[HN Gopher] Supreme Court rules Andy Warhol's Prince art is copy...
___________________________________________________________________
Supreme Court rules Andy Warhol's Prince art is copyright
infringement
Author : kens
Score : 187 points
Date : 2023-05-18 17:59 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (petapixel.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (petapixel.com)
| pentagrama wrote:
| If Warhol had added a ridiculous mustache I think he would have
| gotten away with it in this ruling
| archontes wrote:
| Probably not, as the L.H.O.O.Q [1] is the literal textbook
| example of a derivative work, which would fall under the
| explicit protection of copyright.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.H.O.O.Q.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| How much $ can she get from Andy?
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| While it's not precisely congruent, this makes me think of
| Prince's single "Breakfast Can Wait" [0] whose artwork features
| Dave Chappelle dressed up as Prince, a still taken from a
| Chappelle's Show sketch (y'know, "fuck yo' couch"?).
|
| By my reading of TFA, this use of Chappelle's image-of-Prince
| wasn't exactly transformative. Chappelle reportedly took this in
| chuckling stride, as the wiki link relates, but one wonders if
| any negotiation, legal or otherwise, took place.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_Can_Wait
| 1lint wrote:
| My feeling is that Andy Warhol's creation entailed greater
| effort, and certainly greater artistic expression, than
| Goldsmith's act of snapping a photograph of Prince. I guess what
| I really take issue with is that taking a photograph entitles one
| to copyright protection, when the image is directly created by a
| machine (the camera), while all the photographer does is point
| the camera and click.
|
| In fact the USPTO recently opined against granting copyright for
| images generated by a machine (AI model) in response to someone's
| prompt (https://public-
| inspection.federalregister.gov/2023-05321.pdf). I believe
| applying this same standard (whether the standard is right is an
| entirely separate question) to photography should also preclude
| photos from copyright, because there is more artistic expression
| involved in prompting than there is in pointing a camera.
| freejazz wrote:
| If you think that's what's really entailed in photography, you
| a) don't really seem to know anything about photography as a
| science, let alone an art, and b) should read US court cases on
| photography copyrights, which make all of these points against
| you. Happy to get you same case names if you are interested.
| rcme wrote:
| The prompt can be copyrighted, but the generated image can not.
| ESTheComposer wrote:
| > while all the photographer does is point the camera and click
|
| You sound like every "I have an idea guy" that wants
| programmers to build their app. "It's totally easy, all you
| have to do is just build it!!!!"
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Grab a copy of Susan Sontag's _On Photography_.
| ano-ther wrote:
| > what I really take issue with is that taking a photograph
| entitles one to copyright protection, when the image is
| directly created by a machine (the camera), while all the
| photographer does is point the camera and click.
|
| I hire photographers on a regular basis for corporate jobs and
| have a lot of respect for their skills. They are definitely not
| just "pointing and clicking."
|
| It's about composing, setting the right light, arranging the
| scene, making your model be comfortable, capturing the right
| moment, and knowing the technology including processing a
| picture after it is made.
|
| When they are good, it feels effortless. But it certainly
| isn't.
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| > while all the photographer does is point the camera and
| click.
|
| In this, and almost every case, there is much more to it than
| that, especially in a controlled setting where the photographer
| is setting the background. Exposure, depth of field, framing,
| etc.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > "The Court here uses unambiguous language to eliminate an oft-
| used point raised in fair use analysis. Simply adding 'some new
| expression, meaning or message' does NOT, in and of itself,
| create a transformational use. Period.
|
| It seems weird to have judges and lawyers critiquing artwork like
| this. Seems like a bit of an increase in the scope of their jobs.
| Isn't "transformational" like beauty, in the eye of the beholder?
| freejazz wrote:
| Have you read the opinion at all? It's not what they are doing
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The US Congress passed copyright laws.
|
| Reality raises questions on edge cases.
|
| The courts clarify edge cases.
|
| In this case, the courts' clarification just happens to be on
| "What sort of artistic transformation is sufficient to qualify
| for that copyright exception?"
|
| This essentially clarifies that pasting (adding) something on
| top of a copyrighted work isn't sufficient. (Notably, there are
| other exclusions besides transformation that a work could also
| qualify for)
| crumpled wrote:
| Reminds me of the more recent law suits between Shepard Fairy and
| AP about the Barack Obama "Hope" graphic.
|
| Based on this new judgment it looks like Fairey would eventually
| lose if they hadn't settled the case.
| indymike wrote:
| About 15 years a go I worked with a web designer that would take
| a photo and apply a filter to it in Photoshop and claim it was
| now copyright free and could be used. Fortunately, we told him to
| get something where we could either license it or have
| documentation it didn't have to be licensed. Paid license, CC,
| whatever, but we needed proof we were allowed to use it. Our
| designer thought using famous people instead of stock photos
| would sell more. The designer went on to start a web design
| company that got sued for infringement, and ended up having to
| settle.
|
| I always wondered why if, my designer friend had to settle, how
| Warhol got away with it.
| reaperman wrote:
| The Warhol was previously presumed to be "transformative" work
| due to Warhol's reality distortion field. I'm not trying to be
| facetious, warhol's "Campbell soup" genuinely transformed the
| imagery/iconography of a Campbell's soup can for his
| generation. And "transformative" makes it not infringement,
| legally.
|
| But removed from that transformative force, it's clearly
| copyright infringement. So by 2023, things look different.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| What an odd, contrived problem caused by eternal copyrights.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| Did Campbell ever take issue with Warhol's art?
| smeagull wrote:
| It's not copyright infringement, but entrenched interests
| that publish, rather than create, are feeling threatened.
| Jiro wrote:
| The soup can was not used by Warhol to sell soup. The Prince
| art was being used in an article about Prince. And that point
| was a major part of the Supreme Court decision.
| cushpush wrote:
| Fascinating distinction.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Perhaps a lawyer can explain a little more to me the logic
| behind the "transformative" rule when it comes to copyright
| protection, and particularly how there seems to be a totally
| different standard when it applies to music.
|
| While Ed Sheeran just won (in my opinion, thankfully) his
| copyright lawsuit, the writers of "Blurred Lines" famously lost
| the lawsuit filed by Marvin Gaye's family alleging infringement
| of "Got to Give it Up". In my opinion, that was the wrong
| decision - while you can argue there are some similar beats and
| chord progressions, I don't see how anyone could believe that
| Blurred Lines isn't _at least_ a "transformative" depiction of
| "Got to Give it Up" (to be clear, I think it's _much_ more than
| that - the songs sound completely different to my untrained
| ear). Even in cases where there is no dispute, where one song
| legally samples another song but pays royalties, in many cases
| the use of the sample is completely transformative, again in my
| opinion, use of the original song.
|
| So basically what I'm asking is why do judges appear to apply
| the "transformative" rule to visual arts but not to auditory
| ones.
| Retric wrote:
| One of the major problems with songs is they often "borrow"
| from songs in a similar style. Art that's appealing to wildly
| different customers is given significantly more leeway where
| art that competes head to head is more suspect.
|
| This is one reason comedy is given so much freedom. It's much
| easier to argue South Park retelling a story isn't
| economically harming the original creators. That isn't to say
| transformative only applies in economic terms, but such
| things make the arguments a lot easier.
|
| As an example of this, Blizzard actually provided significant
| help in creating "Make Love, Not Warcraft" which shows just
| what transformative reuse can look like.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| I'm sure in principle the rule is the same for all mediums,
| but in practice our sensory systems are not unbiased and its
| far easier to hold up two pieces of art side by side than it
| is to listen to two different songs in two different ears.I
| think it may be as simple as visual similarity is just more
| obvious and easier to point out.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm not going to put this and similar cases quite in the class
| of just applying a Photoshop filter or similar transformations.
| But I'm not sure it's that far off either. Which seems to fall
| into an area where you can't just take someone's photo, apply a
| couple straightforward changes, and now it's yours.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| One of the problems, was that Warhol stole from Lynn
| Goldsmith, who is about as big-time a celebrity shooter as
| you can get. She's in the same league as Annie Leibovitz.
|
| She was able to devote years and years, to get it all the way
| to the top.
|
| Personally, I think it went the way it should, but I'm
| biased. My company worked with her, and I think she had a
| serious network; not just a single artwork. She's very
| popular, and has friends in high places.
|
| Other photographers probably don't have the capabilities that
| she has. Many of them have probably licensed through outfits
| like Getty Images, who would probably go after folks that
| used their works, but if they didn't, I don't think the
| photographer would have a whole lot of recourse.
| sum1zideas wrote:
| [dead]
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| Lichtenstein picked poorer, more anonymous artists to rip
| off and that seems like the more winning strategy
| ghaff wrote:
| As a non-lawyer, I basically agree. This seems like a case
| of license the thing already. It's an edge case but,
| especially given existing case law, seems like a less-
| difficult one. The main complication here seems to be big
| name photographer on the one hand and big name pop artist
| on the other. So this wasn't Andy Warhol repurposing some
| random pedestrian photo. Arguably the difference shouldn't
| matter. But it does.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| The animated gif in the article sure does make it seem like a
| very simple filter. I guess the "Warhol aesthetic" was at one
| time novel and seems basic now, but just changing the colors
| of a photograph isn't particularly transformative.
| graderjs wrote:
| This is because you're not equipped to judge what's
| transformative or not. Transformative is not just about the
| visual, art's also about the context.
|
| You _should_ have wondered, why can 't your designer pal do it,
| if it's OK for Warhol?
|
| The answer may have been: Warhol's process, coloring, final
| result, context, was way more transformative physically, and
| also semantically.
|
| I think this is where we need art experts who are advising
| judges, it's sort of like maybe that trope where judges are
| making judgements about encryption and they don't understand
| the technology. Not assuming these judges were not art buffs,
| it's the SC, it's probably a very complex, refined, elaborate,
| and legally sound judgement...but I think they're missing some
| key connection to art to have gone this way.
|
| 2 dissenters thank God. Hopefully overturned in future, or
| further refined to protect artists and great art. I think the
| plaintiff here is less an artist and more a "professional
| paparazzi with a lighting set up".
| dang wrote:
| Related. Others?
