I really don’t know why people announce these things. They have to know by now that Nintendo will squash anything and everything that uses their IP and/or assets. It’s like taking your first Tae Kwon Do lesson and celebrating by telling all your bullies.

Yeah, it’s better to just not support anything, good or bad.

The copium in some of these comments… Keep giving your money to terrible people so they feel rewarded for their acts and can continue to abuse others. I’m sure that will work out for the best.

Yeah, but imagine owning something.

He cuts off a dude’s dick and taunts him by eating a sausage in front of him.

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I’m not sure I understand your argument. Are you saying that because AI can blend together the works of hundreds and create something unique, that it is bad?

You’ve got nothing.

That’s a matter of perspective.

Firstly, I agree with most of what you’ve said. However…

Problems arise when the AI is based on someone else’s work and you claim the output as yours. Could you have painted the image exactly the same way?

Is there anything in the world that isn’t a derivative of something else? Can you claim to have a thought that isn’t influenced by something you’ve heard, read, seen? Feeding art to AI is no different than a student walking a gallery and learning the styles of the masters. Is the AI better at it? Sure. But it’s still doing the same thing. If someone with eidetic memory paints like Picasso, are they not an artist?

To really drive home the point, if I have a friend that is an artist, like, a really good artist, and I ask them to paint something for me, say, a field with wildflowers in the snow, and they come back with something that looks just like Landscape With Snow by Van Gogh, does that mean my friend isn’t an artist? If I ask AI for that, and they come back with something like what my friend painted, how is it any different? We call them “learning” models, but we refuse to believe that they “learn”. Instead we call it “theft”.

That douche punched a sentence into a computer

The jokes write themselves, folks.

If you left a wet brush on a piece of paper and came back the next day to find the wind had blown it across the paper leaving a paint streak, that paint streak could not be copyrighted. You fully relinquished control of the brush to the wind.

I wouldn’t claim to have created that. I didn’t exert my intent. However, if my intent were to show the art of the natural world by allowing the wind to paint on a canvas, that would qualify as art, and could be copyrighted.

Arguably the same is true of the wind. So to claim copyright, you cannot relinquish control to an inanimate object. Not to the wind, not to an AI.

You can, if it is your intent. I just finished arguing this point on another part of this thread, but Jackson Pollock and Damien Hirst are two examples of this. They both relinquish their tools to “randomness” and have had their works copyrighted. Control doesn’t matter. Intent matters.

Well, it’s been great chatting. Have a good one.

You directly control every pixel on your paintbrush, whether you want to or not. Who else controls it?

I meant a physical paintbrush, not a digital one. A physical one is effected by many outside forces I have no control over. As far as a digital brush, you are correct, I can control exactly where it goes. If we are going to argue the merits of digital and analogue art and whether one has more value than the other, I think I’ll bow out, because even I’m not brave enough to find a soapbox to stand on in that one.

In contrast, you have some control over MidJourney output, but not direct control. Something could appear in the output that you did not cause.

But that would be controlled by something, likely something that has been programmed into it. In dealing with computers, the concept of “random” isn’t real. Everything is deterministic. Whether I am the one that forced the output, or it was something that was programmed, it is not the intent of the program, because the program has no intent.

Movies aren’t made solely by the director, but certain requirements must be met before one can claim copyright. Minimal input is not sufficient, there must be some direct control over an element of the output, whether that’s the cinematography, writing, or soundtrack. Hundreds of people may offer their input but not share copyright.

Right, and hundreds of people may have programmed the LLM, but they don’t get credit for the art.

It’s true that inanimate objects can’t claim copyright but that does not remove the requirement for direct control. If no human has direct control then the rights revert to public domain, for example no human has direct control of a sunset so a sunset cannot be copyrighted.

A human does have direct control, though. I control the keywords. I control the random seed if I don’t want it to be random. In the case of MidJourney, I can prompt with an image to control the character, style, and over-all image composition. I have a lot of control over what comes out. Just because I don’t control exactly where each pixel goes doesn’t mean my intent isn’t exerted over the final piece, just like I can’t control every bristle on a paintbrush.

