After people reacted so positively to the banner I made I had the idea to do the same with c/anarchism. But what to draw? Well I took the existing image and traced over it, adding some more character.
License (as always): CC-0, no rights reserved. Especially since it’s traced over a generated image.
👍
Very cool. Thanks!
If you want to use this here’s a slightly fixed and png’d version:
Added. Cheers!
Did your last line betray your use of AI?
I haven’t used any AI. This is traced over the https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/anarchism banner. That banner was generated, like most db0’s comms.
But I have wondered about doing this to images generated myself. I think it’s an interesting counter-argument to the “AI” hardliners. If I claim no ownership of the generated output or even my own work based on that output is it still stealing? And if the image was generated in a climate-friendly manner, like through AI Horde or Ecosia, is it still problematic?
If I claim no ownership of the generated output or even my own work based on that output is it still stealing?
No such thing as ‘stealing’ when it comes to generative AI output. AI output cannot be copyrighted at all. It’s all free for the taking.
No such thing as ‘stealing’ when it comes to
generative AI outputCopying digital assets.Fixed it for you. Copyright violations are not stealing. That includes creating unauthorized derivative works.
For generative AI it’s even more meaningless because it can’t be copyrighted.
If I steal a bunch of handmade jewelry, cut it up and fuse it all together into a sculpture, then give that sculpture away, it’s still theft. If the recipient knows it was made with stolen jewelry, that makes them an accomplice.
Just because GenAI output can’t be copyrighted doesn’t mean its output isn’t still theft.
Copying is not theft:
For archival and preservation purposes? I agree. For circumventing an artist’s livelihood? Eat shit.
This is a really dumb analogy because if you steal a bunch of jewelry, then the jewelry is gone and the original owner doesn’t have it anymore.
But if you steal AI ‘art’, the original owner still has it.
There’s a difference between stealing and copying, and that difference is whether you’re depriving the original owner of the thing.
And from a whole different angle:
‘Stealing’ implies ownership. But the original ‘owner’ doesn’t actually own the output of AI in the first place. It wasn’t “handmade” – it was made by a computer algorithm. You can’t steal from someone who doesn’t own the objects in the first place.
This applies to all art equally. Human made as well. If you aren’t depriving them of the original you aren’t stealing.
You can steal a painting, you can’t steal a picture posted online.
Fine, if you want to be pedantic: if you make reusable molds of handmade jewelry without the artists’ permission, then you proceed to make new jewelry from the parts, you still stole the original design. Likewise, AI copying artists’ artwork to reproduce its parts is theft. It doesn’t matter if they still have the originals, because the originals weren’t free to copy in the first place.
It’s theft, and being annoyed that I didn’t create a perfect analogy doesn’t change that fact. And if you want to talk deprivation, you are depriving the original artist of their rights to monetize their work (notice I said “rights,” not ability).
Also, I never said you were stealing from the AI; you are an accessory to theft of the original artwork if you are using models trained on stolen artwork.
Still not theft. Merely copyright infringement at best.
Oh, “merely.” I’m sure all the artists who weren’t given the opportunity to opt out and are currently having their work reproduced at scale feel so much better about that legal distinction.
This is traced over the https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/anarchism banner. That banner was generated, like most db0’s comms.
I think there’s something kinda poetic about this. Like if we adopt your banner, it shows that we’re not repudiating the old banner or the people who made it, but that we are adapting to the needs of our time. And it’s really pretty too
Gotcha. Image doesn’t load on Boost so couldn’t tell. I think there’s no problem but we can’t be too careful atm imo.
And if the image was generated in a climate-friendly manner, like through AI Horde or Ecosia, is it still problematic?
Yes, because unless the model was trained with properly licensed artwork (and virtually none of them are), it was built upon stolen art. Doesn’t matter if it’s somehow used ethically after that, the core algorithms were created unethically.
On top of that, GenAI use in its current form directly or indirectly supports billionaires and their goals, either by boosting their usage numbers for investors, boosting usage so that they decide to buy up production capacity for literal years, or just generally normalizing usage to regular people who are ignorant of the issues or (worse) supportive of the billionaire class.
Yes, because unless the model was trained with properly licensed artwork (and virtually none of them are), it was built upon stolen art. Doesn’t matter if it’s somehow used ethically after that, the core algorithms were created unethically.
You realize the copyright system you’re defending was created for the purpose of benefiting those billionaires right? Do you think artists want copyright to last longer than they are alive and then some? Also do you think all the so-called “mom and pop artists” can afford to fight for their copyright in court if some chud decides to scoff at the law?
Stop parroting liberal garbage. We’re not buying it. The only thing you’ve succeeded at here is making an idiot of yourself.
You realize the copyright system you’re defending was created for the purpose of benefiting those billionaires right?
Yes. Amazing you think I’m defending copyright and not artists’ livelihoods under a capitalist system. Copyright is certainly broken, but we do not have socialism or better. The artists do not benefit from people behaving as if capitalism isn’t still the defacto machine abusing us all.
