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titleknown · 1 year

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A Couple of Essays I Did On Artists' Rights And AI Art

So, I'm gonna be posting a couple of essays I did on Pillowfort on AI art and the talk about datasets, the second one having been written a couple of weeks after the first.

Long story short, while I'm sympathetic to traditional artists' concerns about the dataset issue, as a copyright minimalist I'm also scared about how much they're parroting copyright-maximalist rhetoric in a way that's taking some dangerous routes to be used as tools for big Copyright to further increase its death-grip on culture, and maybe we should use this occasion re-examine the way we think about copyright and how we handle the idea of the moral rights of the artist in light of this issue.

Long story long... well, that's why I'm putting it past the break:

On AI Art Datasets, Copyright and "Theft"

...On the AI art issue, I will confess as someone who's cared about how bloated and awful copyright law is for years, it genuinely disturbs me that everyone's talking about the dataset for... well, really most AI art as an act of deliberate theft, when the reality is significantly more complicated, and the conception of it as theft feels like it's pushing people down a dangerous path they're not entirely aware of.

The thing is, the LAION dataset, which everyone refers to, is basically an attempt to crawl the entire internet for basically everything that has alt-text and sort it by how well the alt text matches up with the images. That's it. It's literally like a search engine crawler with the intention of "map the internet" rather than "find art".

And it is very; very dumb and brute force. That's how it ended up going through medical records, not any sinister intent, but because it's so stupid it looks for anything public with alt-text.

You can and probably should take issue with that, because it indicates failures to anticipate this on LAION's part and massive security failures on the part of those holding the data (And really this whole issue is more about data privacy than copyright) but it's not an issue of their intent being bad; it's an issue of the failure to account for that factor.

Another thing, it is actually very bad at categorizing artists by name. Like, through my multiple checks in the "Have I Been Trained" site; unless you're a big name professional artist, it almost definitely will not catalogue you by name.

If someone's looking to use your name in a prompt to avoid commissioning you, they are fools swindling themselves, and you should disabuse those cretins of their illusions, if only to discourage that behavior.

That's not to say I haven't run into the works of smaller artists I know (Who I've informed when I have, for the record), it's just that for better or for worse their work is genericized...

....Tho if you run into any works from artists you know in a dataset search, you should probably tell them, just so they're informed and can have it removed if they want.

And, following from that, for clarity's sake, even if you are informed, I don't think it's invalid to be scared of the potential impacts of AI art and the issue of data privacy (Which issues with the dataset are, as Tangibletechromancy talks about). In fact, I did see a post on Pillowfort expressing those sentiments that was relatively understandable.

And it's not like there's no issue with the way they draw from the commons. As I've talked about before on my Tumblr, it's abhorrent that certain models draw from the commons but then make their models closed source and put them behind a paywall. Because it's taking from the commons and giving nothing back.

Hell, the only reason I'm able to find other artists' art and inform them so they can have it taken out of the dataset is because Stablediffusion at least makes its model Open Source and its dataset publicly visible, both of which I think should be required for anything that uses that public data scraping.

And it sucks that Midjourney and OpenAI are getting a lot less scrutiny than Stablediffusion when SD is arguably the one doing it the most correctly (Though I have heard MJ plans to eventually make itself Open Source, which, we'll see), and the former two ought to be looked at with a lot more skepticism...

...But my point is, it's less of an issue of deliberate theft and more Google Maps finding that one house of Barbra Streisand's she didn't want found. It's a survey of the commons of the internet trying to get as wide a picture as possible, for a set of "rules" as to what images look like (Note the AI model stores none of the actual images) and the conception of that as "theft" is what disturbs me.

Because, the idea that that 1/600,000,000th of a random image might end up influencing another's work without authorization relies on the idea of any derivative works as theft.

With that 1/600,000,000th it takes less direct inspiration than an artist doing a pastiche or; arguably; even drawing from common experience would; even accounting for the other factors influencing it in an artist's mind because; hey; the AI has that too; as this post from friend of the blog Tangibletechromancy talks about.

It's an alien form of such compared to humans, but it is a form of that, because the dataset is big and dumb and anyone who's worked with stuff like Stablediffusion knows it reflects how dumb that sort of learning is.

And criminalizing that would definitely have knock-on effects, as this post by Trent Troop points out. Disney doesn't want to outlaw AI art; it has enough of a treasure hoard of works which it owns the copyright to to train its own. It wants an AI only it can use while drawing from copyrighted works, while copyright walls off access to it to everyone else.