|
| _The Andy Warhol Copyright Case That Could Transform Generative
| AI_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35731856 - April 2023
| (96 comments)
|
| _Why Warhol images are making museums nervous (NYT)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35054912 - March 2023 (2
| comments)
|
| _The Supreme Court May Force Us to Rethink 500 Years of Art_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35018423 - March 2023 (1
| comment)
|
| _Justices debate whether Warhol image is "fair use" of
| photograph of Prince_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33426354 - Nov 2022 (3
| comments)
|
| _The case litigating Andy Warhol's use of a photograph of
| Prince_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33330613 - Oct
| 2022 (20 comments)
|
| _A legal dispute that will test the limits of fair use_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33053286 - Oct 2022 (260
| comments)
|
| _Supreme Court to Review Warhol Lawsuit Involving Prince
| Portrait_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30844145 - March
| 2022 (2 comments)
|
| _Does Andy Warhol get same copyright treatment as Google code?_
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26919044 - April 2021 (58
| comments)
| zenmaster10665 wrote:
| There is a wider relevance here to AI, is there not? 'prior art'
| could be broadly interpreted?
| cubefox wrote:
| I doubt it, since the Warhol work here has strong similarities
| to another one, while text-to-image models only directly
| reproduce existing art when something occurs as multiple
| (close) duplicates in the training data. Which can be quite
| easily avoided, like using a vector database to filter for
| similar items before training.
| 01100011 wrote:
| More like, this ruling is irrelevant in the age of AI. I can
| take your photo, change the perspective, angle, exposure, etc,
| and now you'd be hard pressed to prove that I started with your
| photo. It's just 'transformation', but it's not simple
| transformation in a way you could prove a connection.
| cvoss wrote:
| The oral argument for this case was an entertaining one to listen
| to. I mean, relative to others. The whole thing is so understated
| that little stuff stands out a lot.
|
| First we get this exchange, in which EK interrupts T to make a
| joke. They try really hard not to interrupt each other normally.
| Her timing is perfect. [0]
|
| > T: Let's say I'm a Prince fan---which I was in the 80s---
|
| > EK: No longer?
|
| [T is derailed for a solid ten seconds.]
|
| [T proceeds to lay out a hypothetical in the first person, where
| he is the one being sued.]
|
| That hypothetical is brought up again later, this time by SS,
| with another joke for T. [1]
|
| > SS: I think my colleague, Justice Thomas, needs a lawyer. And
| I'm gonna provide it.
|
| Then we get a great show from my favorite SCOTUS lawyer, Lisa
| Blatt, who always tells it like it is, as she challenges my
| favorite justice, EK, on her reading of a lower case. [2]
|
| > Blatt: I think that's very unfair to 3 members of Article III
| [aka 3 judges] who three times said meaning and message is
| relevant---
|
| > EK: ---3 members?---3?
|
| > Blatt: what they---3 times---what they---yes [Laughter from R,
| I think.]
|
| > Blatt: ---well, it's---I find it insulting to the 2nd Circuit
| panel...
|
| [R still laughing.]
|
| ...
|
| > Blatt: I mean I could just keep reading you quotes, but you
| know how to read a decision as best as I do, but on the very same
| page they're yakking about, it says...
|
| ...
|
| > Blatt: They had a district court opinion that went, completely:
| This is a Warhol, and Oh my god it's a Warhol!, so it's
| transformative by definition. And the 2nd Circuit said, No, we're
| not gonna do that here.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR1jnZCVbNM&t=1953
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR1jnZCVbNM&t=2200
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR1jnZCVbNM&t=3087
| seydor wrote:
| Also importantly, the SC upheld section 230 again
| zerocrates wrote:
| They didn't, they punted on their 230 case. The Twitter case
| they decided on the grounds that Twitter didn't "aid and abet"
| under the meaning of the specific antiterrorism statute at
| issue, and the Google case they sent back down without deciding
| anything on 230.
|
| It's certainly better for section 230 than an overturn, but
| they didn't uphold it either.
| oidar wrote:
| I think minority stance was incorrect in this case.
| Transformation - perhaps a touch, but definitely not major
| transformation. I'd rather see the court do this kind of case for
| really transformative art.
| madrox wrote:
| Reminds me of a similar case between the AP and the artist that
| made the famous "Hope" poster of Obama:
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/01/12/132860606...
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| Sotomayor didn't consider the artwork transformative enough to
| warrant fair use. The Supreme Court is stacked with idiots across
| the political spectrum.
| freejazz wrote:
| Can you tell us the four factors used in a fair use analysis?
| No? Maybe dont' comment then
| graderjs wrote:
| * * *
| tetromino_ wrote:
| Sotomayor's argument, as I understand it, is that
| transformation _into a direct replacement_ of the original work
| _in a given commercial context_ is not fair use.
|
| So it's not fair use to transform a photo of Prince for the
| purpose of illustrating magazine articles about Prince, where
| the original, untransformed photo could have illustrated the
| article equally well.
|
| But presumably it would be fair use to transform a photo of
| Prince for the purpose of illustrating magazine articles about
| the history of pop art, where using the original photo would be
| inappropriate.
| bambax wrote:
| That you would copy an image, apply a random filter, then call it
| your own and sell it, is ridiculous.
|
| But the real scandal is that copyright survives the artist.
| Marvin Gaye, Andy Warhol... Dead guys. So called "estates"...
| Insects feeding on corpses.
| sacrosancty wrote:
| I'm a bit of a broken record on this, but copyright lasting
| beyond the death of the author is important so that near-death
| authors can still sell their work. It would be near-worthless
| to a buyer/publisher/etc. if it was about to enter public
| domain. Imagine the headline "Famous artist diagnosed with
| terminal cancer - suddenly can't sell her work to fund her
| treatment."
| morvita wrote:
| This is why the lifetime of the creator should have nothing
| to do with copyright terms. All works get a fixed term of 20,
| 30, whatever years, if the creator dies before that term the
| rights can be transferred via their estate.
| pavon wrote:
| That doesn't just apply to people very close to death. If
| copyright ended right on death, the the work of someone in
| their 20's would have twice as long to earn revenue as the
| work of someone in their 50's. The former's work would still
| be covered when nostalgia bump came, while the later's work
| would not. This would create significant financial incentives
| for publishers/labels/etc to pick up younger artists instead
| of older ones, in markets that are already skewed towards
| younger people.
|
| Fixed term makes so much more sense. We should have never
| signed the Berne Convention.
| smeagull wrote:
| This feels very similar to the "think about the children"
| lines when people want to keep their privacy online. It's
| stupidly specific, and if you have to twist this far to find
| an example, I think you have nothing.
| zanellato19 wrote:
| I don't think its _stupidly_ specific to point out that
| people should still be able to sell things when nearing
| death. But 10/15 years should be more than enough. The
| amount of years is beyond parody at this point.
| qzw wrote:
| But it's a plausible situation (terminal/severe illnesses
| are not that rare) and a relevant argument against the
| "expire on death" copyright proposal. Laws often need to
| deal with "stupidly specific" cases because they do happen
| in the real world.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| David Bowie died two days after his final album was
| released. Are the people who worked on it, put it out,
| somehow less entitled to make money because he died?
|
| It doesn't feel overly specific when the topic is copyright
| after death to think about how people die.
| dcow wrote:
| > That you would copy an image, apply a random filter, then
| call it your own and sell it, is ridiculous.
|
| It's pretty easy to counter your assertion by simply saying, "I
| find no value in the original work but I find value in Warhol's
| rendition". Since the argument is that the court is supposedly
| defending Goldsmith's right to prosper from her works, then you
| cannot say that she would have benefitted unilaterally because
| I would not have paid her for her art, only Warhol. Personally
| I don't care for Warhol much and I'm using the royal I, but to
| say that applying a filter to an image cannot create a new work
| is, I think, preposterous.
|
| Personally I don't think this case has clarified "fair use" one
| bit. All it does is add more confusion into the mix. So if
| Warhol hadn't commercialized the work, would it have been fair
| use? That's now an open question after reading the supreme
| court's majority opinion/ruling.
|
| All this case does is demonstrate that in this specific
| instance 7 of 9 judges didn't obviously see how Warhol's work
| transformed the original source material enough to constitute a
| new work, or Warhol foundations' lawyers didn't make it obvious
| enough. And it now throws into the mix that "fair use" is not
| solely dependent on the idea of transforming a work, it's in
| fact way more complicated and so yes let's open the flood gates
| for a bunch of new copyright cases arguing that one artist,
| even though they did transform an original work, was too
| adjacent and not distinguished enough to constitute fair use.
|
| I mean honestly I'm super confused how to interpret fair use
| now.
|
| > But the real scandal is that copyright survives the artist.
| Marvin Gaye, Andy Warhol... Dead guys. So called "estates"...
| Insects feeding on corpses.
|
| Agree.
| ygjb wrote:
| so.... no intergenerational wealth transfer then? if estates
| can't pass on intellectual property, then why should they be
| allowed to pass on physical property? If they can pass on
| physical property, then why not intellectual property, at
| least within the legally defined (and IMO far too long)
| windows of protection?
| everforward wrote:
| It's in the constitution:
|
| "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by
| securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the
| exclusive Right to their respective Writings and
| Discoveries;"
|
| The question is does the heritability of IP promote the
| progress of science and useful arts, or does it simply
| enrich heirs? I can see the argument that people wouldn't
| create art or do science if they couldn't profit from it,
| but it's much greyer whether they wouldn't do it if they
| couldn't pass it to their heirs.
| jrajav wrote:
| I'm not an expert on the science part, but as far as the
| arts are concerned, IP being inheritable not only does
| not promote progress, it actively harms it. See: The
| Marvin Gaye estate and the damage they wreak on the music
| industry by thrashing about every few years with another
| cash grab lawsuit based on hamfisted and incompetent
| explanations of music theory.
| qzw wrote:
| It seems that any language stating intentions in the
| Constitution has only as much relevance to real laws as
| the relative strength of the lobbyists arguing
| for/against the provision in question, e.g. "A well
| regulated militia..."
| maclockard wrote:
| FWIW I'm not sure analogies between intellectual property
| and actual property really work, since they are pretty
| fundamentally different if you compare the specifics.
| moomoo11 wrote:
| I'm against it until I'm in that situation myself. And if I
| am I'm probably not passing on all my wealth to my family
| besides a really healthy trust.. because if they can't
| manage to stand on their two feet and make hella gains with
| a few million dollars they are losers imo. I personally
| started with $0 and have managed to do well enough for
| myself thus far as a swe and pursuing some business ideas.
| I know people who can't do shit with millions.
|
| Rather have the money go to St Jude or some other charity.
