It’s an interesting question. To me, it only makes sense that AI companies should respect artist copyrights - especially since AIs purpose is to replace and minimize/eliminate the need for artists. On the other hand, licensing fees would quickly add up and be absolutely enormous. Only the biggest, wealthiest corporations (the ones we love to hate) could afford to invest in AI. Small, new companies won’t be able to afford it.
(Sorry if this is covered in the article. I haven’t read it yet. It’s late and I’m falling asleep!)
Edit: okay, now I’ve read it, and the situation is about as bad as I was expecting.
Meta’s argument that copyright holders wouldn’t get much money anyway makes me want to punch someone. It’s about respecting creators, not just money, you dipshits! Congrats on missing the point!
To balance things out, we’ve got Andreessen Horowitz crying “won’t someone please think about the billionaires?!?” That one made me laugh.
Adobe gets points for actually citing case law. I still don’t agree with their reasoning, but I appreciate the effort to keep the discussion professional.
Is it, though?
Copyright holders and creators are completely different things.
Before you can pay those copyright holders their capital income, you have to know who they are. Which means you can’t just download random pictures of the internet. You need pictures with a known provenance.
Well, it turns out that there are corporations dedicated to providing just such pictures. How lucky for them if society would choose to “respect creators” in this way. The payment to even a prolific stock photographer may be tiny, but they’d get a cut from each one.
It may not be about money for you, but the people who pay to push that talking point may have a different attitude.
That’s a good point. You’re entirely correct. I had a much simpler idea in mind - I was only thinking of small, independent artists who posted their images online and were the copyright holders of their own work.
It’s an interesting question. To me, it only makes sense that AI companies should respect artist copyrights - especially since AIs purpose is to replace and minimize/eliminate the need for artists. On the other hand, licensing fees would quickly add up and be absolutely enormous. Only the biggest, wealthiest corporations (the ones we love to hate) could afford to invest in AI. Small, new companies won’t be able to afford it.
(Sorry if this is covered in the article. I haven’t read it yet. It’s late and I’m falling asleep!)
Edit: okay, now I’ve read it, and the situation is about as bad as I was expecting.
Meta’s argument that copyright holders wouldn’t get much money anyway makes me want to punch someone. It’s about respecting creators, not just money, you dipshits! Congrats on missing the point!
To balance things out, we’ve got Andreessen Horowitz crying “won’t someone please think about the billionaires?!?” That one made me laugh.
Adobe gets points for actually citing case law. I still don’t agree with their reasoning, but I appreciate the effort to keep the discussion professional.
Is it, though? Copyright holders and creators are completely different things.
Before you can pay those copyright holders their capital income, you have to know who they are. Which means you can’t just download random pictures of the internet. You need pictures with a known provenance. Well, it turns out that there are corporations dedicated to providing just such pictures. How lucky for them if society would choose to “respect creators” in this way. The payment to even a prolific stock photographer may be tiny, but they’d get a cut from each one.
It may not be about money for you, but the people who pay to push that talking point may have a different attitude.
That’s a good point. You’re entirely correct. I had a much simpler idea in mind - I was only thinking of small, independent artists who posted their images online and were the copyright holders of their own work.