And it disturbs me so, so much that a lot of people against this are fanartists not knowing the precedent this could set; or hell; even the fact that the guy who started the train rolling on this moral panic; RJ Palmer; got his start doing Pokemon fanart, because the legal precedent that criminalizes this could very easily criminalize that too.

And, on a personal level, I have heard that argument well before that people should "stop stealing and Be Original," by people who... basically want to criminalize the concept of derivative works in general. People who believe that copyright should be perpetual, despite the concept of copyright as anything other than a temporary legal protection being very; very young from a historical perspective.

Like, you would not believe the shit I have seen. I have seen my producing teacher in college, who's most prominent producing credit was one of the worst modern horror remakes, argue that copyright should be perpetual in a metaphor comparing art to a family gas station. I have seen one person argue that the concept of derivative works itself should be outlawed to prevent them from diluting the original author's intent.

That person ended up rallying most of the other folks on a Discord server against me and driving me off of there. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

And I see that pattern in AI art, the animating sentiment that "derivative works are theft," with the same old "But it's different this time" framework laid over it. And believe me, I have seen enough "It's different this time" sentiments to be deeply skeptical of "but it's different this time."

In fact, that is why I'm scared in a way that motivates me to post this, because upon seeing anti-AI-art arguments going on like in the comments of this one post by the Staff of Pillowfort, I'm like, "oh god, I've heard this before," and where I've heard it before ain't good.

I see people trying to make the treatment of AI art akin to the way the RIAA treats music, despite the fact that that would be a horrible idea as this post points out, and people talking about wanting Disney to "save them" from AI art even though; again; Disney's more likely goal would be to use their own in-house trained AI to cut jobs while preventing anyone else from using it.

And I am deeply demoralized by the fact that over the time I've cared about it, from a perspective of material change this issue of fighting back against the bloat of copyright maximalism has basically never gotten any better (beyond the "Luigi wins by doing nothing" concession of stuff finally being allowed to go into the public domain very slowly in the US), and is very likely to get even worse

I have been angry for years that there's been no real legislative efforts to; say; decrease copyright duration or expand fair use, and now I'm living to likely see fair use shrunk even more. I will curse RJ Palmer's name until the day I die for single-handedly sparking this moral panic and basically undoing decades of work by copyright minimalists to kill the copyright cop in people's heads over a matter of months.

I come to my positions on AI art from years of being angry about copyright bloat and seeing the same patterns in the idea of it as "theft" as I do on people who were defending our current copyright nightmare before this, and I wish more people would push back on that.

And if you have concerns about AI art and want to shape it right, I will point out, we have a Discord server...

Thoughts on AI Art and Moral Rights

I had some Thoughts wrt the debate on moral rights with regards to AI art datasets that I figured I might as well share with y'all, because I think the issues raised are more complicated than a lot of people say, and not in the ways y'all might think.

Like, it's a common talking point in the pro-AI-art circles that, even if the fair use defense were cracked down on, big megacorps that own huge swaths of images; such as Disney, Warner, ect, could still use the images they legally own; without the permission of their creators; to train their own AIs.

Which could, of course, lead to the same nightmare job loss scenarios that folks are talking about; again using artists' works to replace them without their permission, except the tools are behind a corporate wall and with no copyright ambiguity because; again; they own the images wholesale.

I've in fact heard it argued that; with the whole attempts by anti-AI-art people to join with Big Copyright's astroturf organization to expand copyright, that's what Disney wants, more crackdowns on copyright so they can use their own AI and you can't.

So, it's not a case of respecting artists' rights or don't. It's a case of whether everyone gets to use this tech at full power, or only Disney/Warner/et al are able to use it while the public gets a significantly weaker version trained on Wikimedia et-al.

The artists' rights; as articulated by those who are against AI art; are already fucked either way. Which, I am not saying as a gotcha.

Rather because, while I know which of those two options I'd prefer,I sympathize with the fact that it fucking suuuuuucks for those creators who care about the moral rights of artists, and I want to examine institutionally why things are like that.

To start, a question: Why; beyond the legal reasons; is it okay for monopolists like Disney to violate creators' rights to control their work in that way; but not for wider-scale open-source projects like StableDiffusion to?

Some would say that it's because the megacorps pay and ask them. But, those often also end up as theft far more egregious than image synthesis programs do.

We all know the way that Spotify's "royalties" pay only pennies to creators and most of the actual profit to Spotify and the record labels that own the music themselves. Some even predict that that's how a license for using one's images in AI would go, which I think should give you pause.

And, we all know those stories of Marvel artists and writers wasting away in poverty and disease in their old age while Disney makes billions of the MCU and doesn't give them a dime. Totally legally allowable, they did get paid a pittance, once, but the billons more they never saw a dime of makes the difference in money not given to artists between them and the AI's unauthorized use more or less academic if we're going by sheer proportion.