| graderjs wrote:
| That's a horrible opinion to have of your family. Do you
| really have kids and a spouse? Why do you get to "judge"
| what they "do" with it? They're your family. They can
| live beyond your dreams of what's possible, you can't
| proscribe or foresee what they can do. You should want to
| support them, and make their life easy, and pass on your
| gains were you to die, right? How can you think giving it
| to some random charity is better than passing it to your
| own blood? That's a poverty of family love, to me.
| jrajav wrote:
| Did you miss the "with a few million dollars" part?
| That's more than enough money to be comfortable for your
| entire life, several lives really, plus enough capital to
| start any kind of business your passion leads you to. I
| truly don't think the viewpoint GP expressed is
| incompatible with familial love and setting up a great
| life for your children.
| chefandy wrote:
| Yeah... Each time I see someone cashing in on a dead artists
| licenses I picture Sony Bono chiming in from an RIAA luxury
| lounge in the sky: "I got you babe!"
| kevmo wrote:
| It's Lynn Goldsmith's copyright, and she is still alive.
| gedy wrote:
| I still find it very ironic that this is about a photograph of a
| different artist who is also now deceased. These are both riffing
| off Prince's image.
| acomjean wrote:
| To be fair, the original image was a commissioned piece, where
| the photographer was paid for source material by the magazine
| who also paid for the Warhol image. (internet photo search not
| existing in the 1970s).
|
| Warhols estate sold another image to the magazine and didn't
| pay the photographer this time. $10,000 was mentioned which
| might not have paid for the case's legal fees.
|
| "The portrait of Prince was taken by Lynn Goldsmith, a
| successful rock photographer. In 1984, around the time Prince
| released "Purple Rain," Vanity Fair hired Warhol to create a
| work to accompany an article titled "Purple Fame." The magazine
| paid Ms. Goldsmith $400 to license the portrait as an "artist
| reference," agreeing to credit her and to use it only in
| connection with a single issue."
|
| When I was photo editor in College we had some big name acts we
| got to shoot as they had justed opened our new arena. Typically
| you sign away your personal rights to the photos and you get a
| photo pass. Aerosmith, Metalica, lenny Kravitz, James Taylor
| all had this. Oddly Elton John did not and I got a furious
| phone call from the venue that one of my staff photographers
| was selling prints without permission (through the paper
| classified as was the style in the 90s). He hadn't signed
| anything and they gave him a photo pass... He hadn't sold any,
| so after some discussion he stopped. Cell phone cameras have
| changed the game alot.
|
| [1]https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/18/us/supreme-court-
| warhol-c...
| freejazz wrote:
| Well it's not that they didn't pay this time... they did not
| have the right to use that work because the license for the
| Warhol works was for the one time initial use on the cover of
| the magazine. But that wasn't really the issue. The issue was
| whether or not the commercial use of the work for,
| essentially the same purpose (depicting Prince on the cover
| of a magazine) could be "transformative".
| bitwize wrote:
| By posing for the photo, Prince was implicitly allowing his
| image to be used for that photo. Goldsmith got permission;
| Warhol didn't.
| ghaff wrote:
| Absent contracts and limitations to the contrary, at least in
| the US, once an image of you is out there, your rights are
| pretty limited unless it's used in either a commercial (esp.
| advertising) context or in a misleading/defamatory way. I
| know there are stronger protections in some of Europe
| although I'm not sure how effective those rules are in
| practice.
| gedy wrote:
| I agree, but commenting on the "transformative" aspect.
| Warhol was much more transformative of Prince's face.
| lesuorac wrote:
| To avoid copying all over the place:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35992109
|
| Transformative refers to how the work of art is used not
| produced.
| freejazz wrote:
| There is no issue with Prince's permission for this case...
| at all. Full stop.
| colesantiago wrote:
| I predicted this would happen and a license fee and permission is
| pretty much the way forward for now.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34425811
|
| It seems to be that this case will be used in future litigations
| (Stability vs Getty, Stability vs Artists, etc.)
|
| https://stablediffusionlitigation.com/
|
| https://www.reuters.com/legal/getty-images-lawsuit-says-stab...
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| It was a picture of Prince, modified by coloring and outlining.
| But it's use (selling it) was again to represent Prince, for
| commerce, not some other subtle meaning/parody/social commentary.
| I can see the argument in favor of the photographer.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah this definitely doesn't seem unreasonable. It's the same
| photo, just stylised. I think copyright should protect that.
| tinglymintyfrsh wrote:
| Rotoscoping is similar.
|
| Perhaps Campbell soup shouldn't be Xerox or art either?
| dcow wrote:
| Now the question is, "how does one suitably distinguish a work
| from the original?". Now giving it a new expression is not
| enough. Now it must be used also for a different purpose? This
| is just way more confusing... not less.
| drewbeck wrote:
| Folks should read the article - the infringing act was NOT the
| creation of the art, it was the attempt by the Andy Warhol
| Foundation to license the image to Conde Nast.
|
| > Here, the specific use of Goldsmith's photograph alleged to
| infringe her copyright is AWF's licensing of Orange Prince to
| Conde Nast. As portraits of Prince used to depict Prince in
| magazine stories about Prince, the original photograph and AWF's
| copying use of it share substantially the same purpose. Moreover,
| AWF's use is of a commercial nature. Even though Orange Prince
| adds new expression to Goldsmith's photograph, in the context of
| the challenged use, the first fair use factor still favors
| Goldsmith.
|
| That's not to say this doesn't touch on larger issues, or that
| this ruling won't have wider-ranging implications, but the text
| of the case makes it specifically about the licensing, not the
| creation of the work itself.
| btown wrote:
| From the opinion, as quoted in the article:
|
| > "AWF [Andy Warhol Foundation] contends that the Prince Series
| works are 'transformative,' and that the first fair use factor
| thus weighs in AWF's favor, because the works convey a
| different meaning or message than the photograph. But the first
| fair use factor instead focuses on whether an allegedly
| infringing use has a further purpose or different character,
| which is a matter of degree, and the degree of difference must
| be weighed against other considerations, like commercialism."
|
| It seems like there's a strong possibility that if you use any
| tool, but especially an automated tool, explicitly to generate
| work "based on Artist Name's work" and then you try to sell it
| _for substantially the same purpose_ as Artist Name 's original
| work _with an explicit goal to avoid the commercial
| ramifications of licensing those rights from Artist Name_ ,
| then the courts might not see that as fair use under this new
| precedent.
|
| This is immensely important, say, if Artist Name is a writer
| that a studio is trying to replace while maintaining their
| style by asking an AI to mimic their style, or an actor where
| the studio wants to use an AI-generated likeness in place of
| paying them. And of course, this means that studios will try to
| get these creators to sign their rights away explicitly - which
| makes some of the current collective action all that much more
| important!
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| > an actor where the studio wants to use an AI-generated
| likeness in place of paying them
|
| Likeness rights are separate and cover this pretty well I
| think. There's not legal precedent yet over AI specifically
| but Waits v Frito Lay and Crispin Glover's back to the future
| 2 lawsuit lay a groundwork. Disney recently bought the rights
| to digitally recreate James Earl Jones' Darth Vader voice
| using AI. I think Disney's army of copyright lawyers probably
| they're likely to need that, even though they own the Darth
| Vader character and have had others perform it, without
| (afaik) paying him anything.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| But the case wasn't about the style of the photographer, but
| the close resemblance to that particular photo.
| greiskul wrote:
| Not close resemblance. Copying. Andy Warhol didn't happen
| to paint it similar to that photo. If he had, there
| wouldn't haven been a case, since copyright doesn't cover
| independent creation. Andy Warhol painted it by copying the
| photo.
| bioemerl wrote:
| Seems like a stretch to me. An AI tool doesn't just recolor
| an existing image, it generates nearly entirely novel ones.
| jayzalowitz wrote:
| Not really, its trained on the previous object to recreate
| said object given outside changes...
|
| it very much is the same thing as warhol doing it with his
| brain based NN recreating it with "do a prince portrait,
| but orange"
| davorak wrote:
| > Not really, its trained on the previous object to
| recreate said object given outside changes...
|
| All generative AI packages, that I know of, are not going
| to use material only from one artist even when generating
| something in that artists style.
|
| In general it is more than for example tracing a photo
| and coloring it differently.
|
| Just like artists can copy the style and techniques of
| another artist(often several) and generate something
| original, current generative AI, often, seem to do
| something similar.
|
| I am not saying that the current generative AI can not
| produce copy righted work, but it is not obvious to me
| that if the original dataset is all copyrighted that all
| output retain those copyrights, though it seems likely
| select output could.
| sacrosancty wrote:
| [dead]
| anigbrowl wrote:
| No creation of art is infringing, you can rip other artists off
| in your home to your heart's content. It's the
| commercialization of your output that creates infringement -
| when you license or sell the work. Warhol's version of the
| Prince photographs might not be infringing if the original were
| sold, but that's really for a jury to decide. There isn't a
| legal test that can articulate the exact difference between a
| derivative and transformative work.
|
| Warhol had interesting ideas but I consider him more of an
| impresario than an artist; his real creativity was that of his
| public persona, and many of his most famous paintings seem to
| me to be merely decorative (multiple tinted reproductions) or
| imitative (Campbell's soup can, which was just Duchamp in the
| kitchen).
| csours wrote:
| I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, this is not legal
| advice.
|
| > No creation of art is infringing
|
| Unfortunately it is very tempting to read section 107 as you
| might read other text and assume that any one of the four
| parts of the test can protect you, but that is NOT how the
| law has been applied. You can be found to be infringing even
| without commercial exploitation. Each of the four parts of
| the test is evaluated and weighted with the other parts.
|
| https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107
|
| > "Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A,
| the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by
| reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means
| specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism,
| comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies
| for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an
| infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use
| made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the
| factors to be considered shall include--
|
| (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether
| such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit
| educational purposes;
|
| (2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
|
| (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in
| relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
|
| (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or
| value of the copyrighted work.
|
| The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a
| finding of fair use if such finding is made upon
| consideration of all the above factors."
