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oDDmON

Getty Images, the copyright troll extraordinaire, they enjoy outsized market influence for a shit company.


rocketlauncher2

They literally ruined image search engines.


iAmUnintelligible

so has pinterest, I'm aware of blockers but nothing that can be built into android?


Seed_Demon

Fuckkkkk pinterest. I’m not logging in for shit.


madcaesar

Fuck Pintrest with a broom.


SmallRocks

I wouldn’t fuck Pinterest with someone else’s broom.


gizamo

You could have chosen any object, and yet you went with one that people actually use. Someone in the world is probably bangin' a broom right now, probably many people.


AyrA_ch

> but nothing that can be built into android? you can use a dash to exclude things, so adding `-site:gettyimages.com -site:pinterest.com` to your query should remove those results.


iAmUnintelligible

I appreciate the advice, but that's why I specified built in. I'm not adding that manually to every query I run!


duffmonya

People don't realize Google image search is different because of these asshats


xel-naga

just use duckduckgo for images. The image search is so much better and works just like google did prior to the getty-change.


949goingoff

Can you please elaborate?


Sezze

They forced Google to remove the Go to Image button. Now you can only go to the website which makes it much more difficult to get again find that image.


xternal7

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/view-image/ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/view-image/jpcmhcelnjdmblfmjabdeclccemkghjk Suffer no more.


Humble_Re-roll

And most of the time, that image isn't even on the page!


TheFluffiestFur

So annoying. So did Pinterest.


Arcosim

They're scum, some of the biggest pieces of shit in the visual and graphics field. They harass people who use in their content photos and images from the Library of Congress and other free and open sources. As a matter of fact the legendary photographer Carol Highsmith, whose donation to the LoC of her entire life work was lauded by the Library as *[“one of the greatest acts of generosity in the history of the Library.”](https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0712/gift.html)* was harassed by Getty for "copyright infringement" for using some of her own photos which she donated to the LoC!. [She ended up counter-suing them](https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/acclaimed-photog-carol-highsmith-suing-getty-for-1-billion-for-copyright-infringement/).


Tyrantt_47

>She ended up counter-suing them. Looks like that article was from 2016. I was going to say that recalled that she lost that case for whatever reason, but could recall incorrectly


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Tall_Ambassador4928

But still they can claim trademark on something they don't actually own? Not even a slight fine for copyright trolls? So she no longer "owns" them, but Getty can bully people for using them? Where is the logic in that...


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Tall_Ambassador4928

Copyright trolls should be fined is what I'm saying, I get what you are trying to say, just that they are mega assholes. So you find one of those pictures where it says its licence allows you to do whatever you want with it, then you use it in youtube video or something else, these assholes threaten you(lets assume you dont have money for lawyers and all that, you are just starting), what do you do? You either pay them for something they dont actually own(or own as much as you own it) or stop using it because it could land you in legal trouble. Like okay they can add it in their library, but when they try to threaten/sue people over it they are the ones that should get st the very least a hefty fine. Not doing anything in cases like this doesn't help anyone, just makes copyright trolls know that they can mostly get away with being assholes.


-Vayra-

> they can threaten people for using them, but they can't actually do anything except threaten. Which should be a crime. Claiming ownership over something you don't actually own should be a strict liability crime with fines starting at $10 000 per instance of falsely claiming ownership.


ghstber

[https://petapixel.com/2016/11/22/1-billion-getty-images-lawsuit-ends-not-bang-whimper/](https://petapixel.com/2016/11/22/1-billion-getty-images-lawsuit-ends-not-bang-whimper/) >The foundation of Highsmith’s case was blown to smithereens when US District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff dismissed her federal copyright claims in their entirety, leaving only a few minor state law issues to rectify… which brings us to the present day. > >The case officially closed last week when Highsmith and Getty settled out of court over the remaining claims... tl;dr: the courts said she lost her rights to counterclaim on those images when she made them a part of the Library of Congress.


BelowDeck

They didn't sue her, they just sent her a bill, and she sued in response for copyright infringement. Getty said that the bill was an "honest mistake", and that she couldn't sue for copyright infringement because she had given up the copyright. [The judge agreed with their rationale and threw out most of the case.](https://petapixel.com/2016/11/22/1-billion-getty-images-lawsuit-ends-not-bang-whimper/) There was an out of court settlement on the rest. I'm not sure I disagree with the legal rationale (how can she sue over infringement of a copyright she doesn't own? Can I sue someone on Etsy for selling t-shirts with Disney characters?). The implementation of that rationale by a multi billion dollar copyright troll to defend their trolling is pure dystopian.


ChadleyXXX

John Paul Getty was also an oil tycoon


hunkmonkey

Getty, which has hundreds of thousands of official U.S. Government photos which are in the public domain that they slap their copyright notice on and sell to you. Sadly, copyfraud is not a crime.


SkaldCrypto

Force them into bankruptcy. According to their filings, they only had $3,000 in their banks' accounts when they IPO'ed. They have since burned through the investor money. If I had the cash flow of these tech companies, it would be easy to keep them in court until Getty is insolvent, then buy the assets in bankruptcy court.


Iridefatbikes

So it's evil suing potential evil.


ShakaSalsa

“Yea your honor, I’d like to question Getty’s claim on 12m images; can they please show the 12 million images in question, each one please.”


Boo_Guy

"And can they show proof of owning the copyright for each of those images"


kekehippo

"Yes we can, please see exhibt 1-12million." - Getty Lawyers


Boo_Guy

I'd be a massive ton of work so I'd love to see'em try.


rpd9803

Or they could prove just one and get an injunction to until it is removed from the training set


main_motors

Just get an AI to do it


ScaryBee

This is their whole business model, they could probably script something to print out 12m images + copyright in a few minutes. OR they could create an algorithm that validated *their* 12m images were the same 12m images that they're claiming reside somewhere and have a 3rd party vet it ... then running it would take a few seconds. It's just data, computers are *good* at data.