One could argue it was even worse in the long-run, because AI's use doesn't technically force the subject's art behind a copyright wall and prevent the original user from using it, whereas the copyright landlords do, but that's probably it's own debate I can't get into at the time.

My point is, what the megacorps do is just as much theft if not moreso than what image synthesis training does, and the thin veneer of payment only obfuscates the vast degree of theft they do, which they only get away with because of how thoroughly it has been normalized.

And that's even before we get into the fact that it's hard to say you "consented" to it when your choices were "have the thing not exist and starve on the street" or "give us total control over what you create/"

But then, the natural answer of course you'll probably say after that to my first question (Why is it okay if Disney trains on my work without consent but it isn't for SD) is, of course, that it isn't.

But then, if you think of it purely in terms of copyright law (ignoring the fair use arguments for datasets), there should be no problem with what Disney does. They were "given" the copyrights fair and square, in the same way you would "give" a mafioso protection, but it was still fully sanctioned by the copyright system.

And yet, in a moral sense, there is. And, I think an important idea to articulate why this is a problem is the idea of moral rights.

The concept of "moral rights" in art is one that I don't see talked about much directly. Long story short, it is the idea that the artist has the rights to not have their work mangled and to be credited. Notably, it is considered a separate right from copyrights, non fungible in the way those are.

Note also that, it does not legally exist as a concept in the US, at least not to the significant degrees it does in other nations. But, I've noticed that the way a lot of people talk about copyright basically conflates the two.

Which makes me wonder how much this debate comes from a US-based perspective, but I digress.

Like, a lot of the dialogue I've heard on why copyright is sacred; and especially from those who think it should be perpetual, isn't just about economic fears, but about the fear of your work being messed with and warped by those who don't understand it.

They see copyright as the end-all be-all when it comes to protections for moral rights, because of how interchangable the two concepts have been made in the public dialogue. Copyrights require authorization from the holder to work with, they place the mark of their creator upon them, therefore they are thought of as valid insurance of those.

But, the point I'm leading to is this viewpoint doesn't really work. Because copyright on its own is a godawful protector of moral rights.

Like, the problem with copyright as a protector of moral rights is, it depends on a landlord model of security, IE the idea that individual ownership of "property" (even intellectual property( rather than collective protections will keep you safe.

The trouble is, as Cory Doctorow has pointed out with regards to regular landlords, not only does that sort of commodification create a grotesque incentive to make things harder for those who don't have it (Such as, say, small creators with new ideas crowded out by legacy IP), but in the end power always gets consolidated under that system under the big guys.

Lucas sold his creation to Disney, Eastman and Laird sold theirs to Viacom. The fungibility of copyright; the ability of it to be bought and sold on the market, makes it a terrible means of protecting moral rights if you have to sell it to make a living, because once it belongs to a megacorp, they can do whatever they want with it, and that consolidation makes it harder for artists like you to show up.

In the case of collaborative works done under big megacorps, it's even worse because you have to give away those rights from day one to allow it to even exist. Look at what happened to creators under the whole HBO Max purge, copyright did nothing to prevent their work from being erased.Copyright did not do a thing to protect their moral rights.

Even in the case of estates, Doctor Seuss would be rolling in his goddamn grave at the Ilumination Lorax, and I'm pretty sure you can faintly hear Tolkien clawing his way out of the earth at Rings of Power being made by Jeff "Sauruman" Bezos.Copyright did not protect their works from desecration.

But the way we conflate moral rights with copyright in the conversation is very useful for those IP hoarders who want to expand their grip over the collective creative commons. It creates a broad base of public support amongst working creators for these copyright power grabs even if, as Doctorow mentions, it only benefits the top players due to their ability to buy everyone out and use their monopoly power to squeeze smaller creators further.

In fact, to bring it full circle, that's why I talked so much about why we need to push back against the idea of "theft" in datasets. Because the rhetoric of "theft," only makes coherent sense through a copyright lends, because how different piracy or derivative works actually are from; say; physical theft.

There's a reason why "You wouldn't download a car" is a widely mocked concept. And I think that the accusations of theft are doing that exact same work of conflating moral rights for the artists to control their work to copyright, and as I have stated before, that is a very dangerous game.

This is why, I think, those of us concerned about moral rights need to start imagining means of protecting moral rights beyond and in place of copyright, because the conflation of them with copyright not only is ineffective, but also leads to those massive power grabs that undermine moral rights via monopolies.

