Anthropic cut up millions of used books, and downloaded 7M pirated ones – judge

If the AI movement will manage to undermine Imaginary Property, it would redeem it's externalities threefold.

I don’t think that’s gonna happen. I think they will manage to get themselves out of trouble for it, while the rest of us will still face serious problems if we are caught torrenting even one singular little book.

It would be great, but I think some are worried that new AI BigTech will find a way to continue enforcing IP on the rest of society while it won't exist for them

Even so, would be hard to prove that this particular little book wasn't generated by Claude (oopsie, it happens to be a verbatim copy of a copyrighted work, that happens sometimes, those pesky LLMs).

That would render GPL and friends redundant too... copyleft depends on copyright.

I think that we are worried because I think that's exactly what's going to happen/ is happening.

What are your feelings about how the small fish is stripped of their arts, and their years of work becomes just a prompt? Mainly comic artists and small musicians who are doing things they like and putting out for people, but not for much money?

You just need to audit their system. Shouldn't take more than a couple of hours.

"But think about the children". The copyright system is doing too much damage to culture and society. Yes, it does provides a pond for some small fish, but the overall damage outweighs this. Like the fact that first estate provided sustainable for arts and crafts to flourish doesn't make the ancient régime any less screwed up.

I think I have worded my question wrong. I asked about not about how AI affects the financials of these smaller artists, but their wellbeing in general.

There are many small artists who do this not for money, but for fun and have their renowned styles. Even their styles are ripped off by these generative AI companies and turned into a slot machine to earn money for themselves. These artists didn't consent to that, and this affects their (mental) well-beings.

With that context in mind, what do you think about these people who are not in this for money is ripped out of their years of achievement and their hard work exploited for money by generative AI companies?

It's not about IP (with whatever expansion you prefer) or laws, but ethics in general.

Substitute comics for any medium. Code, music, painting, illustration, literature, short movies, etc.

(Shrug) If you want things to stay the same, both art and technology are bad career choices.

(Huh) What if you are in the field to advance it, and somebody steals your work and claims it as their own?

e.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44460552

It's true that intellectual property is a flawed and harmful mechanism for supporting creative work, and it needs to change, but I don't think ensuring a positive outcome is as simple as this. Whether or not such a power struggle between corporate interests benefits the public rather than just some companies will be largely accidental.

I do support intellectual property reform that would be considered radical by some, as I imagine you do. But my highest hopes for this situation are more modest: if AI companies are told that their data must be in the public domain to train against, we will finally have a powerful faction among capitalists with a strong incentive to push back against the copyright monopolists when it comes to the continuous renewal of copyright terms.

If the "path of least resistance" for companies like Google, Microsoft, and Meta becomes enlarging the public domain, we might finally begin to address the stagnation of the public domain, and that could be a good thing.

But I think even such a modest hope as that one is unlikely to be realized. :-\

The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls

Yup.

My response to this whole thread is just “good”

Aaron Swartz is a saint and a martyr.

I see your point, "AI art" sucks in general and this is ethically sketchy as hell, but AIAK style copying has never been covered by copyright in the first place. Yea, it sucks to be alienated form your works. That's one of the externalites I mentioned in the original comment. But there is simply no remedy there. That's how the reality is.

It will undermine it only for the rich owner of AI companies, not for everyone.

Thanks for your answer, and taking your time for writing it!

Yes, style copying is generally considered legal, but as another commenter posted in a related thread "scale matters".

Maybe this will be reconsidered in the near future as the scale is in a much more different level with Generative AI. While there can be no technological solution to this (since it's a social problem to begin with), maybe public opinion about this issue will evolve over time.

To be crystal clear: I'm not against the tech. I'm against abusing and exploiting people for solely monetary profit.

(1) You can't copyright an art style. That's not a thing.

(2) Once you make something publicly available, anyone can learn from it. No consent necessary.

(3) Being upset does not grant you special privileges under the law.

(4) If you don't like the idea of paying for AI art, free software is both plentiful and competitive with just about anything proprietary.

Copyleft nullifies copyright. Abolishing copyright and adding right to repair laws (mandatory source files) would give the same effect as everyone using copylefted licenses.

It's already quite widespread and likely legal for average people to train AI models on copyrighted material, in the open weight AI communities like SD and LocalLLaMa.

Please, please differentiate between pirating books (which Anthrophic is liable for, and is still illegal) and training on copyrighted material (which was found to be legal, for both corporations and average people).

Bummer

>Mainly comic artists and small musicians who are doing things they like and putting out for people, but not for much money?

The number of these artists I have seen receiving some bogus DMCA takedown notice for fan art is crazy.

I saw a bloke give away some of his STL's because he received a takedown request from games workshop and didnt have the funds to fight it.

Its not that I want small artists to lose, its that I want them to gain access to every bloody copyright and trademark so they are more free to create.

Shit Conde Nast managed to pull something like 400 pulps off the market, so they didnt interfere with their newly launched James Patterson collaborations.