this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2024
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Legally speaking, AI is not anything. Its just a computer program. What you're asking is completely a red-herring.
The question here is if the training-weights constitute copyright infringement. Now look at any clip-art set. Most clip-art is so called "royalty free", as in you can copy it from computer-to-computer without any copyright issues, because the author specifically said that its royalty free.
But if you have a copyrighted font, then even copying that font from one computer to another constitutes copyright infringement. (IE: Literally, you aren't allowed to copy this unless you have the permission of the author).
So, when you download Midjourney's training weights, does that act in of itself constitute a copy that violate's the authors of "Joker" movie? As far as I can tell, yes. Because the training weights clearly contain Joker images.
Hows it a red herring to point out we are allowed to use copyrighted materials already? Its not the concern here, yet its what they are using as the concern for their arguments against it.
Because copyright law is clear in that computers can't own a copyright.
The humans at play are:
The artist who created the original work.
The computer IT team who are copying the data behind the scenes between servers.
You who uses Midjourney to recreate "Joker" movie artwork, likely using the data in #2 which falls under copyright infringement.
It doesn't matter how #2 works. It doesn't matter if its H.265 or MPEG2 or from VHS tapes, or if its a Neural Network using the latest-and-greatest training weights from a GPU-based datasystem. Its just a computer. The ones doing the copyright infringement are the people copying data from place to place.
The AI model is not a copy of the set of data used to train it, it's a derivative work. As such copyright as it currently stands does not apply. It's possible, likely even, that copyright will be modified in some way soon to account for this, but the situation today says nope, not copyright infringement.
They're really trying so hard cuz they absolutely want this to be infringement but it simply isnt on any legal level.
Looking at a copyrighted font with your computer means the font is in your computer's memory. Do I go to jail for every site I visit that uses a fancy font?
Font files ≠ framebuffer
Images ≠ neural network weights
If its a fancy copyrighted font without a license to copy... the Website owner gets sued. Because the website owner is the one making mass copies of said font.
Do... you know what copyrites are? They relate to the copying of data.
The framebuffer on your computer copies the data to display the font to you. That's my point. Not every form of copying infringes on copyright.
And my argument is that Midjourney's servers are engaged in illegal copying. So I think your point is moot. Not the Web Browsers downloading images.
The movie Joker's image is being copied each time the training weights are copied to a new server. Is that not an illegal copy?
When you look at a picture of the joker online, your browser is caching an image file of the joker on your computer. Is that not an illegal copy?
What the hell is this non-sequitur?
What do browser caches have to do with Midjourney servers and training weights?
I get that you wanna change the subject. But I dunno if it's because you don't understand my argument, or if you've realized that my argument is solid and therefore you have no actual counterargument.
The copy that people care about are the webservers. That's why when you run Bittorrent, MPAA or RAII sue the people serving the data. Not the people who use the data. Have you followed any copyright case in the last two or three decades? In this case, it'd be a copyright case vs Midjourney servers.
I really do not believe midjourney is storing all the files on the Internet in a humongous database. They are just exposing the AI to them for training just like you expose your computer to them when you visit with your web browser. I'm happy to be wrong about this, but I'm just not convinced. Please try to keep your temper.
Are you sure?
The training weights can literally recreate images its been trained on. That makes them a humongous database, albeit with lossy compression. They aren't replicated exactly, but they are replicated enough that I'm confident that these "Joker" images passes as copyright infringement before a jury (ie: is substantially similar).
I understand why you're saying that, but I personally don't agree. As AIs face legal challenges, maybe your opinion will be adopted, we'll see.