us your dream is to burn other peoples’ livelihoods to the ground.

No offence, dude, but you sound like a sociopath. Tyler Durden wasn’t the hero of that film. I think you took away the wrong message.

No I said that businesses are disposible and replacable. Businesses are not people. Business is the opposite of life and humanity.

They can be primarily made of people, in a similar way to how the Human Centipede* was made of people, but that does not make the whole a person nor does it make the whole a good thing.

I could even accept that the whole of the business might constitute a mind of sorts, but even if it did it wouldn't be a person's mind, it would be something amoral and alien and hungry

*EDIT: Or the Borg collective. The Borg Collective might be a better analogy

 

[Umbran]

Regulation to protect the consumer. Or to protect people from businesses. Yes.

But not regulation on people.

Two things:
1) Businesses are made of people. There are no business decisions made or actions taken that aren't ultimately made by people.
2) You don't have to be a business to harm others.

 

[MoonSong]

Two things:
1) Businesses are made of people. There are no business decisions made or actions taken that aren't ultimately made by people.
2) You don't have to be a business to harm others.

3) Businesses are made of shareholders (people with the money) and stakeholders (people who rely on the business) When the business fails, the stakeholders suffer while the shareholders remain unharmed or even make more money than before.

 

[Rabulias]

I wonder if AI makers, trainers, and/or owners will get slapped with a royalty fee paid out to copyright holders like digital recorders and digital media do. The pool of potentially infringed creators is many orders of magnitude larger than just musicians, though...

IANAL, but I think this case will ultimately go against Disney. If I understand the case correctly, their problem is that the AI can make perfect new illustrations (not copies) of Disney characters. A sufficiently talented human could do the same and Disney could do nothing against them so long as they were making the illustrations strictly for their own personal use.

On the other hand, the current legal/judicial environment in the US is more favorable to corporations, so I don't know. And that's about as far into politics as I want to go on this.

 

[Blue]

Seems simple enough. If Collecting the material and using it to create an AI is deemed fair use then that places no further obligation on them to enforce how others use the ai. This is the ai is a tool philosophy.

Circular argument. You're attempting to convince that it should be fair use, you can't do that assuming it's already covered by fair use.

 

[Umbran]

IANAL, but I think this case will ultimately go against Disney. If I understand the case correctly, their problem is that the AI can make perfect new illustrations (not copies) of Disney characters.

My understanding is (and someone correct me if I am wrong) the suit isn't that it "can". You cannot pursue copyright infringement in potentia.

The case is that 1) it HAS done so, and 2) Midjourney has effectively advertised/ marketed the service on that basis.

The suit isn't about potential future infringement, but about current infringement that was intentional on the company's part.

If you are actively encouraging the behavior, the "we have no control" defense withers.

A sufficiently talented human could do the same and Disney could do nothing against them so long as they were making the illustrations strictly for their own personal use.

Sorry, but that's tu quoque, aka "whataboutism", a logical fallacy. In copyright law, the rights holder explicitly DOES NOT have to enforce their rights the same way in all cases. So, that a human can do it is irrelevant to the case.

On the other hand, the current legal/judicial environment in the US is more favorable to corporations, so I don't know.

Well, this suit is between corporations. It is not clear where a pro-corp stance gets you then.

 

[trappedslider]

I wonder if AI makers, trainers, and/or owners will get slapped with a royalty fee paid out to copyright holders like digital recorders and digital media do. The pool of potentially infringed creators is many orders of magnitude larger than just musicians, though...

IANAL, but I think this case will ultimately go against Disney. If I understand the case correctly, their problem is that the AI can make perfect new illustrations (not copies) of Disney characters. A sufficiently talented human could do the same and Disney could do nothing against them so long as they were making the illustrations strictly for their own personal use.

so I made this over at nightcafe using the prompt "Darth Vader with hands on hips while wearing mickey mouse ears"

Spoiler

Disney doesn't like i was able to do that if i understand their issue.

Side note: An artist that i'm aware of had this to say about taking commissions "I'm really not happy with this one, so I'm redrawing the top half right now. It was a commission, so I feel like I gotta get it right, but at the same time, I don't have any personal feelings for it. I think I gotta stop taking commissions, because I have no naughty word clue what I've been drawing recently. I'm not different than an AI that vomits images based on prompts. "

I wonder how many other artist share his feelings about commissions. I'm sure the number is way smaller than the artist who enjoy taking and earning money from commissions.