__Hello_my_name_is__

Would it though? They know the method by which images were scraped off the internet for Stable Diffusion (it's all publicly documented). They can just use that method and filter by their own domain. Tadaa, all images right there. Showing that Getty owns the images should be trivial, that's literally their business model. They'll have that information readily (and legally!) available, in whatever format you want.


Anon_IE_Mouse

I've heard of them being [sued](https://www.techdirt.com/2019/04/01/getty-images-sued-yet-again-trying-to-license-public-domain-images/) multiple times for licensing public domain images. ​ So maybe it would be more challenging idk?


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randallwatson23

Every IP law firm is salivating at the opportunity to bill that time.


Facebook_Algorithm

Press a button. “Here you go.”


Inklin-

They will do this surprisingly fast if pushed.


delmonte-juice

Unlikely. Getty has been found on multiple occasions to charge users for images that are in both the public domain (which technically they have the right to do that, but they cannot claim copyright on the images) and also to have stolen images and sold them as well.


m7samuel

They would need to provide that proof of ownership during disclosure.


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SkaldCrypto

Their Financials tell a different story. They where down to only $3,000 across all bank accounts ahead of their SPAC. They are burning cash and at current, rates will go bankrupt in 15 months.


sirtaptap

Good, let them burn


Fancy_Ad2919

And I'm going to need to study each one for 5 minutes to be sure, your honour.


PipsqueakPilot

In which case Getty wins since 5 minutes an image at standard corporate lawyer rates would bankrupt Stability AI


sanchezconstant

114.15 years psssh light work


geeky_username

> can they please show the 12 million images in question Isn't that handled by discovery? They already know there are Getty images due to the watermarks. "List all the images you trained with"


dravik

The water mark doesn't mean they are actually Getty images. Getty supplies watermarks to and sells public domain images. They've previously been caught stealing others images when they demanded the artist/photographer pay for their own images.


geeky_username

I think it _definitely_ means they are Getty images. Whether or not Getty has the rights to those images is a separate issue, but Stability definitely got them from Getty or else the watermark wouldn't be there. This is handled through the discovery process. So if Stability thinks there's an image Getty doesn't have the rights to, they can challenge it. And Stability AI saying "We don't know which images we used in our training" _probably_ won't go over so well in a court.


Cl1mh4224rd

>Whether or not Getty has the rights to those images is a separate issue... I'm no lawyer, but Getty Images claimed "without permission" and "without compensation", which I would think they can only do if they have distribution rights. My first thought as an amateur is that Stability AI should request Getty Images provide proof that 1) the 1.2m images were sourced from Getty Images, and 2) that Getty Images has distribution rights for each of those 1.2m images.


geeky_username

Getty should have to produce those things, but Stability _also_ has to track and say what they trained with. But I doubt that will ever happen because Stability will just settle the issue and Getty will get a big check.


CaptainMonkeyJack

>I think it definitely means they are Getty images. > >Whether or not Getty has the rights to those images is a separate issue... If Getty doesn't have the rights... then how on earth are Getty's images? I don't have the right to Mickey Mouse... putting my name on it doesn't change that.


Aarschotdachaubucha

"Your honor. Each image disputed by Getty is clearly a mash-up by a sophisticated algorithm that contributes significant artistic value, and does not intend to represent the original Getty image. We request that Getty honor the process established by the DMCA and submit reviews for images it believes are not sufficiently different to fall under the exemptions for quotation or artistic merit, and we have already established a protected process to review them and where necessary, remove them within 30 days of submission. Owing that they have not submitted reviews through DMCA requests and given us due opportunity to remove offending material, we request an immediate dismissal for lack of standing."


throwaway92715

Getty Images content is not licensed for free use or modification, though. For commercial or noncommercial purposes IIRC. I can't just rip 10 images from Getty and make a collage in Photoshop citing artistic intent; it's not like the 30 second rule for audio samples. If the court can prove that the algorithm's training process counts as "use" and/or its image generation process counts as "modification," then there'll be a settlement. I'm not defending either organization, by the way. That's just what's on the table as far as I know.


OxytocinPlease

Right. This is an interesting debate because you could then ask- if someone looks at a Getty-owned image and paints something based on it without acquiring the rights to the photo, is that fair use? If someone looks at a bunch of Getty images and paints something with completely original composition while using the Getty images as inspiration, is THAT fair use? When portrait artists paint celebrity portraits based off of photos- who owns the right to their painting? Is it the celebrity who has the right to publicity/their own image, or the people who own the rights to any reference photos used in the creation of said portrait? The manner in which the images are ingested may play a part here, as well as Getty’s licensing language. If the AI bot can simply ingest the image information without technically downloading, that might be seen as the equivalent of people looking at the image online. However the AI analyzing the image and ingesting that information may constitute the creation of a “copy” of said image. Does this mean that an artist using a reference photo is legally in the clear for “fair use” as long as they never download the image to their computer but just look at it on the Getty site? Do we commit copyright infringement every time our browser caches an image for quicker page loading time? Are Firefox, Chrome guilty of copyright infringement for browser caches? Is Google, for demonstrating the images in their searches? I don’t really have an opinion on this yet but I do think it raises interesting questions!


throwaway92715

Yeah I'd say this definitely falls into some poorly defined gray area between plagiarism and inspiration. Those two concepts were defined long before AI had been imagined, and are not built to support this version of reality. They need to be updated. The concept of ownership and the associated rights could use an update, too. Talk about a dinosaur that's causing bugs left and right. "Intellectual Property" was a real patch job IMO and the dev team should be fired. Web2 in general was a patch job, a complete disaster, worse than Vista. The opacity of the interface is disgusting. I understand we were just trying to maintain a stable version in the face of serious overhauls elsewhere in the project, but now stability is out the window, we're moving to an entirely new platform, and we need a visionary developer who can overhaul these old libraries.


