Comment by ninth_ant | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ninth_ant | Hacker News Reader

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I don't feel like it's even slightly contradictory for Getty to simultaneously be OK with licensing their content to someone for AI modeling, but not being OK with a random unaffiliated company using their IP. It feels like pretty straightforward copyright management.

"Protecting artists" is not something they claimed as if they were opposed to AI usage at all. In their press release they said:

> It is Getty Images’ position that Stability AI unlawfully copied and processed millions of images protected by copyright and the associated metadata owned or represented by Getty Images absent a license to benefit Stability AI’s commercial interests and to the detriment of the content creators.

It's clear from this that the issue was not that Stability is an AI company, but that it's unlicensed. Getting an exclusive license to the images is specifically what they pay contributors for. Having those copyrights infringed by a competitor makes the content less valuable to Getty, and disincentivizes Getty from paying for new content in the future.

So yeah, it's plausible that this behaviour from Stability could harm content creators. Not because it's AI, but because its just run-of-the-mill unauthorized usage.

I do NOT require licensing to produce artwork, even if it may or may not be slightly/not so slightly inspired by so called 'copyrights'.

Me thinks you are an industry guy. You should read about all of the failed/lost cases that get swept under the rug.

I don't have a clue whether Stability AI will win this, it depends on their exact algorithm and how much they rely on source content, but if I draw something similar to the modern equivalent of the 'Mona Lisa', no, you don't have a right to it unless you can prove that in court. No, you can't copyright a painter painting a woman, either.

I am not an industry guy, nor do I make any claims about how successful the lawsuit will be. I am simply arguing that Getty is not being hypocritical in their position.

But now that you brought it up -- reproducing intact watermarks for Getty in multiple images as shown in the lawsuit feels like maybe your "slightly inspired" argument doesn't apply here.

> but if I draw something similar to the modern equivalent of the 'Mona Lisa'

But in this case you're not drawing anything. A little computer factory is. That same factory was built using images it didn't own.

Well, and here enlies the crux of the issue, can a non-human own or break copy right. You know not too long ago a guy gave a camera to a monkey, the photo that money took became popular and he wanted to capitalize, but the US copyright office clearly stated that they only copyright artistic works created by humans, not those created by non-humans. And it would extend that if non-humans cannot hold copyright, then they cannot break copyright.

Every human artist that ever lived(to my knowledge), heard, or saw someone else create a similar piece of art, from which they were inspired. If I create a song right now, how is that any different than an AI doing the same from being trained on copyrighted music. Certainly my song will be entirely made up of elements i've heard before, however large or small. An ML model is doing the same thing. There is nothing truly original in art. Artists are just filter and amplifiers of what they've heard, seen, and like. Your copyright does not permit you to restrict others from being inspired by your work, or using it for inspiration.

All good points.

> If I create a song right now, how is that any different than an AI

It's vastly different in the fact that you are a human and the other is more or less a program built for business. There is only one version of yourself and your output where the AI has unlimited copies of itself and is only stopped due to lack of processing power and electricity.

I think even AI companies know there is a big difference and is the reason they use non-profit and researcher datasets instead of their own.

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