Making only big companies able to “rip off your work” (not an accurate representation, but whatever) Is not the solution you think it is.
The only solution is to force all models trained on public data to not be covered by copyrights by default. Any output from those models should also by default be in the commons. The solution is to avoid copyright cartels, not strengthen them.
IMO, we need to ask: What benefits the people? or What is in the public interest?
That should be the only thing of importance. That’s probably controversial. Some will call it socialism. It is pretty much how the US Constitution sees it, though.
Maybe you agree with this. But when you talk about “models trained on public data” you are basically thinking in terms of property rights, and not in terms of the public benefit.
The models (ie the weights specifically) may not be copyrightable, anyways. There’s no copyright on the result of number crunching. Once the model is further fine-tuned, there might be copyright, but it’s still unlike anything covered by copyright in the past.
One analogy I have is a 3D engine. The engineers design the look of the typical output by setting parameters, but that does not create a specific copyright on the parameters. There’s copyright on the design documents, the code, the UI, if any and maybe other stuff. It’s not quite the same, though.
Some jurisdictions have IP on databases. I think that would cover AI models. If I am right, then that means that any license agreements that come with models are ineffective in the US.
However, to copy these models, you first need to get your hands on them. They are still trade secrets, so don’t on leaks.
Agreed that interim solution should be to make all “AI” work public domain since it treats everything it trains on as public domain. I’m for it because it would would immediately stop being profitable for commercial enterprises. Then check who they ripped off and settle any financial claims and damages before moving on to establish license for already created output.
Exactly. Make ALL output public domain. Force them to release their training sets. Force them to open source their models.
There will still be companies like Adobe and DeviantArt who will be able to work around this due to their ToS, but we have enough existing models to make them obsolete due to the power of FOSS.
Making all ai work public domain is a great idea… until you start trying to draft actual laws. If ai is only used to make the eyeballs of character is it public domain? If I use a stable diffusion base but then fine-tune it on my own work is it public domain? What if I use ai to make the general idea, then I use that as inspiration to make my own work? How does anyone prove that anything is or isn’t ai generated or assisted? The list goes on and on. Making laws about ai use in art simply isn’t realistic, they are just too hard to nail down, and too easy to skirt. I don’t know what the solution is, but it isn’t this unfortunately.
The other big problem with it is that it just means that few big companies who already own almost all the IP(yes, most professional artists don’t actually own their own work) just make their own models with their own work and are able to enjoy the benefits of AI while any small group just has yet another disadvantage. It will probably be these big companies pushing for anti-AI/“pro artist” laws.