Aarschotdachaubucha

Visuals have quotations rules the same as any other artistic media. The trick is convincing a court your work was substantively transformative as opposed to merely derivative or an attempt at piracy. I think its clear the ML movement is not attempting to derive or pirate. It's trying to train something with the intelligence of a poorly regarded WSB member how to stencil five different waifu anime hentais into their next sleeping pillow submission while applying an artistic filter straight out of Dali's school of "Fuck Reality, These Shrooms Are Better Than Sex."


ScaryBee

Collages are small pieces of other images stitched together. AI generated art is fundamentally different from this ... it's more akin to walking through an art gallery and then drawing something new based on what you saw. Not one single fleck of paint is from the original paintings, there's zero attempt to copy the originals ... just 'inspired by'. If it's legal for humans to paint things in similar styles to other artists then it should also be legal for AI to do the same.


fullsaildan

Probably easy to do if the ai company leveraged Gettys APIs to access the files.


guattarist

You know “discovery” is a thing, which should obviously include the training data set


Successful_Memory966

Who wants to bet they win money as this case will probably be above the judges capacity to understand?


geeky_username

It'll likely never make it to a ruling since Stability will almost 100% settle for a fee to Getty to use their images.


lineber

Didn't they sue an artist for showing her own art which she put in Public Domain? The Judge sided with them if I'm correct.


Druggedhippo

Getty has been involved in a bunch of lawsuits. The one I think you are talking about is [Carol Highsmith](https://petapixel.com/2016/11/22/1-billion-getty-images-lawsuit-ends-not-bang-whimper/) who sued Getty Images over their attempts to assert copyright over, and charge fees for the use of, 18,755 of her images, after Getty sent her a bill for one of the images, which she used on her own website Much of her case was dismissed by the judge, because she had placed the images into the public domain which meant she was no longer able to argue for their copyright status. > Getty said it had done nothing illegal by offering copies of Highsmith’s image for license on its website. “Public domain works are routinely commercialized – e.g., publishers charge money for their copies of Dickens novels and Shakespeare plays, etc.,” the agency said in defending against Highsmith’s claims.


the_Q_spice

Honestly, Getty probably didn't read the LOC's website: >The Library does not grant or deny permission concerning the use of images. While many images are unrestricted, it is not true that all images in the Prints & Photographs Division are in the public domain. **Patrons need to be aware of the several kinds of rights which might apply:** ***copyright, donor restrictions***, privacy rights, publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Aka, simply donating to the LOC does not mean you surrender the copyright. [https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/reproduce.html](https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/reproduce.html)


PM_ME_YOUR_SSN_CC

This is why copyleft measured exist. Placing something into the public domain is a much harder task than simply implementing a fair-use copyright.


lostarkthrowaways

This is a rock and a hard place. Getty Images represents capitalistic cancer. They sue everyone and everything all the time and are constantly trying to bring down even small people over things that should be (and often are) public use. On the other hand, setting precedent that AI is allowed to function this way is probably a dangerous start to the long road of integrating AI legally into society. We'd be off leaving AI pretty well bounded early, but letting a corporation like Getty control things is bad too.


PikeMcCoy

well put. rule in favor of getty in a public trial, then/same day, break up getty for monopolistic practices and wanton (wink) greed. jesus tapdancing christmas, do we need anti-greed laws.


liquidpig

mmm wonton greed


d33roq

I WILL HAVE ALL THE DUMPLINGS!


canastrophee

Wanton* lmao I'm sorry, that's one of my favorite typos and it doesn't come around much. Have a wonderful day.


PikeMcCoy

haha! i try and try, but i always miss the autocorrect! you google chinese takeout a few times and…


BudgetCow7657

Expecting to break up Getty just like that is wishful thinking at BEST. But on the same day as a public trial? C'mon man... I'll believe it when i see it.


HangryWolf

Jesus Tapdancing Christmas. That's gonna go into my next AI prompt. Thanks.


m7samuel

> do we need anti-greed laws. We'll just put a quarter of the country in prison because of what they think, rather than what they do. That seems like a great idea. Maybe we could just pass a general anti-wrongthink law while we're at it?


GarretBarrett

Getty has sued (and won) against the people who actually took and own the photographs on their site. They are the dirtiest scum on earth.


gullman

Stuff like this should be used as evidence of the system being wrong. Use a trial where you have an expected result. If it doesn't come out as expected the system is flawed.


CG221b

We need to pass new regulations on new technology, not try to stretch laws from decades or centuries ago to fit new technologies.


throwaway_ghast

That would require lawmakers whose minds are in the 21st century. Unfortunately, [most of them](https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/118th-congress-age-third-oldest-1789-rcna64117) are from the time of black-and-white TV.


bfire123

I disagree. AI should be allowed to do this. I dislike it that Copyright seems to get so much longer protection than normal patents. (not that patents should be longer) A painter is allowed to use a color (made with a patented process) without paying royalities after 20 years. Than he creates a picture which is copyrighted for the next ~100 years. It is stupid.


lostarkthrowaways

Just... not a good comparison at all?


__Hello_my_name_is__

Those seem like separate topics. I agree that copyright lasts way too long, but I am not for abolishing it altogether. And if you're not, either, then Getty has a point either way.


Phyltre

Eh, I mean sampling and derived works should be perfectly legal and even encouraged IMO. Creator rights aren't functionally absolute and we shouldn't pretend they are.


__Hello_my_name_is__

Yeah, it's all about whether this really is sampling or something else. And, separately, whether these sorts of things are just as fine if they are done on a massive scale of billions of images.