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Yes...non-publication won't _bar_ a fair use finding. If
| you sit at home and make 100 copies of a work in the
| pursuit of developing your artistic technique, you 're fine
| up to the point where you attempt to sell them or exploit
| your production commercially, eg making a youtube
| 'documentary' about yourself which leverages the fame of
| the original work to draw attention to your perfect
| imitation of it, but painted with a toothpick or something.
| This is after all a kind of publication.
|
| There isn't a default presumption of infringement, which is
| why you don't need to produce ID at the art supply store to
| buy brushes and canvas.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| You are definitely not "fine". The infringement has
| happened. The fact that you aren't going to be "caught"
| and sued doesn't make everything legal. Ask any artists
| if you make and hang a copy of their work inside your own
| home. Ask Microsoft if you can copy their "art" for use
| in your own home.
| willcipriano wrote:
| If I have photographic memory do I need to license any
| artwork I see?
|
| Sometimes practical limits on laws are intentional.
| Tracing your favorite anime character is legally
| infringement but luckily, multinational corporations
| aren't allowed to enter our homes to make sure we don't
| owe them royalties for our kids artwork on the fridge.
| They can only do that for trading cards.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| In your brain? no. But stored in the memory of your robot
| dog? Yes.
| freejazz wrote:
| No because having an image in your head is not considered
| a recreation of the work... it's not even remotely
| tangible.
| shagie wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_minimis#Copyright
|
| > Courts will occasionally not uphold a claim to
| copyright on modified public domain material if the
| changes are deemed to be de minimis. Similarly, courts
| have dismissed copyright infringement cases on the
| grounds that the alleged infringer's use of the
| copyrighted work (such as sampling) was so insignificant
| as to be de minimis.
|
| It's not legal, just that its not worthy of the court's
| time.
|
| Drawing a copy of Mickey Mouse on your child's playroom
| wall is likely de minimis - just don't make viral videos
| of it or have playdates with Disney lawyers.
|
| https://thowardlaw.com/2021/06/copyright-infringement-
| but-fo...
|
| From the Second Circuit in On Davis v. The Gap:
|
| > The de minimis doctrine is rarely discussed in
| copyright opinions because suits are rarely brought over
| trivial instances of copying. Nonetheless, it is an
| important aspect of the law of copyright. Trivial copying
| is a significant part of modern life. Most honest
| citizens in the modern world frequently engage, without
| hesitation, in trivial copying that, but for the de
| minimis doctrine, would technically constitute a
| violation of law. We do not hesitate to make a photocopy
| of a letter from a friend to show to another friend, or
| of a favorite cartoon to post on the refrigerator.
| Parents in Central Park photograph their children perched
| on Jose de Creeft's Alice in Wonderland sculpture. . . .
| When we do such things, it is not that we are breaking
| the law but unlikely to be sued given the high cost of
| litigation. Because of the de minimis doctrine, in
| trivial instances of copying, we are in fact not breaking
| the law. If a copyright owner were to sue the makers of
| trivial copies, judgment would be for the defendants. The
| case would be dismissed because trivial copying is not an
| infringement.
|
| https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrie
| f-d...
| sandworm101 wrote:
| De minimus is about assignment of copyright to new works
| that are only slightly different than the original. It
| does not say that minimal copying is ok, rather that
| minimal copying does not justify a new copyright.
|
| Disney does go after people drawing mickey mouse on
| walls. Schools, daycares, even private houses. They go
| after on not only trademark but copyright grounds too.
| There is nothing in copyright law that says private
| copying is ok.
| [deleted]
| saynay wrote:
| More accurately, you are fine until you try to distribute
| them, or display them. Giving out free copies would not
| be commercial, but would definitely be a violation.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Well it's commerce in the sense of 'look at me I'm so
| great at art-ing.' You're sharing them for social rather
| than fiscal capital. If you anonymously mailed them out
| and kept your mouth shut I doubt any resources would be
| spent to track you down, or (if they were) that you would
| lose in court.
| atchoo wrote:
| > eg making a youtube 'documentary' about yourself
|
| Would that not be transformative? Your product was the
| documentary. It wouldn't be something that could
| undermine sales of the original. There are plenty of
| youtubers painting Rothko knock offs.
|
| > leverages the fame of the original work
|
| Using another's fame isn't what's protected is it? That
| would require something more like a trademark. Can I not
| write a book called "Who ate Picasso's Guernica?" or some
| such?
| thrashh wrote:
| Warhol isn't well known because he tinted some images but
| because he chose to use everyday subjects like the Campbell
| soup can which were then-under appreciated in art and
| society.
|
| What gives art meaning is how it is a reaction to what was
| then in vogue at the time of its creation, but if you take
| art outside of its context, it seems superficial.
|
| For a more relatable example, if you watch 2001: A Space
| Odyssey now, it pales in comparison to modern sci-fi works
| but for its time, it was a revolutionary piece.
| freejazz wrote:
| The supreme court didn't say Warhol's work was without
| value. It said that Warhol's work was derivative of another
| work and that they could not maintain their alleged fair
| use defense based upon it being transformative, when it was
| being commercially used for the same exact purpose.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _No creation of art is infringing, you can rip other
| artists off in your home to your heart 's content. It's the
| commercialization of your output that creates infringement -
| when you license or sell the work._
|
| You can create infringing works in your home to your heart's
| content because you are unlikely to get caught. But that
| doesn't mean that the infringement hasn't happened. There are
| fair use factors that will determine whether an exception to
| infringement applies, but only one of those factors relates
| to commercialization.
|
| This is why most photo print shops won't let you print images
| that they suspect to be copyrighted, even if you just plan to
| use it in your own home.
|
| Perhaps this will come across as an overly-technical
| explanation to non-lawyers (IAAL), but I think it's worth
| noting in this thread because it is strictly not true that
| infringement hasn't happened until you license or sell a
| work.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| > You can create infringing works in your home to your
| heart's content because you are unlikely to get caught. But
| that doesn't mean that the infringement hasn't happened.
|
| I don't think so.
|
| Title 7 Chapter 1 Section 101.
| https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html
|
| "Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A,
| the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by
| reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other
| means specified by that section, for purposes such as
| criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including
| multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or
| research, is not an infringement of copyright. In
| determining whether the use made of a work in any
| particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered
| shall include--
|
| (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether
| such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit
| educational purposes;
|
| (2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
|
| (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in
| relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
|
| (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or
| value of the copyrighted work.
|
| The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a
| finding of fair use if such finding is made upon
| consideration of all the above factors."
|
| ---- Copying a work solely in your home is clearly not of
| commercial nature (factor 1) and has no effect on the
| market, since the item is not being sold (factor 4). It is
| almost certainly fair use and not infringement.
| dbspin wrote:
| > This is why most photo print shops won't let you print
| images that they suspect to be copyrighted, even if you
| just plan to use it in your own home.
|
| That's genuinely shocking to me, is that an American thing?
| Never heard of such a restriction here (in Ireland).
| gnicholas wrote:
| Here in the US, print shops will typically require you to
| check a box indicating that you own the copyright to any
| images you are printing. I don't know how tightly this is
| monitored or enforced by most shops, however.
|
| One funny thing that happened to me is that when I tried
| to print some company tshirts on Zazzle, they rejected
| the order because it included my company's logo, which
| they somehow identified and flagged (for trademark
| reasons, not copyright). This was shocking, given that
| I'm a solopreneur.
|
| Equally interesting: once I simply said that I was the
| owner of the company, they made no attempt to confirm (I
| was using my wife's personal Zazzle account, since she
| uses it frequently, so the email domain would not confirm
| ownership). They just green-lit the order. I was pleased
| not to have to jump through a bunch of hoops, but it was
| surprising how easy it was to claim to be the IP owner.
| qzw wrote:
| Yes, in the US when you try to get prints of photos that
| look to be professionally taken, you'd often be asked for
| the photographer's copyright release, especially if it's
| something like wedding photos where there are usually
| professionals involved. It can be a bit of a pain, such
| as when they're just your own family photos taken with a
| "real" camera, but I suppose it does sometimes help to
| protect photographers against unscrupulous clients.
| dbspin wrote:
| That's outrageous. Why would it unscrupulous for a client
| to make more prints of a given photo? Surely the primary
| service is taking the photograph, and the client then
| owns the photo? I actually work as a cam op / director
| (obviously a different but related medium), and the idea
| that I would charge someone additionally, or try to
| prevent them from creating a copy of something I'd
| created expressly for them is just absurd. For example if
| I filmed a wedding for a couple (as many of my friends
| do), I'd charge for shooting or editing, and perhaps an
| original gift copy on some specific format (deluxe USB
| key or whatever). But after that point the couple would
| be free to distribute the film - they already paid for
| it. What happens if the original photographer is no
| longer in business, or can't be contacted or sells the
| rights to your wedding photos to some awful copyright
| troll. My head is spinning thinking about the potential
| for exploitation.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm sure enforcement is all over the map but commercial
| print shops absolutely won't wholesale copy stuff they
| think is a copyright violation. There was even a lawsuit
| against Federal Express a few years back because they
| were making money from copying Creative Commons non-
| commercially licensed material.
| [deleted]
| tracker1 wrote:
| Different nations have different interpretations of
| intellectual property in general. Combined with treaties
| that provide protections in other nations. It all will
| vary.
| dbspin wrote:
| I suspect the law is all too similar, it's the
| enforcement that tends to vary. Recently moved from back
| from living in Germany. On paper Germany has similar
| noise nuisance laws to most countries. In practice
| they're super officious about enforcement, with a whole
| police force dedicated just to nuisance complaints. Which
| has an extremely chilling effect on social life and
| neighbourly relations - since its normalised to call the
| police on ones neighbours.
| subsubzero wrote:
| right, anyone can use a lightscreen, put a piece of paper
| over Goldsmiths photo and then trace it with either pens or
| paint. Where you run into issues is trying to say that the
| copy you made is yours and licensing it, the ruling seems
| pretty fair.
| archontes wrote:
| US law as written does not permit this. Copyright restricts
| reproduction and the production of derivative work except
| for the reasons listed in fair use. Personal use isn't
| among those reasons (setting the US apart from like 20
| other countries).
|
| It's just de facto legal because of the difficulty of
| detecting those instances and the presumably nil return in
| litigating them.
| tracker1 wrote:
| In this case it wasn't for personal use... and even
| beyond just selling the original (derivative creation)
| itself. Where it came afoul was when they tried to
| license the derivative work in ways that were in conflict
| and reduced the market value to the original work.
| davorak wrote:
| > right, anyone can use a lightscreen, put a piece of
| paper over Goldsmiths photo and then trace it with either
| pens or paint. Where you run into issues is trying to say
| that the copy you made is yours and licensing it, the
| ruling seems pretty fair.
|
| This seems like it would be fair use. SeanLuke's
| comment[1] does a brief analysis that looks correct.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35994306
| colesantiago wrote:
| So pay and get a license from the original artist?