If what I’ve said can be construed as defense of copyright, it’s only because artists do not have an alternative, and stealing from them keeps them poor (a distinctly capitalist endeavor, so hilarious coming from you all). What have you proposed except, “Hur dur, yew sownd like librul.”
Stop parroting liberal garbage. We’re not buying it. The only thing you’ve succeeded at here is making an idiot of yourself.
Lmao stop acting like you care about the big bad capitalists. You’re just as bad as they are by doing the exact same things they do. Enjoy your privilege.
If it’s artists’ livelihoods you care about then you are arguing the wrong point. Copyright is not the thing that gives artists money, getting hired is. The problem is not that someone copied an artists work and used it to generate a different picture in the same style. The problem is the people who use those pictures instead of paying artists. I don’t think anyone in this instance would use generated images instead of paying artists if they had that availability. The only claim that this instance is harmful to artists that has any weight is that it normalises generated images, but that’s circumstantial at best.
Your problem, that artists aren’t being paid, is caused by the people not hiring artists. Not some anarchists using their local models for fun. The theft happens when a would be commission gets generated instead, not when the image is processed into the model.
This is the point that you miss when you equate this and capitalists. Capitalists can afford to pay artists to create the art they want, they’re just too greedy to do so.
This is at least a reasonable premise, and you seem to understand my core point: artists do real work that deserves compensation. Copyright only matters to me insomuch as it’s the currently existing framework artists must operate within. I do not want that to be the case, but my wishes aren’t going to change artists’ reality today or tomorrow (but the day after? Maybe…).
I disagree with the “local model” argument specifically because normalization is part of the billionaires’ strategy. Regular people, who make up the vast majority of users, don’t know the difference between ChatGPT, Claude, and some open model hosted by their company or tech savvy nephew. Most will use them interchangeably without a second thought, because it’s all a mysterious magic black box.
So while I can see the merits of goofing around at home, putting that stuff out in public is just another piece of that normalization strategy.
My other beef is that even among the open models, a fair number were still trained with data that wasn’t consensually given. They benefit from the same processes that created Sora, etc. I’m sure there are people who are trying to create ethical models that can run locally, but it’s harder when you can’t scrape the entire library of Sony Music or deviantart.
At the end of the day, I want to ensure people (not corporations) are provided for. Capitalism is obviously no solution to that problem, but it is the problem we must soberly face today and tomorrow, and we need to be aware of how what we do, even in silly moments, can have a larger cumulative effect.
Those regular people aren’t here. And If they were what would you want them to see? People arguing over “stealing” and “copyright”, completely sidestepping the actual point of the conversation like Mystic was. Or people warning each other over using corporate models and replacing artists.
From now on whenever I make something AI related I’m going to say “Don’t use corporate AI. Hire actual artists.” As the first line to combat this. Because, as I hope you’ve seen, arguing on whether or not this is stealing will simply go nowhere.
These models exist, and normal people will see generated content as every other platform is full of it. Allow this one space to be about doing image generation right: “No destroying the planet or replacing humans”.
As with consent. I think training falls under fair use. You aren’t going to be able to get an exact replica from a model anyway so any output I consider transformative, similarly to how a human brain transforms content (although obviously the internals completely different). For me the argument that you need consent to train a model is the same as arguing you need consent to train yourself, or cover a song, or trace over an image. Yes the transformation is mechanical, but if a human was doing all those calculations by hand it would be considered art, and no-one would question if they had the right.
Slight tangent as you mentioned music. I actually like generated music. Like the sound of it. It’s got the vibe of melting a bunch of different songs together to make something completely unoriginal but still different. Real music is obviously superior in every way, but when you want something like that one song that’s unlike any other and you just wish it were longer, that’s what generated music is for. It can’t replace any actual musician but it can provide an interesting listening experience… For like an hour at a time before it becomes grating.
But the point I want to make is that generated music does not sound like music. It’s something different. So arguing that it’s somehow plagiarising just seems silly to me. The model transformed it. It’s not the same, audibly.
but we do not have socialism or better.
Apologizing for the status quo is the same as defending it. You are utterly pathetic. You can’t claim to be against copyright then turn around and apologize for it because it’s the status quo. That’s called double-think.
Lmao stop acting like you care about the big bad capitalists. You’re just as bad as they are by doing the exact same things they do. Enjoy your privilege.
Funny I’m not the one who expects people to bend and obey to liberal ideology because capitalism “exists”.
Great, so under your plan, the artists starve while they wait for revolution. What a hero you are.
You can moan about “liberal ideology” all you want, but acting like people aren’t trapped by capitalism isn’t defeating it, and stealing from people in the cage isn’t saving them.
Please tell me a small artist who won a copyright case against a megacorp.
Please tell me how copying is stealing.
Please explain anything in your mind.
Making a copy of something isn’t stealing. Full stop.
You claim you don’t believe in copyright and that you aren’t in favor or it yet you keep calling copyright violations stealing. I find this really funny and hypocritical. Apologizing for the status quo certainly isn’t saving anyone. It’s called being a liberal. You aren’t special in that regard. There’s thousands of other liberals just like you apologizing for things as they are.