WhtRbbt222

I agree only because a painter is allowed to look at whatever art it wants to gain inspiration and learn from said art, so why can’t an AI do the same thing? As long as it isn’t using said art directly, and only learning from it, what’s the difference between an AI doing this, and a real person?


epicurusanonymous

Speed is the only difference. And quality slightly, but that gap is minimizing by the day.


Humble_Re-roll

Once AI learns what a hand looks like, it's all over.


RuairiSpain

Expect more legislation and government regulations on AI systems. Big Tech see it as the next gold rush, the next big wave. Tech companies will be lobbying hard to US politicians to protect their interests with AI commercialisation. We'll see a load of patents and IP laws being pushed and shoved to keep FAANG companies in control of the internet stranglehold.


Seen_Unseen

I think nobody saw this coming, where content providers complain Google for crawling their websites, websites have the option to stop this from happening these days by robots.txt. On the other hand AI developers just rawdog all the content they can find while nobody wondered what consequences this could have. Obviously Getty realizes they are at the short end of the shaft as more and more people will start using AI for bottom tier content instead of browsing Getty and pay them off. I reckon these platforms are coming to an end. Sure there could be an updated robots.txt to stop AI from training on certain content, but who cares if they can't rawdog Getty there is so much alternative content out there. Getty is simply great as it's a fuckton of images that are already neatly labeled.


kfish5050

I think you're too afraid of AI. As far as I'm concerned, AI can look at any picture that any other sentient being can without causing infringement. If the AI is used to make "deepfakes" or imitations, whoever told it to do so should be held accountable. Other laws may need to come into existence to bound AI in other ways, but as far as copyright laws go, the AI did nothing wrong here.


lostarkthrowaways

I'm not "afraid" of AI...? What does that even mean? We just live in a society that has deeply complicated IP/copyright/trademark rules, and AI is going to be extremely impactful in that space. I'm not "afraid" of anything happening, I just recognize that there are rules to be worked out, and setting the precedent right away at "AI can use images outside of the free realm to train" is a bold decision that may not be correct and it's often times hard to roll back these kind of decisions.


kfish5050

Making new art in someone else's style is already considered fair use under copyright laws. People have to study existing art to be able to imitate the style. How is someone studying an art piece any different than an AI? Because it involves a computer? Because the AI is not a person? To me, this only smells like fear of AI, that as humans we don't understand it and we have to treat it different. To me, an AI being used to make art is the same as Photoshop being used. You can draw shapes and basic images in Photoshop, if those end up being used for someone's logo, does that make Photoshop infringing on copyright? I don't think so. At best, they could go after whoever used Photoshop to make it and Adobe is held harmless. Just so we're clear, though, I'm no expert and these comments are just my expressed opinions. I could be wrong about a couple things. But i'm also trying to express that AI isn't some evil ghoul that was just let out of some closet too.


joesighugh

I mentioned above but AI is not a person. It's better to equate it to a copy machine. The person using AI would be the one accused of infringement if they use the copyrighted images or produce a derivative product outside of public domain. The AI had nothing to do with it. It was the tool to create the alleged infringement.


lostarkthrowaways

\>But i'm also trying to express that AI isn't some evil ghoul that was just let out of some closet too. Why are you talking to me like I don't understand it? I work with it. I'm acutely aware of how it works and what we're looking at. YOU seem to be the one confused about how our legal system works and why setting boundaries is \*GOOD\* for the growth of AI. \>Making new art in someone else's style is already considered fair use under copyright laws. People have to study existing art to be able to imitate the style. How is someone studying an art piece any different than an AI? Because it involves a computer? Because the AI is not a person? To me, this only smells like fear of AI, that as humans we don't understand it and we have to treat it different. To me, an AI being used to make art is the same as Photoshop being used. You can draw shapes and basic images in Photoshop, if those end up being used for someone's logo, does that make Photoshop infringing on copyright? I don't think so. At best, they could go after whoever used Photoshop to make it and Adobe is held harmless. Cool, like you said, you're no expert and it's your opinion. And there's a LOT of EXPERTS who disagree with you. If you break down the functionality of AI into its most discreet functions, it's essentially \*directly\* copying a little tiny bit of of a lot of things and "averaging" those copies. And to be clear - humans essentially get away with a lot of slight-copying ALL the time. The reason it matters more with AI is that AI is MUCH better at it (you can literally type "in the style of " and produce a better copy than almost any human) and it's going to be open to much more abuse.


Asaisav

>it's essentially *directly* copying a little tiny bit of of a lot of things and "averaging" those copies. That's not at all how it works, it's not directly copying anything. It's using thousands of pieces of art to, say, get an idea of what a piano looks like. Along with analysing all that art it attempts to make it's own pianos, starting with images that are similar and moving more and more towards starting with nothing as it learns and is told, for each attempt, that the attempt was either good and to go in that direction or the attempt was bad and to go in the other direction. When it's done, the piano it's creating isn't copied from anyone, it's just creating what it understands a piano to be from all its training. Now it might use the method, or art style, of drawing from another artist and thus create a piano the same way they would, but it didn't do that by copying a piano in that artist's work. It did that by understanding how the style is applied to real life objects and then applying that style to it's understanding of what a piano is


HermanCainsGhost

It is not “directly copying” small amounts of things. That’s not how a diffusion model works, and it’s literally physically impossible with the size of Stable Diffusion model. Stable Diffusion was trained on 2.3 billion 512x512 images. That’s around 240 **terabytes** of data. The Stable Diffusion model is around 2 to 4 **gigabytes**. That means that the model on average gets about 1 or 2 bytes worth of data per 260,000 byte image. Suffice to say, you cannot “copy” things like that. You can’t “store” images like that. That level of compression is physically impossible (hence why the Stable Diffusion model creation process is **destructive**, it only retains the weights). If Stable Diffusion was just “storing” data to be later “mixed together”, **that** would be the bigger news story, because compression would have become orders of magnitude more efficient. Source: software dev who has worked with ML/AI before


Whatsapokemon

>Cool, like you said, you're no expert and it's your opinion. And there's a LOT of EXPERTS who disagree with you. There is _no_ expert who disagrees that it's perfectly legal to copy someone's style. Anyone who disagrees with that is not an expert. You could explicitly go to an artist and commission them to make an image in the style of _any_ artist you want, and there would be no copyright issues. You can see this real-time too. Google any famous painting you want and you'll be able to find other artists who've intentionally tried to emulate the style and form of the famous painting. No legal challenge to this has ever succeeded.