| MollyRealized wrote:
| "Although new expression, meaning, or message may be relevant
| to whether a copying use has a sufficiently distinct purpose or
| character, it is not, without more, dispositive of the first
| factor."
|
| In other words, just adding new expression, meaning, or message
| to a work does not, in and of itself, create a transformational
| use.
|
| That's a troublesome ruling (to me, at least).
| tracker1 wrote:
| I'm a bit mixed on this myself. I can see it both ways, and
| the ruling itself was probably correct, and I didn't read the
| full judgement to even comment on how it should apply to new
| cases moving forward.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| Given the fact that the Warhol Foundation has been accused of
| not authenticating legitimate pieces owned by the "wrong kind"
| of people in order to drive up the perceived value of the
| collection, it's still kind of poetic justice.
| graderjs wrote:
| This is where we need Art Trump:
|
| _Washed-up and very classless "photog" Lynn Goldsmith seeks
| giant lifetime basic income by looting the very great Warhol
| estate, amid dwindling demand for her work. A very nasty person,
| a true "hack"!_
|
| Can't we have protection for high art from this BS? If I make a
| collage, that includes a photo from a magazine, on a canvas, with
| some paint and other things added, it's not transformative
| enough? Ugh...
| tinglymintyfrsh wrote:
| SCOTUS is dysfunctional: art isn't art and women don't have
| bodily autonomy.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Our collective human culture should not be controlled by some
| authoritarian court system. We should be free to use the elements
| of humanity's collective cultural product in any way we want,
| and, let's face it, who is going to enforce it?
|
| Oh right, the authoritarian state... You know, I think AI can
| help us dismantle the authoritarian state. Certainly not an
| outcome that Orwell envisionged... but plausible, I think.
| __loam wrote:
| And fuck the artists who created it right? You're entitled to
| the fruits of their labor after all. Feed em into whatever
| system you want and ignore the consequences.
| blakesterz wrote:
| Kagan and Roberts dissented. Seems like that would be an unusual
| duo to end up on the same side of a 7-2 ruling.
|
| https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-869_87ad.pdf
|
| Since a few commenters have said this is common I'll just add...
| as far as I can tell this has not happened before. I could very
| well be wrong, but it looks like this is not a common occurrence.
| I would be fine with being proven wrong. "It is important to note
| that dissenting in a 7-2 decision is a rare occurrence. In fact,
| it has only happened 21 times since 1953."
|
| I really don't know, I just found it interesting.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Unsubscribe from partisan news and your partisan friends and
| you'll find thats not unusual at all
| nonethewiser wrote:
| partisan news is redundant
| yieldcrv wrote:
| yep, non-partisan news is an oxymoron.
|
| you really have to go to the source, read/skim the supreme
| court cases for yourself. then you'll find pretty much all
| the news is disingenuous and most people are parroting
| things based off that.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Kagan and Roberts dissented. Seems like that would be an
| unusual duo to end up on the same side of a 7-2 ruling.
|
| Its not, particularly, for an issue that isn't tightly related
| to an issue that has been a strong partisan split of high
| salience in judicial nominations at the times they were
| appointed.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > Kagan and Roberts dissented. Seems like that would be an
| unusual duo to end up on the same side of a 7-2 ruling.
|
| It's unusual if you consume a lot of news. In reality the
| supreme court isn't nearly as partisan as the news suggests.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| This is just not true. Kagan and roberts almost never are the
| only two to take a side. It's true that they commonly agree,
| but those cases are usually 9-0
|
| I also dispute your claim that they're not as partisan as the
| news suggests. Some of their cases certainly aren't, but
| every single session now has multiple extremely partisan
| cases where everyone who knows which president nominated
| which justice knows what the outcome will be.
| idontpost wrote:
| [dead]
| renewiltord wrote:
| SCOTUS is pretty partisan. It's only that not every subject
| has partisan advantage.
| eqmvii wrote:
| It's not that unusual at all. The justices rule all over the
| map, but only certain hot button political issues expose the
| high level partisan divide.
|
| Most of their cases aren't guns and abortion and corporate
| speech.
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| "Guns and abortion and corporate speech" aren't even the cool
| cases. These are. You just don't hear about cases like this
| because you're supposed to be angry at the world, instead of
| appreciate how cool it is.
| Lacerda69 wrote:
| Copyright is backwards, does not help artists and is holding back
| humanity as a whole.
|
| Imagine the renaissance of art, science and culture we would have
| if we abolished copyright tomorrow. We have the technology.
| Please get rid of it.
|
| What redeeming quality does copyright have in light of the
| intellectual damage and huge amount of unnessecary bureaucracy it
| causes?
| JohnFen wrote:
| While I think copyright law is currently overbearing and
| harmful and desperately needs fixing, I don't agree that the
| concept of copyright itself is broken.
|
| The legitimate role of copyright is to encourage artists to
| allow public access to their works. Without some form of
| protection, a lot of work would never be available to most
| people because keeping it hidden will become the only
| protection artists have.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Right. Wu Tang Clan showed how this can be done in the modern
| age with their Shkreli album.
| Lacerda69 wrote:
| Sorry i dont get the point. Wutang chose to not release the
| album publicly and it will most likely never be public.
|
| copyright does not change that in any way, it would still
| be private without copyright - what am i missing?
| freejazz wrote:
| it would only ever be private if they made the other
| party sign a contract giving the artist a bunch of rights
| that were akin to copyright...
| dageshi wrote:
| Few if anybody is doing what Wu Tang did, OP is pointing
| out that without Copyright some variation of what they
| did would be come the norm.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Agreeing with the original post I was commenting on that
| said:
|
| > Without some form of protection, a lot of work would
| never be available to most people because keeping it
| hidden will become the only protection artists have.
|
| Wu Tang had a bunch of listening sessions where people
| could listen to the record with headphones for a price.
| They could not record what they were listening to. It's
| like a concert, but no one can make bootleg recordings of
| it (okay, maybe with hearing aids).
|
| In the early days of the telephone there were similar
| ways to listen to operas and concerts remotely through a
| headset.
|
| If copyright didn't exist, musical artists and visual
| artists would be incentivized to release public snippets
| of their work to generate interest, and then only
| showcase the whole thing in private without the ability
| to reproduce. I can only imagine what radio would turn
| into.
| 8note wrote:
| If copyright didn't exist, artists would primarily
| monetize by taking commissions to make art, rather than
| looking to sell copies of art they already made
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Yes? Are you contradicting me or just adding another
| route in which broad availability of art would be
| limited?
|
| Most musicians monetize through performance after selling
| copies. While there are some jobs for spec music, it's
| not enough to support all of the musicians who are
| currently making a living off of their music.
| Lacerda69 wrote:
| How does it encourage public access? The artist is dead for
| 70 years when it becomes public domain
|
| >a lot of work would never be available to most people
|
| This is the situation right now because of copyright.I don't
| see why it would be worse without
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > This is the situation right now because of copyright.I
| don't see why it would be worse without
|
| Right now some artists can afford to dedicate a significant
| amount of their time to creating art, because they are
| compensated for it. If copyright did not exist, even the
| "starving artists" would have to spend more of their time
| and effort in non-creative jobs, and thus have less time
| and energy to create art.
| swsieber wrote:
| > The artist is dead for 70 years when it becomes public
| domain.
|
| > This is the situation right now [...]
|
| There are several argument getting mixed up right now:
|
| 1) No copyright is better than the current copyright system
| (your argument)
|
| 2) Some copyright is better than no copyright. (the
| argument you responded to)
|
| Point 1 does not negate point 2. I wouldn't be suprised if
| some of the best books I've read wouldn't have been
| produced except for copyright.
| JohnFen wrote:
| The length of the copyright term is one of the things that
| I think is egregiously wrong and needs fixing. It's
| ridiculously long.
|
| So yes, I agree -- copyright law as it exists now is
| harmful and needs changing. But that doesn't mean that the
| concept of copyright is a bad one.
| modriano wrote:
| > How does it encourage public access? The artist is dead
| for 70 years when it becomes public domain
|
| How could an author afford to write if selling a single
| copy of their work gives the buyer the ability to legally
| copy the work and distribute it for free or for a lower
| price? Why would a publisher, say O'Reilly Media, pay an
| author to write a technical book if anyone could just drive
| the price of the book down to zero (or to the cost of
| distribution)? I pay $500/yr for 'Reilly Online because I
| get more than $500/yr worth of value from it, but if
| someone took all that content and distributed it as
| conveniently at a much lower price, I would probably stay
| with O'Reilly for a while, but as the price rose, the rate
| of new content decreased, and the reliability of the
| interactive services fell, I'd probably give up and switch
| to the content-thief platform until the content was too
| stale.
| interroboink wrote:
| I thought this was a decent debate on the subject: "Abolish
| Copyrights and Patents? A Soho Forum Debate"
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep2-ohgFOys)
|
| One thing that struck me was that both sides in that debate
| agreed that the _current_ copyright /patent system was not in
| very good shape. That's one nuance that I think can get lost in
| these discussions -- somebody says "copyright can be good" and
| is met with the retort "look at how bad our system is right
| now" without allowing for the possibility that we could have a
| better system, rather than outright abolishing it.
|
| Anyway, I think there are good points on both sides; you seem
| to be more on the absolutist side (fair enough), but you might
| enjoy watching it.
| eikenberry wrote:
| By pointing to the current system they are addressing the
| possibility that there could be a better system. We had a
| better system that was perverted into what we have today. A
| new system would have the same problem and it is much easier
| to pervert an existing law than to introduce a new law. No
| abolishing it has a better chance of killing it going forward
| instead of keeping the vector for that type of control alive.
| Lacerda69 wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this, will definitely give it look.
|
| I get that my position here is considered extreme, but then
| again the nuanced one is much harder to express in a couple
| of sentences.
|
| A lifetime of being denied access to science or art on the
| grounds of copyright has made me cynical.
|
| To me it's just a classist defense barrier - keep the lower
| class from getting education and art to keep the class system
| intact. Copyright is just one method that has been corrupted
| to this purpose.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > A lifetime of being denied access to science or art on
| the grounds of copyright has made me cynical.
|
| What do you mean by this? People have better access to
| information now via the internet more than ever. In theory
| the absolute access could still be low, but the outcomes
| from online learning from free sources are very impressive.
| People can train themselves for free and make a ton of
| money from it.
| ChoGGi wrote:
| I'd rather reform than absolution.
|
| Separate corporate owned copyright and personal copyright.