Damien Hirst and Jackson Pollock would like to have a word with you.

That’s an art installation which you can copyright. The resulting artwork on the canvas can’t be.

Do you have anything to back that up?

Then that musician becomes the composer who can copyright the sheet music. The one who plays the chords becomes the performing artist and can copyright the performance.

That is if they actually composed the music. In the case of someone saying I want a song that is ABAG, and they ask that it be written down because they cannot write it down themselves, the person who writes down ABAG isn’t the composer, they are an extension of the pen that writes the note–they have become a tool.

The LLM is the “artist” as it produces the image. And you can’t claim copyright for someone else.

The LLM gives you what you ask for based on a random seed and keywords in your prompt. It has no will of it’s own. It cannot exert its will over the image. It simply outputs. As I’ve said in another part of this thread, if I tie a bucket of paint with hole to a rope and sling the bucket of paint over a canvas, does the bucket of paint get credit for being the artist? Does the rope? No. They had no will. Even though my input was minimal, and the results most assuredly random, I am still the artist by all accounts, and as such may copyright my random sprays of paint should I deem them worthy. My intent has created the art–my desire. The machine cannot create because it cannot exert its will. It simply does what it is asked and outputs.

then the photographer, photographer’s assistant, agent, employer, and employer’s ex-wife will all sue each other over ownership.

I mean, that’s any artistic industry, really. Movies aren’t solely made by the director, music isn’t solely made by the singer. Sometimes those people can be the sole creator of the art, but when they aren’t, credit is shared.

In the music industry, you need to actually perform a piece to claim performance credit or specify the verses of a song that you personally wrote to claim writing credit.

Agreed, in which case you would get performance credit and everyone else will get credit for what their contributed. No one gives credit to the microphone cord, though. No one is crediting the studio lights. They aren’t sentient. Their intent isn’t exerted over the art.

I actually covered this exact point:

If they take suggestion from someone else, like an employer, then a contract and shared creative ownership can be argued, but that is something between two sentient life forms.

When two sentient life forms collaborate to create art, then they share the ownership. When an employer tells me what photographs to take, they have a part in the creative process and have placed their intent into the work. Now, 99% of the time, when an employer asks for something, and I do the work, they don’t take the credit for it. They defer to me and understand that my knowledge has given their idea form, and because of my intent, their intent has been realised. However, there can be arguments made for shared ownership if they have given me input as to what they want. I’ll even praise someone who has done some research beforehand and said something like, “When I was here last week, at 4pm, the sun shone through here beautifully, and we’d like to get some photos with that.” That is a shared creative experience, and the intent of both parties creates the art, and so both parties have some ownership. You can also look at this through the lens of the music industry, where a performer may not write their own songs, and both the artist and the songwriter share credit for the song (though usually not equally).

Now, when I give instructions to an AI on what art I would like to see, that AI has no input in the process, it simply pulls from its dataset and applies a randomly generated seed to create the image. It exerts no will of its own, and so no intent of its own is wielded over the art, as it has neither. It is no more willful than the grain of the pencil lead.

It depends on who is creating the art. If I simply go where I am told, take exactly the pictures that I am told to take, and then hand them over to the employer, I am little more than a tripod that can work a shutter. I’m not the one with the intent, my employer is, and in that case I would be the tool (and my exes agree). In that case, my employer has effectively made the art, I have had no input in the process, and am for all intents and purposes no different than the AI. However, when I start to force my will upon the photographs, when I stage the lighting and set everything the way that I wish, then I am the one with intent, and I have created the art, and the camera is the only tool in the bag. That is how the art shifts; with the intent. Every pencil’s lead will have a grain specific to it, like a fingerprint, however, that pencil has no control over the art that it creates. It is a tool. If the AI, the pencil, or the photographer start to exert their own will over the art, then it becomes their own. If they take suggestion from someone else, like an employer, then a contract and shared creative ownership can be argued, but that is something between two sentient life forms. A tool cannot own the art. I do not credit my camera for the shots I take.