Munchies:
That said, Photoshop isn't inherently theft, unlike AI art. It's gotten so bad that artists - some of whom use Photoshop - are turning to programs like Glaze to prevent art theft.
Letters And Numbers:
I didn’t say anything about Photoshop being theft. You should reread the conversation. You were talking about artificial beauty standards and I said that Photoshop gets used interchangeably with airbrush when you’re talking about how pictures (mostly of women) online and in magazines are doctored. Which is not the software’s fault, it’s the magazine editor, etc. it’s a human problem, the software is just software. A paintbrush is just a paintbrush. They’re tools.
Munchies:
Earlier in the conversation, people, including myself, said that AI art is theft. This is why I brought it up, and why I am making the distinction.
The theft is baked into the software's programming. To talk about AI art without the theft is to paint an incomplete picture. The only way for the software to work is by scraping data - mostly without consent. The program cannot exist without it.
This is different from airbrushing (which isn't inherently Photoshop, but for the sake of arguement, we'll say that it is). The software isn't inherently one thing or another. It's a tool that humans control to achieve whatever outcome they want.
Letters And Numbers:
AI art software is 2 years old, commercially, right? If there was AI software that only scraped Getty images, for example, and had a license to do that, it would not be theft (really copyright infringement or violations of fair use statutes), correct? The fact that it doesn’t currently work this way today doesn’t mean that’s not where it’s headed. Cars in 1910 didn’t have seatbelts. They all do now, and it’s because people were damaged and standards were set. Fair use is probably the most immediate problem with AI, but also the easiest to solve. But it’s a real problem! And the current Supreme Court is very on the side of the original copyright holder as seen in the Prince/Warhol case this year. Only Kagen and Roberts dissented. There’s a 1st amendment case on the other side, too, though. If scraping scans of magazines to get images for AI is theft (it’s not, legally, it might be copyright infringement or violations of fair use statutes), so is the the kid in her bedroom cutting up magazines to make a collage. It’s just a different application, but I don’t get my blood pressure up about people making collages, even with very famous images. I don’t get upset about samples in hip hop. If the record company wants to pay to clear them, that’s great, but ultimately as the listener, I kinda don’t care about a 2 second sample. I think it’s transforming the sample into something new. I don’t think a bar band should have to pay Creedence Clearwater Revival every time they play a cover of Proud Mary. But if they’re going to commercially release an album of cover songs they probably need the mechanical rights to do so. I think Negativland is great and they made art and I don’t care that they pissed off U2’s publishing company. But they’re complicated questions. I think, at least. It’s a good discussion here, sincerely!
Munchies:
I've explained the situation in detail and included sources. I am not sure if you read my sources, or there's something I am not explaining well. But the things you are talking about aren't comparable to what I am talking about.
The AI art programs are not just scraping from big publications or magazines. They are also scraping from smaller creators. I'm talking about people who make art for a living or side hustle. In fact, programs like Glaze were made specifically for these people in mind. (It's in the article.)
And if you think it's okay for these programs to scrape their hard work for the software to have data, then I have nothing more to say to you.
I think we mostly agree, actually (and I said as much on the first page of this thread). I don’t think AI scraping will work the same way at all in 5 or 10 years. We’re in an adjustment period. In a year Amazon went from having no policy about AI content to a very weak policy, and I expect by next year they will have a much more robust policy. That’s just one example but it’s all happening very fast.
I do think it raises interesting questions about fair use the same way collages or sampling or prints of Campbell’s Soup cans do. I expect AI cases to hit the Supreme Court within a couple of years. They will be interesting to follow.