And, when you think of moral rights beyond the lens of copyright, it opens up far; far more avenues of thought to you.

Like, for example on AI art, the idea I've heard to focus on image scraping as a data privacy issue and not as a copyright one, because as a friend said the copyright angle is the least concerning use of scraped data for machine learning TBH.

Or, to encourage practices such as Are We Art Yet's rules of ethics, which I think is deeply useful as a framework for engagement, and any AI art community should adopt them or something similar...

...Tho, thinking about it, a lot of the fears with regards to AI art and moral rights relate to Pillowfort user osteophage talking about how Tumblr; and to an even greater extent other social media sites like Twitter I'd assert; undermines community and the process of building communal norms, and how a lot of the fear is regarding to the breaking of communal norms in ways that'd devastate the commission/small artist economy.

Though that's its own ramble, which a friend of mine has sorta-addressed, but which I do want to give my own two cents on in the future.

Point is, I think the issues raised with regards to rights via AI datasets raise much deeper; more long-term questions regarding the nature of moral rights and the way they've been co-opted by copyright monopolists, and I urge you to direct your thoughts to those questions and what answers you might have for them.

If only because it will allow you to act much more wisely upon this topic rather than being lead around by the nose by copyright monopolists on it...

#ai art #image synthesis #my writing #copyright #moral rights #artists' rights #rambling #shut up titleknown

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supercasey · 5 years

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Nomad of Nowhere Tumblr Blog AU - How They React to the Tumblrpocalypse

Nomad - Going about things as normal, as if all his mutuals aren't screaming at all hours of the day. Is going out like the band on the Titanic. His last post will be a very simple “guess I'll die” meme before fleeing to Pillowfort/Twitter.

Skout - C H A O S. Every other post is a reblog of a mutual's contact info. The other posts are memes about Tumblr dying. Everyone who follows her thinks she's fine but irl she's losing her shit, trying to find the “perfect platform” for staying up to date with her mutuals.

Toth - Left as soon as a majority of the pornbots we're banned. Don Paragon began spreading some fucked up rumors about her but in reality she was just fucking done with Tumblr's bullshit in general. Is currently going about her business on Twitter, as if nothing has changed.

Red Manuel - DEAD ON SIGHT. Tried making new accounts under similar names to his original URL, but he keeps getting deleted. On top of that, he's having an ongoing emotional meltdown due to the realization that a majority of his “fanbase” (only pornbots) are gone. Tbh tho he's looking to be a better person (hopefully) and will join Toth on Twitter sooner or later.

Don Paragon - How??? Did he survive The Purge??? He's been reported countless times and he's absolutely gonna be gone soon but in the meantime he's been insufferable. His blog is a cesspool of unfounded callouts towards already deleted blogs, and honestly just glancing at his blog would be mentally taxing.

Toro - Another victim of the initial purge. He actually didn't do anything wrong but everyone assumes he did and he keeps getting anon hate because of it. Finally got so fed up that he deleted and moved to Twitter/Facebook.

El Rey - Surprisingly nice while all of this is going on (at least on the surface), but he does screenshot and post a conversation between himself and Nomad where they “made amends in the midst of the apocalypse”, but El Rey mentioned vore like eighteen times during the conversation. Half of his posts are flagged. Keeps posting “this is fine” every time one of his followers points out another flagged post of his.

Undertaker - Keeps posting “it's been an honor sir” every day at 8AM sharp. Knows full well that he's as good as dead once the nsfw ban hits so he's just fucking around in the meantime. And by fucking around, I mean he keeps mass posting necrophilia in hopes of either A), punishing Staff for threatening his “aesthetic”, or B), it's a pathetic prayer for death. “No sideblogs, we die horny on main like men.”

Ranch Hand - The only posts on his blog at this point are cowboy related “death to Tumblr” memes and a few reblogs of his social media information. He's honestly just here to watch this hellsite crash and burn.

Toro's Champion - Was long since dead before any of this shit even started. His blog was overlooked during the purge, which has only led to more conspiracy theories.

Barty & Friends - Barty's dad forced them to delete their blog after finding out about the rampant child predator problem via Facebook. Now they all have separate accounts on Neopets and this is the only good thing other than “Red Manuel's Redemption Arc” to come out of this fucking mess.

BONUS: Melinda (because I forgot her last time like an asshole) - Pretends that everything is going well but in reality she's this (this) close to losing her shit. Is absolutely horrified by Undertaker's “Death by Horny on Main” bullshit. Most of all she's furious that El Rey is still on Tumblr and is organizing a change.org petition to have him removed. Has low-key already relocated to both Twitter and Pillowfort.

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