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Comment by clejack | Hacker News Reader

I think the parent poster has the right idea. This is not just anthropomorphization; it's an analogy.

They take away is contained in the first and last sentences.

Derivation is key.

Copyright protects original expressions, and copying means to reproduce (read and write) something. The analogy OP made is focused on the reading and writing done by humans and the reading and writing done by an algorithm.

Algos like stable diffusion are reading, and their user is controlling what is written.

If the user produces a work that is unique, but uses the style of a particular artist, that seems like it should be valid, since style is simply a process. It's how to create art, but it is not art, and processes are not subject to copyright based on copyright.gov.

With all that said legality isn't morality, and I sympathize with the artist.

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I guess. Imagine you're an artist, and you've created your career based around your unique art style. It gets you jobs as a concept artist, or whatnot (idk). Now, imagine there's a tool someone "trained" in a few hours to do what you you do, but withi seconds instead of hour or days. Is there any reason to pay you, ever again? Your hourly rate is surely going to be higher than their electricity bill for running the algorithm.

So, how do we protect you (as the artist) from this? Copyright, even if flawed, currently protects you from that

No. You cannot copyright an abstract style. Process is not copyrightable.

Sorry, I realise how my comment was a bit confusing. I kinda butchered my point.

I guess my point is more ethical than legal.

Sure, another artist could copy your style, but they would still need to study it for a long time (composition, palette, perspective, grading, line work, etc) to get an accurate understanding of it. They also needed to have spent years training their hand-eye coordination, as well as art theory to achieve it. Whether it's ethical is debatable, but they've earned their skills. And they'd still take a while to produce it, so they earned their money.

If someone without training just asked a computer program to produce "dragon in style of X" then this means people can sidestep artists to create works.

One could be smug and say "work smart not hard" here, but it creates a tricky situation.

What if people start pulling down their works or not posting them for fears a megacorp will crawl their works without permission?

What if someone asks for the same piece (by describing it as a prompt and saying "in the style of X"); is that plagiarism or copytheft?

What will happen to the models in this case? Do they become "inbred" over time?

What becomes of artists? It will no longer be a viable career (especially digital artists) for them. I know most artist enjoy the process more than selling the art, but the process won't put food on the table.

I guess it's a lot of what ifs too here, but they're not unlikely scenarios.

It's not an analogy because it doesn't analogize "learning" which is the thing that's being used as a defense. It hides any criticism of learning by implying that it's the same learning that humans do. That's not an analogy, it's just bullshit. It's bullshit word salad. A really tiny salad, here.

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