| Personal has 14 years with option to pay to extend twice (7
| years each time manually). Corp starts at 7 years with
| option to extend like personal.
|
| Little guy has time enough to profit, corp had more budget
| for advertising than personal so needs less time for
| profit. Everyone else can enjoy within a reasonable time.
| freejazz wrote:
| No one thinks the system is perfect. What I don't understand
| is why there is an expectation that it should be perfect. We
| don't expect criminal law to be perfect, why is it that we
| expect perfection here? I'm not saying we shouldn't improve,
| but I think this flows from what you are saying.
| endisneigh wrote:
| copyright isn't backwards. you could argue free loaders who
| enjoy amazing things and then want to profit off derivatives is
| backwards.
|
| consider that there are amazing things, _right_ now in human
| existence that will exist, but do not at this moment. money
| fundamentally is about resource allocation. such things are
| less likely to be discovered without incentive. money is part
| of that incentive (though not the only thing).
|
| the problem is that copyright has become too overzealous and
| too long lasting. ideally imho it would be exponentially
| decaying in length based on use, or exponentially expensive to
| keep an exclusive right to. or perhaps right of first refusal
| around anyone who wants to use it being able to bid for the
| opportunity. there are many improvements that could be made,
| yes.
|
| in my view copyright should be use it or lose it. I do agree
| with your sentiment in that many people hold copyright to
| things that they are not actually using.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > in my view copyright should be use it or lose it.
|
| It serves an additional purpose with respect to takedowns of
| private material (such as revenge porn). Using that would
| obviate the purpose in the first place.
|
| But yes, if something was available for purchase earlier, it
| should still be available later (and not just on the second-
| hand market).
| Lacerda69 wrote:
| We can take down revenge porn or other private material
| without copyright of important works of science and art.
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| How doesn't it help artists?
|
| It seems like the photographer here is pretty happy about her
| copyright.
|
| I love SCI-FI thinking about a world without copyright or
| patent protections, to wonder what it would be like for
| humanity after a couple centuries. But I can't help but feel
| artists not getting credit for their work, would at least hurt
| them on the individual level.
| majormajor wrote:
| There's already a MASSIVE amount of free art and culture on the
| internet, with very loose copyright.
|
| There's also a ton of original fiction and art for cheap,
| existing within the realm of copyright but outside of the "IP
| titans" of Disney, etc.
|
| What more renaissance do you want? The ability to put Spiderman
| in _even more_ stuff? (Shit, even this already exists!)
|
| EDIT: downvoted, but seriously: I can spend 10 bucks a month on
| Spotify today and get an order of magnitude more variety and
| depth of non-major-label music - ON DEMAND - than I could've
| gotten thirty years ago for practically any amount of money.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Great for consumers, not so great for artists. Spotify and
| most other platforms are MITM attacks, they just hit social
| technology rather than silicon. There are whole books that
| describe and lionize the process of platform construction and
| preventing the establishment of direct communication between
| producer and consumer.
|
| _Entrepreneur_ literally means 'bringer between' which
| describes the traditional mode of trade perfectly - I prefer
| to go to a farmer's market and buy 10 different kinds of food
| there than visit 10 individual farms. But as entrepreneurship
| moves toward exclusive distribution agreements and other
| contractual infrastructure, it devolves into rent-seeking.
| majormajor wrote:
| I don't think _getting rid of_ copyright would help
| musicians there, though. In the movie /TV world, today's
| exclusivity deals have pros and cons for artists, if you
| mean to highlight negative effects of copyright on artists
| in that regard (but how does that compare to the
| compensation from torrents, still)? But in the music world,
| there's much less platform exclusivity.
|
| (Copyright-aside, myself not having time to manage direct
| relationships with hundreds of musicians/bands is a good
| reason we still need the Spotifys of the world, though. And
| again, yesterday's middlemen were even more restrictive.)
|
| But I'm still really just waiting for someone in the
| "copyright is ruining culture" camp to tell me what exactly
| they want that isn't being catered to today, that is
| blocked by copyright? (In the US - internationally
| distribution systems have a lot of roadblocks so the answer
| becomes "access to certain pieces of foreign content at
| all")
| rayiner wrote:
| What "renaissance" would result from not having copyright?
|
| It seems to me that history is showing the opposite. It's
| easier than ever, thanks to technology, to make original
| movies, songs, etc. But demand for _specific creations_ is more
| concentrated than ever.
|
| Of all of the types of property, copyright seems to me the
| least offensive. It's not like the dirt I built my house on,
| which is finite, and which which I had no hand in creating.
| There is an infinite amount of original works, all you need to
| do is make your own.
| thebooktocome wrote:
| The Disney Renaissance, for example, was built on the back of
| works in the public domain (Aladdin, The Lion King, The
| Little Mermaid, etc.)
| tptacek wrote:
| Those works remain in the public domain.
| bdw5204 wrote:
| Disney itself was built on the back on works in the public
| domain. Snow White, Pinocchio, Cinderella, Alice in
| Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, The Jungle Book and Robin Hood
| were all based on public domain works.
| anotheronebytes wrote:
| > _What redeeming quality does copyright have in light of the
| intellectual damage and huge amount of unnessecary bureaucracy
| it causes?_
|
| it enforces the existence of a market of royalties dues.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royalty_payment
|
| I agree, the digital technology changed things so much that it
| no longer makes any sense. but tell it you the king of the UK?
| (or some other country with "kqweeng")
| CptFribble wrote:
| Without copyright, moneyed interests would be able to simply
| wait for promising new artists to create something that
| resonates with an audience, then copy that thing and aim their
| massive marketing budgets at dominating that audience with the
| new version owned by the [corporation, famous artist, etc].
|
| Similar to how going viral with a new mobile game as an indie
| dev means you will almost immediately be cloned and pushed out
| by King et. al., removing copyright protections would mean that
| only the largest and wealthiest artists' and corporations'
| versions of art dominate the market. Creating something truly
| new and interesting would become simply a donation of that idea
| to the powers that be.
|
| The main problem with copyright isn't it's existence, it's that
| technology has allowed the wielding of it to become too quickly
| and brutally applied a la youtube's automated DMCA system.
| gatvol wrote:
| Agreed - to an extent. IMO the current term of copyright is
| the primary issue - and the balance has tipped too far in
| favour of copyright holders; This case is a good example of
| the ridiculousness of that state - the artist has expired and
| is no longer able to enjoy the benefits of his work - yet he
| descendants expect to continue to profit from his work -
| which seems unreasonable and detrimental to society.
| jameshart wrote:
| > the new version owned by the [corporation, famous artist,
| etc]
|
| Without copyright, what would corporation/famous artist
| 'own'?
| thebooktocome wrote:
| > Without copyright, moneyed interests would be able to
| simply wait for promising new artists to create something
| that resonates with an audience, then copy that thing and aim
| their massive marketing budgets at dominating that audience
| with the new version owned by the [corporation, famous
| artist, etc].
|
| Copyright doesn't mitigate this risk, for if it did, it would
| do the same thing for the example you cite in the second
| paragraph. (Software and game assets are also protected by
| copyright. . .)
| LocalH wrote:
| Simple answer to begin discussion: copyright owned and
| controlled wholly by the people who actually created the art
| gets life+70 protection, with specific requirements (to be
| discussed) for the stewards of that copyright post-death.
| However, copyright owned or transferred to a _corporation_
| gets 28 with a 14 renewal.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| [dead]
| breck wrote:
| > The main problem with copyright isn't it's existence
|
| I disagree. The main problem with copyright is its existence.
| It cannot be logically explained as anything other than
| microslavery.
|
| If we think the world is a better place with microslavery,
| than that's an honest debate to have. But the current debate
| simply is not honest.
|
| Stephan Kinsella (a patent lawyer who is against IP) is the
| best thinker on the subject currently, IMO.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yeah... Although the current situation where large
| communication companies have to be proactive and steal the
| great content with some unfair contract before the artist
| releases it is much better, it is still far from optimal.
| Lacerda69 wrote:
| I get your point i think.
|
| But copyright as it exists now does not protect or benefit
| the "little guy" or indie artists.
|
| There have been many many instances of big record labels or
| game producers ripping of small artists and I have yet to see
| 1 (one) instance of a small artist going against $bigcorp and
| winning.
|
| Copyright is broken; it only protects those already moneyed
| and in power and savagely attacks small artists, destroys the
| basis of creativity (sampling) and blocks access to vital
| research.
|
| It must be abolished.
| Retric wrote:
| Copyright has transformed many poor people into
| multimillionaires. The Music world is full of artists going
| huge but it extends to other areas. J.K. Rawling for
| example didn't have any significant leverage at the
| beginning but is wealthy by any reasonable metric.
| dboreham wrote:
| Was that a typo? Joanne is pretty rich by Scottish
| standards.
| Retric wrote:
| Ops, was going for not just just a multimillionaire but
| actually yacht wealthy but messed up the edit.
| bsenftner wrote:
| Beware the abolishing of existing legal systems, because
| our status quo 'powers that be' will infiltrate the
| creation and managing organizations of whatever comes next
| to ensure the new situation is better for them than the
| old.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| A problem relevant to this case directly is why works can
| be under copyright after the passing of their creator.
| There shouldn't be an Andy Warhol Foundation licensing
| works. This is purely a rent seeking behavior. The money
| made from licensing Andy Warhol works does not fund further
| output by the artist. They are dead. You just have some
| randos extracting wealth from society for the privilege to
| use something that the creator profited from long ago. The
| work of dead artists should be in the public domain.
| jjcon wrote:
| > The work of dead artists should be in the public
| domain.
|
| "Murder of popular musicians and artists up 1000% this
| year... news at 11"
|
| Joking aside, if I am the artist, shouldn't I be able to
| give those rights to my children to provide for them
| after I'm gone? I agree with the spirit of what you're
| saying but I think a reasonable threshold after death is
| appropriate (20 years maybe instead of 70?)