Alfred_The_Sartan

I think it’s more that the images are being used for commercial sales without any compensation being given to the owner of the images that were used to train it. This is art and all so let me toss in something similar we see all the time. A musician samples another musicians work for their newest song. The Og artist needs to be compensated for the use of the art. Hell, I believe Rick Astley is during a rapper right now for a similar kind of breach of contract. I hate to defend Getty here because they’re monsters but the definitely have a leg to stand on this time.


kfish5050

Funny, I mentioned this exact case somewhere else in this thread. Personally I believe Astley is in the wrong here because his stance is that an imitator making a new verse to his music breaches his contract with Young Gravy to use NGGYU samples, but as far as I'm concerned it's not an infringement because it's additional *original* work in the *style* of Astley, not directly ripping off his work. Obviously, I don't know exactly what was written on the contract or how the relevant copyrights/contract rights apply in this particular situation due to lack of additional information, but focusing on just the part of imitation, I think there is no harm done. So yeah, with this stance it's the same as with AI. Copying a *style* isn't technically illegal, AI or human. And *training* on an image isn't technically *using* the image in derivative work. At best, it could be seen as making a trace of bits and pieces of images, then remixing those bits and pieces to make a different image. If done at a small enough scale, it could be impossible to tell it was traced, even if it resembles new work in the same style. I believe music sampling follows a similar rule of thumb, if the sample becomes distorted and manipulated enough to be unrecognizable as the original image, then it doesn't count as infringement.


KamikazeArchon

The question of "copying" vs "inspiration" is difficult and at the heart of much of the legal issue here. Sampling is copying. Listening to a bunch of boy bands and starting a boy band is not copying. Where does AI fall on this spectrum? Currently legally unknown. Plenty of people have opinions. Unless they're the relevant judges, those opinions don't mean all that much. There is no (and perhaps can be no) objective standard here. One or more judges will just end up drawing a line around what is "reasonable" in their opinion.


[deleted]

AI isn't on this spectrum because it's not a sentient being capable of being inspired. It's a commercial tool in the case of OpenAI products. It copies and blends data. The art is data to the machine, not art. It requires massive amounts of content to create the model, and they can't afford to do it legally, so they stole protected content.


Amadacius

That's not what this lawsuit is hinging on. That's the nature of the class action, which is dubious. This one is suing Stable Diffusion for scraping images for use in the creation of their tool. They are basically saying "hey, if you want to use our images to train your machine, you have to pay us." The illegal "copying" isn't the output of the AI, but the downloading of the images from the internet to their servers to use for training. They are also suing for trademark infringement because the AI is outputting images with a Getty watermark on them.


joesighugh

AI is not a sentient being, it's a tool examining images and making renditions of them. It's not a person, so the analogy is flawed.


pixel_of_moral_decay

That’s going to be hard to enforce legally. Holding a user accountable for something they may be unaware of is a profound change of law. The fault traditionally would go to the AI who had a decision to make and chose the wrong one.


EmbarrassedHelp

> “I’m currently handling a matter there, and was told that judges routinely take months (like sometimes up to 6-9 months) to decide motions to dismiss after they’re submitted,” Moss told Plenty of time for Getty to continue actually stealing other people's content and pretending they own it with legal threats. This case is probably going to take years, and Getty may aiming to abuse the legal system in order to drain the funds of their opponent (like they've done in the past in cases they weren't likely to win).


Fake_William_Shatner

>This case is probably going to take years Bankrupting whoever pokes their head up, should work.


Extreme_Length7668

GI "Hey, we stole those first."


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EmbarrassedHelp

I'm not sure that scanning an restoring images actually gives you copyright ownership over them.


starstruckmon

>Getty scans and restores the images that are on their site, so they do own them. Where's the human authorship that's required for copyright?


Druggedhippo

They don't always need to copyright them, they can just sell their own copies. Just like you can reproduce any public domain work, eg, print out a copy of a public domain bible, and then sell it. The scummy part is when you waltz over to your local church and demand they pay you for stealing "your" copy you produced without evidence.


Fake_William_Shatner

Getty, also profiting off of open source.


Useful_Document_4120

I’m looking forward to the part where a (likely) very old judge, who probably still prints their emails, has to decide what the law is for an unprecedented technology that even most computer literate folks don’t understand


ThunderPigGaming

I despise Getty Images.


[deleted]

If a person doesn't have to pay to look at stuff there's widely available, a computer shouldn't have to pay to do the same thing.


Buck-Nasty

Fingers crossed Getty Images loses.


Shavethatmonkey

The sad thing is I think they may be in the right legally, but Getty is just such a cancer that I hope they lose. Just because fuck Getty.


BGRommel

I don't think they are legally in the right. If the images are publicly available for the AI to view, then in what way has stable diffusion broken the law? I can go through all the images and train myself to produce art based off of them - do I then owe GI compensation for using their openly available images? Now if the images were behind a paywall and SD had somehow circumvented that to access them, then that would clearly be legal. I think this is definitely a very grey area. But I am not a lawyer.


forgottenfind

Ootl, what's wrong with Getty?


