Disney sues Midjourney

[MoonSong]

Bruh, that's a stretch too far.

You can either say that the AI is generating the copyrighted image, in which case it is liable for the infringement, or you can say that it does in conjunction with another (like an artist under work for hire) ... in which case it's the person who provided the prompt AND the AI (the company).


I get that people like to spin legal fantasies, but the idea that, if an image is infringing, it just came from nowhere doesn't hold water.

Put more simply- are you making an argument based on any actual law, or based on what you wish to be true? There is a difference.

Also with a Xerox, as well as stuff like a CD-Burner, the company is only providing the means to produce a copy, but the material copied is provided by the user. In the cases of Gen-AI, the system itself has the information to produce the infringing copy, which means it is storing some form of the original content within itself. It has to be told to do it, but the user doesn't need to procure an original, everything is already there.

 

[Bohandas]

This was a couple of weeks back--I meant to post about it then.

Artificial intelligence: Disney and Universal sue Midjourney over copyright

The Hollywood studios allege Midjourney's image generator is a "bottomless pit of plagiarism".

www.bbc.co.uk

But yeah, as I've been saying for ages, the people who stop the AI scraping of copyrighted works isn't us, it's the Disneys of the world, via the court system. When the AIs are scraping Star Wars and Mickey Mouse and stuff, that's when they'll step in. And they're the ones with the clout and the power to actually punch these AI companies. Guess they scraped the wrong thing!

The suit describes the AI companies as "a bottomless pit of plagiarism". They say "Piracy is piracy, and the fact that it's done by an AI company does not make it any less infringing".

It's not just Disney, either. Universal, too.

Disney is a bottomless pit of regulatory capturing copyright trolls and the world would be better off without them, without Universal Studios, without any othernprofitable movie studio or publisher, and most importantly without copyright law.

I hope that AI steamrolls over Disney and over every person or business who has ever benefitted from copyright law and destroys them.

This was my opinion long before AI. Big business should not own our shared culture. And if the cost of that is that small time artists can't do business either* then so be it. And if the for-profit content industry doesnt exist anymore, to me that's a bonus**. Even without AI there are more than enough people making art for its own sake to provide for consumer needs. I can't think of a single solitary reason why I should care.

*Which is questionable anyway. Only big corporations have the money to actually pursue a copyright case. The only thing that copyright law does for small time artists is to keep them from getting their art back after they sign away their soul to The Mouse.
**I'm in favor of anthing that replaces an expensive industry with an inexpensive machine

 

[Umbran]

I hope that AI steamrolls over Disney and over every person or business who has ever benefitted from copyright law and destroys them.

Mod Note:
Okay, we allow folks to have strong opinions on this site, but there are bounds on wishing harm on people. And, much as you assert otherwise, the fact of the matter is that every single artist who has done work that wasn't "for-hire" (like most novelists), has benefitted from copyright law.

Wanting all those people "destroyed" is rather over-the-top.

So, we have to ask you to keep the rhetoric down to a dull roar. Keep your wishes of personal harm to others on venues where they like that kind of thing.

 

[Umbran]

Even without AI there are more than enough people making art for its own sake to provide for consumer needs.

At the moment. But, moments change. If nobody can make a living creating that art, there will be far fewer works created, as folks will have to use their time engage in other work to put food on the table. They won't be able to devotee their lives to the skills of art, and overall quality will perforce generally drop.

I can't think of a single solitary reason why I should care.

Go read up on what happens when generative AI is trained on generative AI. The result is... degenerative AI. And if the amount of independent creation drops, and the space gets filled with AI work, then you end up training future AIs in a... data-incestuous manner. And then you get crap output.

If you don't want crap forever, you should care.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I hope that AI steamrolls over Disney and over every person or business who has ever benefitted from copyright law and destroys them.

That would be every RPG designer, artist, author, editor, map creator, mini sculptor, journalist, video game designers, programmers, and actors.

Essentially everything ENWorld does or reports on.

