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Comment by dagmx | Hacker News Reader

The comments here seem to be focusing on the "offensive" part of the discussion rather than the copyright angle which is far more interesting.

The inclusion of copyright characters will be a huge deal IMHO, and Meta as the creator within a product that provides them commercial gain will likely not be able to claim fair use.

The technical challenges of cleaning up their data set to images that are legally safe will be interesting, but it also means that their training set includes lots of copyright imagery already. Which will mean that they're potentially open for even more legal headaches

Even more interesting is how they’d need to filter out studio specific depictions. E.g rapunzel is public domain but not Disneys depiction.

That’s before you get into individual artist rights as well, but at thethe corporation level this is fascinating

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Yeah, people are parsing the headline wrong. The "problem" here clearly isn't Mickey Mouse doing something offensive, it's Mickey Mouse doing something offensive. One of the most copyright-litigious corporations will definitely take issue with their mascot being flagrantly misused by a company that has the legal staff to know better.

Not just Disney but Nintendo too! They just sleepwalked into a bear trap.

I’d bet on a cease and desist being sent imminently.

Followed by a blocked list of certain terms, and then followed by people trying to game it to get around the filters.

Honestly, it perplexes me how little thought must have gone into the logistics here by Meta. But at the same time they’ve shown this level of disregard for all their tech

Why did the article exclusively highlight offensive examples then? Why not just "Facebook's AI stickers can generate Mickey Mouse"? Why did they show that it can generate child soldiers? That's not infringing on IP.

Because it's specifically the combination that's toxic to Meta. "Mickey Mouse stickers" gets you a standard C&D. "Disney Characters doing things that Disney perceives as damaging to their family friendly™ brand" gets you a rabid lawyer personally handing you the C&D and instructing you to fix it now.

I.E. not only is it offensive, it's offensive in a legally actionable way. Which I suppose is the opposite of my earlier emphasis, but different context.

Okay? So people here should have the ability to not look at things at purely a surface level.

But regardless, the act of trademarked character doing something that damages the brands image is definitely a lot worse than just infringement alone.

The comment I was replying to was specifically saying that people are misunderstanding the article because they're misinterpreting the headline. Are we talking about what the article should have been about or what it's actually about? Because it's actually about the offensive angle.

Genuinely curious, I don’t see how this isn’t fair use? Probably one of the reason Facebook doesn’t “charge” for this.

Try making a Mickey Mouse animation and release it for free. Then shout "FAIR USE, FAIR USE!" when the Mouse's lawyers burn your house down and take everything that's left =)

It doesn't matter whether the result is sold or not, copyright law doesn't care.

For peasants like us, it of course is out of the question. But for a 800B company (Meta) vs a 150B company (Disney), the conversation is very different.

not a lawyer, but what can they take if you don't gain?

maybe they could cite brand harm which might have monetary implications.

If you're using someone else's copyright, you're effectively stealing from them. It literally doesn't matter if you don't make money off it.

A quick search provided this link: https://www.kent.edu/it/civil-and-criminal-penalties-violati...

    Penalties for copyright infringement include civil and criminal penalties. In general, anyone found liable for civil copyright infringement may be ordered to pay either actual damages or "statutory" damages affixed at not less than $750 and not more than $30,000 per work infringed. For "willful" infringement, a court may award up to $150,000 per work infringed. A court can, in its discretion, also assess costs and attorneys' fees. For details, see Title 17, United States Code, Sections 504, 505.

    Willful copyright infringement can also result in criminal penalties, including imprisonment of up to five years and fines of up to $250,000 per offense.

Let's say you make a free animation with Mickey, Minnie and Goofy. If (when) The Mouse's lawyers are really good, they'll claim that's 3 works that have been wilfully infringed on. That's 150k * 3.

Using a generated image that looks like some character is not in any way infringing on copyright.

> Copyright applies when you reuse the exact artwork someone else created.

For your own sake, talk to an IP lawyer before you rely on this belief.

Have you talked to an IP lawyer?

So you're claiming that if I draw a Mickey Mouse myself, I can do whatever I want with it. Disney's copyright doesn't apply?

You really need to look up what copyright is. It has the word "copy" in the name, but it doesn't mean what you think it means.

Yes, exactly. It's your own image. You might've based it on a trademark or another copyrighted work and that changes what you can do with your image and in what cases, but you own the copyright for the image you created.

They can stop you from infringing.

It’s not a paid for feature, but it’s a project that is part of their monetization (ads, data etc) and continued engagement.

Put another way, it’s a value add for something that makes them money and not educational in nature either.

Otherwise one could use any IP for advertising their non-paid for products. Which for Meta is everything.

Not making an assessment of this case, but not all use is fair use. Whether or not money is being charged for it generally isn't relevant to that determination.

If you look at the standard tests for fair use, how do you think this is fair use?

It's not in the context of education or criticism or even parody or anything else.

You can't sell a product and include Mickey Mouse stickers with it. This is basically that. (Even if users aren't purchasing, it's selling ads.)

This is a nitpick, but likenesses of cartoon characters are protected by trademark rather than copyright.

Yeah, sorry I meant trademark from copyrighted materials.

Worth noting: fair use is a US based approach, and is a “defence” a number of other countries allow copying material for equivalent reasons as a “right”, and it’s managed by a copyright agency.

Of course this Mickey Mouse thing is probably trademark more than copyright. There isn’t fair use for trademark

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