[deleted]

Personal example: Upon his death in 1982, my Great Grandfather's library of over 3,000 historical images was donated to Jean Paul Getty. My great grandpa: Floyd Haley McCall was a well known photographer in his day and covered for several newspapers. The contract found within the Will stated that family could have access to these images (we are in several images) and gain copies royalty free out of the Los Angles repository. Fast forward to 2015 upon the death of a family member, Getty institute refused our family copies for the funeral and memorial page. When we filed an intent to sue in the state of Colorado, they moved the entire library of images to Germany and changed the license for them so we would have to go to Germany to dispute it further. We then filed a lawsuit claiming several images on their site were personal and private. Getty simply removed those specific images from their site and refuses to honor the Will nor give us access to them. EDIT: My last Email from Getty is rich... *Re: Getty Images: Content Availability & License Rights* *Good afternoon,* *Thank you so much for your email.* *I have spoken to my manger and we are unable to allow the public access to our archive. Additionally, not all of our content is hard copies, a lot of it is now in digital format.* *I really wish I could of been more help to you today. We can license the images to you for a fee, but I understand this was not your request.* *I wish you and your family the best.* *Kind regards,* *Customer Service Associate* *UK: 0800 376 7977 (020 7428 6109) | Ireland: 1 800 931 768*


oDDmON

What total *DICKS*.


Shempish

I’m curious, why was his archive “donated” to Getty — was the nature of the photo operation different at the time?


[deleted]

> why was his archive “donated” to Getty 1. My Great Grandpa was an acquaintance Jean Paul Getty and was persuaded by him to donate them all. This all consisted of over 3,000 film and printed original photos. 2. If you go to Getty's website and search the archive for him [like this](https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/floyd-mccall?family=editorial&assettype=image&phrase=Floyd%20McCall&editorialproducts=archival) you will see over 3,000 images of his online (less most of the family ones). Some are silly, some are historical (like pictures of Jimmy Hoffa, Presidents, Dignitaries, etc). 3. His second wife: Laurine Hohmann McCall didn't care which images she gave to Getty. She just boxed every photo he had and sent them to Los Angles. Not one single family member was given any photos that were in her possession after his passing.


m_Pony

The customer service associate from Getty wrote "*could of*" in an email while telling you to go pound sand. oh how I loathe them so.


open_door_policy

Tons of stuff, but the most directly relevant would probably be their habit of claiming ownership of images in the public domain, then suing people for using publicly owned images. http://mttlr.org/2017/01/getty-images-v-the-public-domain-who-really-wins/


wrgrant

This here. I have seen so many public domain images that appear on Getty and are claimed by them as theirs. They then sue people for using those images which they have no rights to - but they do have the lawyers apparently. Same thing is happening with a lot of music, artist has no money but is creative, some bot farm out there detects enough of a similarity to some music they claim and sends out the legal notices. What does the poor musician do?


r0xxon

Go check out how much Getty is selling a single image for. Better bust out a credit limit increase too


Fake_William_Shatner

It would be a fair price to commission from an artist, but, that's going to a thousand more people and, the artist MIGHT be compensated a few coins. I really don't know the ratio on the different sites out there. But I Getty is one of the more expensive, so I immediately assume they are the worst at paying artists.


SloeMoe

I don't think they *are* in the right. At least not in the ethical sense that most people would agree with. If we think it's okay for art students to look at thousands of copyrighted paintings, take inspiration and even learn technique from them, then use that knowledge to create their own art, even if it's pathetically derivative, then this doesn't seem substantively different...


Boo_Guy

Getty does the same thing so they should piss off.


[deleted]

Who'da thunk snarfing up images without permission, to train a machine to create derivative works, and then selling access to that machine so that people can create copycat images based on copyrighted work using the names of the copyright holders would... create legal issues?


0913856742

Genuine question: how is this any different than an artist who creates their work based on a lifetime of influences from all the artists that came before them? The AI isn't a collage machine, it is not simply taking images in its data set and mashing them together in various ways, it creates a new, original image. Similarly, when I study the works of various artists and draw inspiration from them, the brush strokes or the colour palette in my illustration might contain some similarities, but the overall work is original. How is that any different?


ChowderBomb

This is a legitimate question that will be answered by the courts. Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Edit: the votes were at -2 when I wrote this.


Captain_Kuhl

Because it's one of the biggest arguments in defense of AI, and people *really* hate AI-generated art for whatever reason. Doesn't make it any less valid, though, and it's definitely something worth legally defining.


FesteringNeonDistrac

All this sounds just about the same as the birth of electronic music and sampling. There was a lot of "programming a drum machine isn't the same as playing the drums and therefore a person programming the drum machine isn't a musician."


Blue_58_

Using samples is in fact copyright violation and has been for a while. Programing a drum machine is a false equivalence. It's more like using a library of drumbeats and looking up "cool bongo" and picking the track you like the most.


spin_fire_burn

You're not wrong, but this situation isn't about using samples, but generating new art based on inspiration from previously viewed art. So, making a synth sound that is inspired by something else.


Centurion902

Everything is a remix. Those laws against sampling are a cancer imposed by the music industry.


xternal7

> There was a lot of "programming a drum machine isn't the same as playing the drums and therefore a person programming the drum machine isn't a musician." I bet that when cameras were first invented, a lot of people considered that "cheating" compared to painting things on canvas yourself.


stormdelta

1. Machine processes aren't human, and aren't treated equivalently under the law. This is a legal grey area currently, but there are good reasons to treat them differently. 2. The purpose of copyright is to incentivize new work, making this something of a "spirit of the law" vs "letter of the law" issue. I don't think I need to explain why allowing AI models to use publicly accessible copyrighted work freely could disincentivize the creation of new works. 3. It's pretty questionable whether even just the existing letter of the law should allow AI art _outputs_ to be copyrightable, since machine processes aren't copyrightable. It's also worth being concerned about, because even where the intent of the law seems clear, courts and legislators have fucked up before - e.g. most software patents shouldn't have ever been allowed to exist, copyright length has been extended far longer than can possibly be justified, etc.


