← Back to context

Comment by mvieira38

9 days ago

It's an IP theft machine. Humans wouldn't be allowed to publish these pictures for profit, but OpenAI is allowed to "generate" them?

I would 100% be allowed to draw an image of Indiana Jones in illustrator. There is no law against me drawing his likeness.

I'm honestly trying to wrap my head around the law here because copyright is often very confusing.

If I ask an artist to draw me a picture of Indiana Jones and they do it would that be copyright infringement? Even if it's just for my personal use?

  • Probably that would be a derrivative work. Which means the original owner would have some copyright in it.

    It may or may not be fair use, which is a complicated question (ianal).

  • IANAL, but if OpenAI makes any money/commercial gains from producing a Ghibli-esque image when you ask, say you pay a subscription to OpenAI. What percentage of that subscription is owed to Ghibli for running Ghibli art through OpenAI's gristmill and providing the ability to create that image with that "vibe/style" etc. How long into perpetuity is OpenAI allowed to re-use that original art whenever their model produces said similar image. That seems to be the question.

    • Yeah that's fair, I'm trying to create an analogy to other services which are similar to help me understand.

      If e.g. Patreon hosts an artist who will draw a picture of Indiana Jones for me on commission, then my money is going to both Patreon and the artist. Should Patreon also police their artists to prevent reproducing any copyrighted characters?

      4 replies →

  • I would think yes. Consider the alternate variation where the artist proactively draws Indiana Jones, in all his likeness, and attempts to market and sell it. The same exchange is ultimately happening, but this clearly is copyright infringement.

To me a lot has to do with what a human does with them one the tool generates them no?

Won't somebody think of the billionaire IP holders? The horror.

  • And the small up and coming artists whose work is also stolen, AI-washed, and sold to consumers for a monthly fee, destroying the market for those up and coming artists to sell original works. You don't get to pretend this is only going to hurt big players when there are already small players whose livelihoods have been ruined.