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Comment by jeffhuys | Hacker News Reader

If it has value to them, what do you care? Does the value in your mind of <artpiece> drop when somebody creates <artpiece 2 in the style of artpiece>? If so, you might benefit from focussing more on your own life. I mean this lovingly, as I myself am going through the same thing right now; I realize I'll never be happy if I stay grumpy like this. You can't protect the world from itself.

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> If it has value to them, what do you care? Does the value in your mind of <artpiece> drop when somebody creates <artpiece 2 in the style of artpiece>?

That is the whole point of copyright, yes.

I believe you can't copyright a _style_ of art.

> no, you cannot copyright the Studio Ghibli art style itself. Copyright law doesn’t protect styles, techniques, or general aesthetics—like the hand-drawn, watercolor-inspired look with soft colors, detailed natural backgrounds, and whimsical vibes that Studio Ghibli is known for. It only protects specific, original works, like an individual film frame or character design from Spirited Away or My Neighbor Totoro.

And your answer... Doesn't seem to cover my question, I think. So the point of copyright is that the value of the style doesn't degrade?

Copyright is also just an outright fabricated concept intended to protect interest of authors. It can be expanded or removed as needed.

It's just like an API. The very definition can be changed upstream by patches. People seem to miss that.

Yes, of course! By all means, update the law. I don’t think anyone misses that part of being a human. Any concept we think of is fabricated.

But here’s the real meat of the issue I guess, how far do we wanna go? At what point SHOULD something be un-copyrightable? What describes a certain “style”? My style is black&white, can I copyright that?

What would your diff be? :)

Intellectual property is a consequence of capitalism, a sometimes necessary evil that is used to compel the consumers of intellectual output to pay into a system which produces it but which doesn't have any mechanism for compensating people for things that are not scarce in any way.

If we valued and supported artists without just seeing them as laborers, we could have a remix culture where no one really owns anything and no rights are reserved.

Because it discourages people from trying. It's hard enough to survive as an artist, and now there is even less sense in trying to start. This will hurt art, and humanity.

It's like pupils using an LLM to do their homework. They get the grade, but Idiocracy is awaiting.

Disagree. I think many people will actually be encouraged to try as the barrier to creating art has dropped and some of those people will decide to become more proficient at art.

It's photoshop all over again. It's computers all over again. It's camera's all over again. It's the paintbrush all over again. It's...

I agree with parent but not to this one. AI "art" has significantly lower quality and performance ceiling compared to all existing means.

AI image generation is a gateway drug. You quickly grow resistance, and you will face withdrawal, too.

And photography initially had lower quality and performance ceilings compared to portraitists and artists of the day. And today, photographers win awards for their work.

New tools and techniques that lower the barrier to entry always get over used, over hyped and bring in masses of people making everything from impressive new things to absolute cheap garbage. And then people learn the limitations, the tools get better and a lot of people stop using the tools because they realize there are still skills that go into the process and they aren’t interested in learning those skills. The tools find their place, and new masters rise into the new world. And then a new tool is created and we start the process all over again.

Wow. I've pointed this out before - but this is just a TERRIBLE take.

Comparing systems like DALL-E 3 and Midjourney to modern illustration software is a fool's errand. Even with advanced graphic design tools like Photoshop you still have to employ the same artistic skills that have been handed down for generations: 3-point perspective, shading, basic poses, and sketching, etc.

If you can't draw, the fanciest graphic manipulation software isn't going be of much help to you.

As opposed to some doofus who has the ability to type in the words "3D", "trending on artstation", "hyper-realistic,", and "4K" and then proceed to churn out thousands of images in a single day. Stable diffusion is more like the equivalent of having your own personal artist on permanent retainer.

More like having a photocopy machine with a noise function.

Well, it's a Pandora's Box. It's irreversible, so we as humanity should learn to cope with it. That's just reality. What's the alternative? Banning LLMs? Good luck because I have a few on my hard disk. And even if you make it illegal, how would you detect it? I could've used an LLM to write this comment, would you know?

I agree though that schools are even more in trouble now. But my point still stands: we have NO CHOICE. We must adapt, or Idiocracy awaits ;)

Outlawing LLMs would certainly work. You may have them on your harddrive, but almost nobody else has, and they certainly don't know how to use it, nor do they have the capacity to run anything like it.

Schools definitely have to adapt, but there's so much inertia there, and in many countries, schools have a perverse stimulus to make as many pupils graduate as they can. It'll take another lost generation, I'm afraid. And the makers and exploiters of LLMs can take the blame for that.

“Starving artist” trope.

I bet a LOT of people would be an artist if there was money in it. Most don’t attempt because of the poor risk/reward of that profession.

Well, there's less money in it now, since production and consumption of whatever you think you want to see or hear is easier and cheaper than ever. So there will be less attempting. QED, I suppose.

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