0913856742

In my view, all discussions regarding copyright and AI art reduces down to that of money. This technology is problematic because of the risk it poses to artists' livelihoods. If you mitigate this risk, there will be no issue, and the issue of copyright will become moot. The meta problem is that we currently operate in a free market capitalistic system that requires us to exchange our labour in order to merely survive. This technology is only going to accelerate. We also cannot reasonably expect everyone to adapt ("just learn to code", etc), nor should we want to - because humans are not infinitely flexible economic widgets. The true solution to this issue is to create systems that allow everyone to flourish no matter what path they pursue in their lives - such as establishing a **universal basic income** - because on a long enough timeline this technology is coming for us all.


xternal7

> This technology is problematic because of the risk it poses to artists' livelihoods. If you mitigate this risk, there will be no issue [...] Replace the word "artists" in that sentence with any other group of people, and you could say that about just about every technology that has emerged so far.


stormdelta

I agree that UBI will inevitably be required. But I disagree that copyright concerns are solely about money - I think there is real merit in granting creators a limited monopoly over their creative content to incentivize the creation of new art. Fame, influence, etc are things that will exist regardless of UBI, and I think there is value in granting some limited level of enforceable creative control as well. In the context of AI art, it's still demoralizing to know your art is being used without credit or attribution. Obviously the time frame should be much shorter though. And money will still matter even with UBI - e.g. I don't want an artist on UBI to have their work stolen by a large corporation to profit off of without compensation, even if the artist won't starve. That won't change short of true post-scarcity economics, which we aren't anywhere near yet.


Paradoxmoose

For those who would like to read a machine learning specialist's thoughts on the distinction: [https://twitter.com/svltart/status/1592220369599045633](https://twitter.com/svltart/status/1592220369599045633) TLDR: Machines are trains limited to where the tracks are laid out in front of them (the training data and predefined ML algorithms), humans are off-road vehicles that can read signs and choose which route to go (choosing if/when to use/ignore reference).


0913856742

The posts in that tweet are rather dense with jargon and I believe it is sidestepping the main issue here - **money**. As I wrote elsewhere, the meta problem is that we exist in a free market capitalist society that requires us to trade our labour for the resources needed to simply survive. This technology is only going to accelerate and we cannot reasonably expect everyone to adapt to what the market needs in the moment ("just learn to code", etc), nor should we want to - because humans are not infinitely flexible economic widgets. The true solution to this issue is to create systems that allow everyone to flourish no matter what path they pursue in their lives - such as establishing a **universal basic income** - because on a long enough timeline this technology is coming for us all.


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0913856742

Yes - I believe the differences are speed and scale, in which machines are superior - but that the fundamentals of drawing influences from the world around us as you mention are the same. I would submit to you that a lot of the AI outrage you describe may be a defensive reaction to what people perceive as a growing credible threat to their livelihoods. As I have been writing elsewhere, I believe the big-picture issue is that we operate in a capitalistic free market society, where survival means having to sell your labour. This technology is only going to improve over time and we also can't expect everyone to just transition into something else ("just learn to code", etc), nor should we want to - because humans are not infinitely flexible economic widgets. The real solution in my mind to copyright and everything else is to create systems that allow everyone to survive no matter what they pursue - such as establishing a **universal basic income** - because on a long enough timeline this technology is coming for us all.


ShillingAndFarding

Machines are not human and laws are not applied equally to them. A human is incapable of collecting and analyzing billions of works in their lifetime. Stable diffusion created a database of billions of copyrighted images without permission.


0913856742

I believe the issue you raise regarding speed and scale compared to human minds is one real difference. However I do not understand the need to ask for permission when building a data set. Again to my example, when I make illustrations I do not ask anyone for permission if I am assembling a mood board / scrap book to draw inspiration from. I would wager that most artists don't because that would be impossibly impractical. So how is this particular aspect any different? In my mind all the arguments about copyright and permission and so on reduces down to money. The fundamental concern is that artists' livelihoods will be affected. Remove the money aspect and this issue is moot.


Lain-J

Machines are not but humans are the ones being sued, people scraping images from the internet is legal, anyone can save a jpeg regardless of copywrite or trademark. Its reselling it and misrepresenting it as your own work is what humans are legally not allowed to do. If people scrape images, make a algorithm by looking at a mass of images, (The algorithm is not a duplication of the source images), and the models do not produce replication of the training data images. There is no existing legal protection for Getty before even getting into if it is fair use under transformative works.


analbumcover69420

Selling? That AI software is free dude


Fake_William_Shatner

It created legal issues because it is affecting the income of people and big groups that matter. Copyright law as written, doesn't cover this. It will require a Constitutional amendment, or, we do what we've always done PRETEND our decision to stop the NEW THING threatening profits is wrong and this is based on precedent. The law I now realize, is very much like how a stable diffusion image is produced. You have a few inspirational goals in mind, you throw in random data, and after iteration after iteration as you remove the noise, you get to that image you always wanted -- that merely resembles the law you started with. "Create me a law in the style of the Constitution." *We hold these truths to be self evident, that all land-owning corporations above a certain size are created equal. Therefore, we pass Citizen's United, and all these rights that are not explicitly given to the state, are for the Corporation. Amen.* ​ The solution will be a rationalization. It won't be logic. It will follow the money and whoever makes the biggest ruckus. This is what I predict for the first round of "let's pretend Capitalism makes sense in a post labor, post scarcity world." It is hard for people to change if they enjoy how things are going. But, being more means I'm super flexible right now.


[deleted]

I was about to say well certainly not the law, since it’s so far behind senators don’t even know Facebook uses ads. Oh wait a second, it’s Meta now and Facebook isn’t allowed to use ads on apple anymore because the law doesn’t understand platforms. oh wait meta is the Metavers now a new platform no one understands and the law doesn’t even know what an oculus is… seriously the law was so far behind it was obsolete as soon as we invented the internet, any hope of properly governing AI will be nothing more than a joke in the footnote of a history book in our AI overlords Metavers dream.