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| No, a reasonable threshold is 10 years after creation.
|
| The question is to what time threshold does society need
| to pay for police/courts/lawyers to enforce copyright law
| such that people are sufficiently incentivized to create
| whatever.
|
| For example, if copyright law were 10 years from date of
| creation, would we see too little in the way of
| creativity? Would singers still sing and writers still
| write and artists still paint/draw/whatever?
|
| I can see a viewpoint proposing 10, 15, even 20 years,
| but 100+ years is beyond the pale. That is just a handout
| from taxpayers to people that own the copyrights.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I saw an interesting suggestion that copyright should
| just be for a given period at a given cost of
| registration... say first 10 years as-is, but if you want
| it longer, you pay X for N years, and it doubles each
| time you pay. I mean if Disney wants to pay $1B+ every
| few years to keep "Steamboat Willie" under copyright, let
| them. Eventually it will be cost prohibitive and enter
| the public domain.
| ghaff wrote:
| Any such scheme immeasurably benefits large corporations
| over individual creatives. Disney's lawyers have no
| issues dealing with copyright frictions. Individual
| authors do.
| jjcon wrote:
| I agree - basing it off creation could make sense but
| then I'd argue for maybe more like 50 years. Plenty of
| works take decades in and of themselves. George RR Martin
| started Game of thrones 27 years ago. Should HBO just
| have been able to take his work and make millions without
| paying him a dime? It would just turn into corporations
| exploiting popular public domain works.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Yes, that is what public domain is. What reason is there
| for society to give RR Martin more than 10 years of
| copyright protection? He is free to shop around his story
| to movie makers in that time. And if it is so good,
| someone will jump on it.
|
| After that, it is not "exploitation", it is using art in
| the public domain.
| ghaff wrote:
| People can pass other types of property to their heirs,
| including recently-generated wealth. You can certainly
| argue against that. But it goes beyond IP property
| specifically.
| sickcodebruh wrote:
| The commercial work of many (most? all?) commercial
| artists is fundamentally a product, not different from
| any other item where distribution in a market or
| consumption is concerned. These art products are often
| sponsored by organizations who collect revenue from sales
| and in turn provide distribution or promotion, so they
| have a reasonable argument that they should continue
| benefiting from the work if the artist dies. This sounds
| heartless and I am not generally a supporter of "art is
| product" (I find it exhausting, to be honest) but it's
| unavoidable for professional artists.
|
| On a human scale, this might just be the artist's family
| who supported the artist during life (think: a partner
| whose full-time job provided funding and health benefits
| while the other sweated it out in a studio) who relied on
| their income during life. Or the foundation might collect
| royalties to pay the staff who assisted with the work
| (essentially co-creating it) per contracts established at
| the time of its creation.
| freejazz wrote:
| >But copyright as it exists now does not protect or benefit
| the "little guy" or indie artists.
|
| Yes it does and I'm a plaintiff's attorney that works in
| copyright and patent for small-time artists and inventors.
| You could not be more wrong.
|
| I have obtained settlements for my clients from some of the
| biggest media corporations in the US. You have NO IDEA what
| you are talking about.
| progman32 wrote:
| Can you give specific cases for people to reference?
| freejazz wrote:
| They settled before going to suit, I didn't say I
| obtained verdicts, I said I obtained _settlements_.
| Verdicts aren 't how most copyright infringement works
| (more evidence that you have no idea what you are talking
| about, at all).
|
| You do not have to file suit to assert a copyright. You
| just need the authority to file that suit, in order to
| have a meaningful threat from which an infringer
| (especially a large media company) will settle.
|
| If this is too hard for you to believe, I'm not sure what
| to tell you but to spend more time in the real world, and
| less on whatever media you are reading to engender these
| thoughts.
| tivert wrote:
| > But copyright as it exists now does not protect or
| benefit the "little guy" or indie artists.
|
| > There have been many many instances of big record labels
| or game producers ripping of small artists and I have yet
| to see 1 (one) instance of a small artist going against
| $bigcorp and winning.
|
| So your solution to small artists getting ripped off is to
| take away all the rights those small artists now enjoy, so
| they get ripped off harder and faster by "those already
| moneyed and in power"?
|
| Ok then.
|
| > Copyright is broken; it only protects those already
| moneyed and in power and savagely attacks small artists,
| destroys the basis of creativity (sampling) and blocks
| access to vital research.
|
| > It must be abolished.
|
| That's foolish radicalism. Progress doesn't happen by over-
| reacting to some problem and calling for the abolition of
| the whole system because it's imperfect. In all but a few
| rare cases, it happens by reforming things to solve the
| specific problems while preserving the other benefits.
| Copyright isn't one of those rare cases. Reform is in
| order, not abolition.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _But copyright as it exists now does not protect or
| benefit_
|
| Fully agreed, and I would drastically curtail it. But
| complete abolition is throwing the baby out with the
| bathwater, ignoring the problem copyright was established
| to solve in the first place.
|
| _I have yet to see 1 (one) instance of a small artist
| going against $bigcorp and winning_
|
| Just did, in this very news story. It's happened on
| multiple occasions, it's just that such cases are weighed
| on their individual facts and don't lead to any change in
| the basic idea. Of course, big corporations always have a
| starting advantage because they can hire expensive legal
| teams and weigh down their opponents, but this is a general
| flaw in the adversarial litigation culture of the UK/US
| which is unabashedly pro-capitalist.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| I would assume that there was some legal financing behind
| this lawsuit. It's pretty easy to get if you have a
| decent case, and while they do take a decent chunk of
| your winnings, it's a lot better than nothing.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > ignoring the problem copyright was established to solve
| in the first place
|
| Maintaining copy quality and providing a single point of
| contact for censorship?
|
| You probably mean some other goal people gave it by the
| end of the Modern Age.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I'd add the duration of the copyright as another issue. The
| incentive to create would exist even with a much shorter
| copyright duration.
| ghaff wrote:
| The main issue most people have with copyright relates to
| duration. Most don't have an issue with the basic concept.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| It's getting to the point where it seems absolutely silly that
| you can 'own' a particular arrangement of light and sound.
| freejazz wrote:
| do you mean movies? what's silly about that?
| modriano wrote:
| Sure, we can record light/sound/voltage/physical signals to
| more durable media, and we can distribute copies of those
| recordings, but the value isn't in the media used to record
| the signal; the value is in the desirability of the signal.
|
| To be more concrete, imaging two arrangements of light in a
| fiber; one is ~20GB of randomly generated noise and the other
| encodes instructions that a Nintendo Switch can interpret and
| present as the Zelda game Tears of the Kingdom. The random
| noise arrangement is much, much, much (!) cheaper to create
| than the TotK arrangement, which took 5 years of labor from a
| massive team to create, but people seem to like the TotK
| arrangement a lot more, and I don't know if it would have
| been possible to get that much labor allocated to arranging
| those bits without some technology that enables an entity to
| finance the labor and hopefully recover more than their costs
| (that technology being a legal construct that grants the
| entity entity exclusive ownership of the right to distribute
| TotK-arranged bits).
| tgv wrote:
| Precisely as ridiculous as owning a particular arrangements
| of elementary particles or varying magnetic patterns.
| boplicity wrote:
| Anne of Green Gables copyright is an interesting study in what
| happens here.
|
| There has been a recent tidal wave of "remixes" of the original
| work. TV shows, graphic novels, etc. My read: A lot of it is
| very good, very few new ideas are being created, and a lot of
| money is being made. It's hard to argue this counts toward
| anything like a "renaissance."
|
| The fundamental argument for copyright is that creators of
| certain works should able to earn a living based on those
| ideas; it turns something abstract into "property," thus
| granting property rights to a class of things that wouldn't
| otherwise have such rights. This allows people to become
| professional "idea creators."
|
| The problem to be solved with abolishing copyright, of course,
| is the problem of funding "idea creators." This doesn't seem to
| be something most opponents of copyright have solutions to.
|
| In the case of something like Anne of Green Gables, once the
| "property" is no longer exclusive to someone, it is much, much,
| much harder to generate an income from that property. Imagine
| building a house, but not having control over who enters it.
| Same idea. Maybe people shouldn't have long-term property
| rights at all? Who knows? That's starting to sound like
| communism or something.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| What intellectual damage does it cause?
|
| If I build a house, do I have ownership of it? Or should I
| allow someone to walk in, change the locks, repaint one of the
| rooms, and rent it out for their own profit without paying for
| it?
|
| Artists create new things. That's the job.
|
| There's a certainly a case to be made against parasitic rent-
| seeking which sweats existing resources for profit. But you're
| not going to have your "renaissance of art, science and
| culture" if the people working on it full-time aren't getting
| paid.
|
| Mostly these arguments come down to "I want something for free
| so why I should pay for it?" and "I don't understand what these
| people do, it seems pretty replaceable and trivial, so it can't
| be worth anything."
|
| It's classic management-think. It's _exactly_ why so many jobs,
| including many elements of software development, are hugely
| undervalued, and why so many people have to work in harsh and
| aggressively inhumane environments.
| [deleted]
| wingspar wrote:
| Are you talking about no copyright for DERIVATIVE works or no
| copyright on actual works themselves?
|
| - No copyright on derivative works mean I can finally make my
| 'fan fiction' Top Gun movie. - No copyright on actual works
| themselves, mean's I can be streaming Top Gun for free to the
| world. (only bandwidth/server costs)
|
| Copyright terms are way too long, but who's going to spend big
| money on production when you potentially get to sell ONE copy
| before it's 'free' for someone else to distribute (sell) to the
| rest of the world?
| pavlov wrote:
| Copyright is fine in principle. Patents are fine too. The
| difference is that one lasts nearly a century, the other just
| twenty years.
|
| Originally copyright and patent terms were effectively
| identical. Western societies allowed them to slowly diverge,
| like proverbial frogs being boiled. How could we undo this
| mistake?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Blackmail a majority of legislators. Bribing them is no good
| because you can be outspent. Appealing to logic is also no
| good because legislators rely on emotional demagoguery to get
| elected. Persuading the public is no good because a)
| collective action problems are hard, b) abstract issues are
| very hard to get traction around, c) many people are jealous
| of artists and derive irrational satisfaction from annoying
| them.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Purchase disney. They are essentially entirely responsible
| for current copyright nonsense.
| colesantiago wrote:
| Copyright gets destroyed after the artist is dead + 70 years,
| then it is public domain.
|
| So it is either:
|
| Use public domain works
|
| Use the artists work but ask for permission or pay license
|
| Change the laws on copyright length. (how many lawyers can you
| pay for?)
|
| Wait for the work to enter in the public domain (unlikely
| anyone will do this for any work made today)
| [deleted]
| FigmentEngine wrote:
| Mickey Mouse has been extended to ~95 years so far
| colesantiago wrote:
| You will be soon free to use this one without Disney's
| permission.
|
| https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
| content/uploads/2018/12/Steam...
|
| But not this one.
|
| https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
| content/uploads/2019/01/Stand...
| [deleted]
| rvz wrote:
| TLDR: Andy Warhol's artwork was NOT transformative and the 'fair
| use' argument falls flat. Ask for permission and get a license
| for that photograph or image.
|
| Sorry generative AI grifters. It's time to ask for permission to
| train on copyrighted artworks and images for commercial purposes
| and this will almost certainly be licensed. Even OpenAI already
| knew this with Shutterstock.
|
| Stability AI on the other hand...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| How does this ruling impact generative AI?
