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Comment by eek2121 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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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