I personally would like to go back to 28 years of copyright but not only blowing up 8% of the economy out of spite but also disincentivizing future creative work is pretty extreme. I mean, even Karl Marx asserted in the first edition of Capital "The right of translation is reserved." So even the socialist exerted his copyrights.

 

[MoonSong]

Disney is a bottomless pit of regulatory capturing copyright trolls and the world would be better off without them, without Universal Studios, without any othernprofitable movie studio or publisher, and most importantly without copyright law.

I hope that AI steamrolls over Disney and over every person or business who has ever benefitted from copyright law and destroys them.

This was my opinion long before AI. Big business should not own our shared culture. And if the cost of that is that small time artists can't do business either* then so be it. And if the for-profit content industry doesnt exist anymore, to me that's a bonus**. Even without AI there are more than enough people making art for its own sake to provide for consumer needs. I can't think of a single solitary reason why I should care.

*Which is questionable anyway. Only big corporations have the money to actually pursue a copyright case. The only thing that copyright law does for small time artists is to keep them from getting their art back after they sign away their soul to The Mouse.
**I'm in favor of anthing that replaces an expensive industry with an inexpensive machine

Without Copyright, there are no rights to sell. It is just whoever has the most money capturing our shared culture through driving everybody else out of business. Before copyright that is what happened. Copyright gives us a framework to contain the power of the media moguls. Yes believe it or not having a legal framework is better than the anarchic Wild West.

The AI moguls winning over the media companies means they will now own everything in our culture. It means killing the ability for people to do art. Not because we will stop, but having no way to monetize it and losing all control over it once it exists, on top of a lot of other jobs vanishing means there will be a lot less of it. Seriously, this might feel like Alien V Predator, but we need to remember we can coexist with one while the other will only mindlessly consume us.

And these machines aren't cheap and won't get any cheaper once any of the big companies wins and establishes monopoly power. The current prices are the subsidized version that doesn't cover any of the operating costs by any reasonable margin. Once one wins and the shareholders money dries up the cost will skyrocket. These systems consume loads of electricity and need very expensive equipment. And these requirements will only grow.

 

[Bohandas]

Without Copyright, there are no rights to sell. It is just whoever has the most money capturing our shared culture through driving everybody else out of business. Before copyright that is what happened.

More importantly before the internet that's what happened. Copyright is the only thing keeping the businesses that copyright was supposed to protect people from on life support.

The same goes for your worries about AI. How woukd they keep a monopoly of their program when anyone with basic utilities and a few gigabytes of drive space can copy it

At the moment. But, moments change. If nobody can make a living creating that art, there will be far fewer works created, as folks will have to use their time engage in other work to put food on the table. They won't be able to devotee their lives to the skills of art, and overall quality will perforce generally drop

I don't buy that. Personally I fondly remember the era of netbook RPG supplements, the heyday of Newgrounds, the dawn of Youtube, etc.

Youtube in particularly has only gotten worse since everyone there started chasing monetization.

Also, what about the hundreds of indie webcomics that piggybacked off of MSPA's old forum and posted their updates as forum posts? They were as good as the main comic and not monetized at all.

If you don't want crap forever, you should care.

As long as corporate content rules the day, crap forever is what we'll get regardless. At least with AI it will be bespoke crap.

 

[Umbran]

Also, what about the hundreds of indie webcomics that piggybacked off of MSPA's old forum and posted their updates as forum posts?

Never heard of MSPA before today. Means absolutely nothing to me.

Reading about it... it looks like MSPA itself was monetized for its creator, who.... eventually sold publishing rights to Homestuck to VIZ Media. So that itself... not exactly a poster child for your cause.

For whatever was on their forums... lost to obscurity as far as I am concerned. It is almost as if the reach of your art may depend on having a reason to advertise its existence.

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm fine with copyright but probably not 95 years of it.

 

[Morrus]

I hope that AI steamrolls over Disney and over every person or business who has ever benefitted from copyright law and destroys them.

It’s been a while since anybody has told me to my face that they hope for my destruction.