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| It makes it harder to prove that what the AI generated is
| transformative work.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| How so? This just looks similar to the Obama photo
| situation. You look at the original and then you look at
| the artist rendition and in both cases they line up pretty
| closely to the original. The transformative work being done
| by the AI is way more than this unless the artist
| intentionally is trying to preserve the original closely.
| In both these cases, the artist is making decisions to not
| be that transformative from the original.
|
| Also, I can do this all day long if I am not selling my
| output.
| kbenson wrote:
| I haven't really been following the AI stuff that
| closely, but in a similar conversation last week someone
| was noting that while a lot of the model creators said
| the original images aren't there, in some/many cases they
| actually are and if you ask correctly the exact (or close
| to it) image comes out the other end.
|
| I don't know the details, or enough to have a real
| opinion on it, but it seems like if you have a system
| that you can request something from and an input image
| comes out mostly intact on the other end, that shares a
| lot of similarities to a database and lossy compression.
| If that's actually possibly, then I have questions about
| how much of an original is used in the output even if
| it's changed, and at what point it becomes
| transformative.
|
| Again, I'm not sure about most of this, and don't even
| have the source comment I'm remember, much less their
| source for their assertions, but I do have lots of
| questions and suspicions, if indeed what we think we know
| about these models based on prior statements ends up
| being wrong in some cases as we learn more.
| lesuorac wrote:
| transformative doesn't refer to modifications done to the
| work of art.
|
| Transformative refers to how the works of art are used.
| For example, if I make a compilation of every single
| Barry Bonds homeruns the clips of the games are
| copyrighted but the video I produced isn't a substitute
| for an actual baseball game so the resulting work is
| transformative even if none of the video footage has been
| altered.
| ghaff wrote:
| Maybe. I wouldn't bet on it if the copyright holders of
| the clips objected.
| lesuorac wrote:
| I think legally you'd be fine [1].
|
| But certainly the copyright holders would succeed in
| getting your video taken down from YouTube since it
| wouldn't be a DMCA request. (Fair Use doesn't mean a
| private company must host your video).
|
| [1]: https://www.citizen.org/article/a-guide-to-fair-use-
| in-posti...
| nickthegreek wrote:
| I don't see how that definition and this court case make
| it harder to prove that AI generations are not
| transformative work.
| lesuorac wrote:
| The point I'm trying to make is a point of clarification
| as you seem to have a misunderstanding of what
| transformative means w.r.t. Fair Use since your post [1]
| talks about comparing the differences between the source
| work and the AI work to determine transformative.
|
| A derivative work is typically what the generative AI
| produces where you could see elements of an original work
| but there are changes (i.e. the source work but shaded
| purple).
|
| A transformative work may be literally the source work
| but used in a different context/purpose (i.e. a 5s clip
| of a 2h soccer game used to show proper throw-in
| technique as opposed to the original purpose of a sports
| game).
|
| In the big picture, I expect generative AI to replace
| stock imagery and in this area I think this court case
| throws a huge wrench into that. If you're licensing
| generative AI instead of licensing the source stock
| imagery this case is going to be cited as why what you've
| done is illegal.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35991914
| nickthegreek wrote:
| I take issue with "generative ai produces where you see
| elements of an original work but there are changes".
| Generative AI does not take the pixels of the original
| work and collage them together. You have go out of your
| way to tell something like SD to take the input picture
| and shade it purple. Generative AI isn't even the right
| tool for the job as that's better done in photoshop.
| freejazz wrote:
| Because this case stands for the proposition that when
| you make a derivative work, you cannot use it in the same
| way the original was used, for the same purpose, and call
| it transformative. The transformative prong of the fair
| use analysis is one of the most crucial prongs (if not
| THE most).
| freejazz wrote:
| Right, but if you do sell your output, it's going to be
| bad news. I imagine most generative services intend to
| make a profit at some point.
| ghaff wrote:
| (IANAL) The argument is probably something along the lines of
| this ruling raising the bar on making a fair use argument for
| transformative use (which would presumably be one of the
| defenses for using copyrighted data for training). In
| practice, I have to believe this is a sufficiently specific
| case and has sufficiently closely related precedence (like
| the Obama Hope poster) that I'm not sure this says much with
| respect to generative AI.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Generative AI isn't doing anything at all like what Warhol was
| doing here, and there is nothing new in the terms of broad rule
| in the decision as to what is "transformative" that would
| signal much as to how the arguments relative to training and
| use of generative AI might play out.
| cpymchn wrote:
| Category error: generative AI isn't making a copy. Says so in
| the name.
| bitwize wrote:
| The threshold in law is "substantial similarity", not an
| exact copy.
| cpymchn wrote:
| "In the style of..." is not substantially similar enough
| IMO.
|
| I think a better foundation for generative AI regulation is
| the moral rights of the artist [1], not copyright law.
|
| But the courts will take years, if ever, to get that far.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights#In_the_United
| _Sta...
| freejazz wrote:
| Geez - we went from being a category error, to something
| you disagree with based upon your opinion... what next?
| freejazz wrote:
| That's not a category error, its a trivial characterization
| based upon the marketing term used to advertise the kind of
| service and is not a legal argument in the slightest.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| You were doing so well at the start, and then you had to
| generalize it in a stupid way.
| mjr00 wrote:
| This ruling has next to nothing to do with generative AI.
|
| If anything, the fact that there was enough ambiguity that it
| took 35+ years for a court to decide that someone tracing a
| photograph was, in fact, _not_ fair use is a good indication
| that it will be _very_ hard to use current laws to stop outputs
| of generative AI that have been trained on copyrighted
| material.
| freejazz wrote:
| That's a complete misunderstanding of the issues present in
| this case, which were very nuanced. I say this as a copyright
| litigator. And I'm happy to explain further if you'd like.
| Bjorkbat wrote:
| I was actually watching this case precisely because it has
| implications for generative AI
| lesuorac wrote:
| I think parts of the ruling has a lot to do with generative
| AI.
|
| The big problem for Warhol is that people paid for the image
| he produced instead of paying for the original photograph for
| use as a reference to Prince's likeness. So the works were
| for the same purpose.
|
| If you use generative AI to produce a 3d State of Liberty for
| your video game I doubt you'll end up losing a case by a
| photographer of the Statue of Liberty because the purposes
| are actually different. But if you are using generative AI of
| stock imagery to produce stock imagery I think you're going
| to run into the same problem as Andy Warhol's foundation did.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Based off of current copyright statutes, nothing about
| generative AI creating stock photos by being trained on
| stock photos would violate copyright law; only if it was
| substantially similar to an existing work and was not
| transformative of that existing work. Just because the AI
| (read: the human) has seen work doesn't mean that creating
| a photo with the same subject and even with the same
| framing and techniques is inherently infringement.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Training a model on a bunch of images by {artist}, and
| then telling it "Generate me 20 images in the style of
| {artist}" seems pretty close to this ruling.
|
| It's non-transformative in the legal sense that {an
| original image by X} and {a generated image in the style
| of X} are likely used for the exact same purpose (be it
| display, advertisement, whatever).
| lesuorac wrote:
| I think it would need to be a bit more than just that.
|
| If you have a Picaso style advertisement for Ford its
| probably transformative w.r.t. any of Picaso's works
| since none of them as-is could be used for that
| advertisement. There's no way Picaso painted any Ford
| motor vehicles.
|
| As well as if you used those imagery as an example of the
| generative capabilities the originals wouldn't suit that
| purpose. Or if you had a collection of AI generated art
| then the originals also wouldn't work.
| mjr00 wrote:
| > Training a model on a bunch of images by {artist}, and
| then telling it "Generate me 20 images in the style of
| {artist}" seems pretty close to this ruling.
|
| No, it's not close at all. Did you look at the images in
| question for the ruling? Warhol's picture is very clearly
| a tracing of the photograph. Unless you're using the AI
| to generate an almost-exact copy of one of the training
| images, this ruling does not apply.
| freejazz wrote:
| The decision is not an infringement decision. AWF did not
| dispute the finding that the images are substantially
| similar.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > The decision is not an infringement decision
|
| > Supreme Court rules Andy Warhol's Prince art is
| copyright infringement
|
| And fair use is the main exemption to copyright, and that
| was decided here.
| lesuorac wrote:
| > only if it was substantially similar to an existing
| work and was not transformative of that existing work
|
| That's a giant only.
|
| If the resulting image is nothing close to the source
| image then yes I agree you're unlikely to lose any
| copyright case.
|
| But its the cases where they are similar that anybody
| cares. I pick the word "stock imagery" for a specific
| reason; I do no see a way that you can have a
| transformative use of stock imagery since its use is so
| vague. And a reminder (with a quote this time)
| transformative does not refer to the production it refers
| to the use.
|
| If you painted every single stock imagery you could find
| and let companies license those paintings (or pictures of
| your paintings) instead of using the source stock imagery
| I believe you'd lose a copyright lawsuit.
|
| > [1] AWF contends that the Prince Series works are
| "transformative," and that the first fair use factor thus
| weighs in AWF's favor, because the works convey a
| different meaning or message than the photograph. But the
| first fair use factor instead focuses on whether an
| allegedly infringing use has a further purpose or
| different character
|
| [1]: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-869_8
| 7ad.pdf
| madsmith wrote:
| Except that generative AI is actually generative. It isn't
| recreating a work by shape and line and form. It is using the
| knowledge gained from studying many works to determine when
| given a random pixel, what color pixel should it and its
| neighbors transform into to best fit the requested parameters.
|
| Stable Diffusion starts with random noise and attempts to
| denoise that random information into a coherent picture. That
| it has in the past learned that certain types of pictures
| should have say something resembling a watermark is just it
| being incredibly dumb but ultimately no different than it
| learning that horses should have something resembling manes or
| people's hands having something resembling fingers.
| freejazz wrote:
| You are just wordsmithing around the value of, in this case,
| the orange stencil-work, when you say "AI is actually
| generative"
| km3r wrote:
| Training the model can still be argued fair use. Using the
| model to recreate copyright works is not.
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