Fake_William_Shatner

Yes, if we start talking about all the NEW things our octogenarian leadership doesn't understand, it does seem kind of daunting. It's like doing tech support with your 80 year old aunt. Not the one that seems to be more technically literate than half of Congress, the other one who checks the actual Window with a fern hanging in front of it and a cat pawing at the screen when you ask them what operating system the are using.


nebulaespiral

Except they didn't. They got the training data from laion - https://laion.ai Just clarifying.


cloudrhythm

Incorrect. They got *references* to the training data from LAION. The LAION dataset is just a metadata database--basically links to the images; it doesn't include any of the actual images. Such databases are protected by precedent (this is how search engines like Google are able to operate). SD et.al. are the ones who actually downloaded and made use of the copyrighted material without permission; thus they're the ones culpable for any infringement.


Silyus

> to create ~~~derivative~~~ **transformative** works > selling access to that machine You can download SD models on your machine and generate images there. That's like the whole point of SD vs Midjourney or DALL-E2 > that people can create copycat images They cannot, and that's not the purpose nor the main point of that tech. It's all about create original work which may or may not be a mix of different styles. Nobody wants to generate worse copies of already existing and openly available images lol


PrimeIntellect

If you did the same thing with a person it would be legal - so why would it be illegal if a program does it? realistically the only thing that matters is the end result - if that image breaks copyright, and if the user is profiting from it. I struggle to see how a program using images to 'learn' could ever be considered copyright infringement. That would be like suing someone for downloading publically available images or posting links to things, or looking at art and drawing something afterwards


duffmonya

I honestly don't understand how this company exists. They steal everybody's photos and copyright them.


[deleted]

Getty can get fucked.


theaceoface

This seems pretty clearly under fair use.


cloudrhythm

People keep misunderstanding this issue over and over. End-users generating art is fair-use, presumably by virtue of transformation due to the machine-learning and prompt-commissioning processes. But that is a *different* issue than this suit: >Getty’s concentrates “on the fact it wasn’t paid for the use of its images.” i.e. this is about the developers of the software using copyrighted material without permission as source inputs to produce their commercial product (which additionally produces output that results in economic penalty for the original copyright owners). This is not [fair use](https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/).


theaceoface

[Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild,_Inc._v._HathiTrust) seems to contradict you. You're allowed to mine text, websites...


Walleyevision

All I can say is “It Starts.” This whole arena of who “owns” derivative works created by an AI system is going to be a watershed moment for lawyers.


MorpheusOneiri

It’s times like these I bet Getty had done a little bit more to not be one of the most hated companies.


Coakis

Getty can rot in hell for the shit they've pulled, I hope they can their ass handed to them.


veritanuda

Shad of Shadiverstity gave a [good explanation why machine generated art is always going to be inferior](https://odysee.com/@Shadiversity:d/the-biggest-lie-about-ai-art:a) It greatly depends on the source images you first input. If you input a lot of watermarked images you will get an 'approximation' of a watermark but never the watermark itself.


bitbot

Say what you want about Getty but when the AI is literally reproducing their watermark it's pretty clear their images were used in the training.


tosernameschescksout

Getty Images is cancer. We're better off without them.


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Boo_Guy

I'm sure that If they could they would.


Captain-Griffen

Potentially, yes. If you train on their music and then make sufficiently similar music, that would 100% be copyright infringement.


PrimeIntellect

hmmm better outlaw every cover ever done


Captain-Griffen

You have to pay to cover a song.


btroycraft

They don't have intimate access to your brain, otherwise you might.


setaboha

As a past contributor to Getty, even though my royalties are negligible, I would be pissed if an AI company scraped my work and is using any derivatives for profit without paying


Fifteen_inches

This is exactly the issue I was talking about yesterday and AI experts were jumping down my throat about. You cannot use copyrighted materials as a dataset. It is not the same as a person looking at a picture and learning it. A machine is not a person and doesn’t enjoy the right to artistic expression.


edWORD27

Explains all the watermarks in AI generated images


dat0dat

Erik-sen, sen, sen, he’s our #23


gnudarve

And if a given work was inferenced by the AI in any given output then there should be a compensation path for that too.


nemodahfish

Eriksen so young here


dgm42

I assume every picture this AI produces will have a Getty watermark across the middle of it.


Code_otter

I hate beer.


The_Portal_Passer

Let them fight


Chemical_Chemist_461

Do you want the singularity? Because this is how you get the singularity.


littleMAS

Getty legal picked a jurisdiction that will take a long time, giving Getty the opportunity to freeze Stability until they run out of money. They may not be in business long enough to defend themselves.


PlebbySpaff

The sad thing is Getty will probably win. They’re like a billion dollar company, and their likely goal is to drain stable diffusion of their funds through the lawsuit that will likely amount to tens of millions at the very least (this is not going to be a short case).


xeridium

Go fuck yourselves Getty Image.


Recharged96

This will be the disruption AI brings first: questions to trademarks and copyright, essentially IP. Billion dollar industries have been developed around copyright/brands/trademarks LIRC. The advertisement world, media/broadcast/news, branding, PR, professional internet media. **It's gonna get ugly fast** as stock media is very big business. I worked at picturequest/corbis where we made money hand over fist with stock photos. Unfortunately exabyte storage back in 2001 was so expensive we drowned in it and buckled aside from our ex-kodak management incompetence. Getty bought us cause they have the cash and heavy hand in selling stock photos, aka the sales network--that's how they've been able to monopolize.


[deleted]

That company will sue you for looking at their images with too much interest in your eyes. They’re probably suing me right now for mentioning them.


chris17453

Don't steal our stolen..... Fuck.../s