Nightshade, the free tool that ‘poisons’ AI models, is now available for artists to use

Lee Duna@lemmy.nz to Technology@lemmy.world – 762 points –
Nightshade, the free tool that ‘poisons’ AI models, is now available for artists to use
venturebeat.com
259

You are viewing a single comment

The tool's creators are seeking to make it so that AI model developers must pay artists to train on data from them that is uncorrupted.

That's not something a technical solution will work for. We need copyright laws to be updated.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying - our current copiright laws are insufficient to deal with AI art generation.

They aren't insufficient, they are working just fine. In the US, fair use balances the interests of copyright holders with the public’s right to access and use information. There are rights people can maintain over their work, and the rights they do not maintain have always been to the benefit of self-expression and discussion. We shouldn't be trying to make that any worse.

Yep. Copyright should not include "viewing or analyzing the picture" rights. Artists want to start charging you or software to even look at their art they literally put out for free. If u don't want your art seen by a person or an AI then don't publish it.

It's sad some people feel that way. That kind of monopoly on expression and ideas would only serve to increase disparities and divisions, manipulate discourse in subtle ways, and in the end, fundamentally alter how we interact with each other for the worse.

What they want would score a huge inadvertent home run for corporations and swing the doors open for them hindering competition, stifling undesirable speech, and monopolizing spaces like nothing we’ve seen before. There are very good reasons we have the rights we have, and there's nothing good that can be said about anyone trying to make them worse.

Also, rest assured they'd collude with each other and only use their new powers to stamp out the little guy. It'll be like American ISPs busting attempts at municipal internet all over again.

Copyright should absolutely include analyzing when you're talking about AI, and for one simple reason: companies are profiting off of the work of artists without compensating them. People want the rewards of work without having to do the work. AI has the potential to be incredibly useful for artists and non artists alike, but these kinds of people are ruining it for everybody.

What artists are asking for is ethical sourcing for AI datasets. We're talking paying a licensing fee or using free art that's opt-in. Right now, artists have no choice in the matter - their rights to their works are being violated by corporations. Already the music industry has made it illegal to use songs in AI without the artist's permission. You can't just take songs and make your own synthesizer out of them, then sell it. If you want music for something you're making, you either pay a licensing fee of some kind (like paying for a service) or use free-use songs. That's what artists want.

When an artist, who does art for a living, posts something online, it's an ad for their skills. People want to use AI to take the artist out of the equation. And doing so will result in creativity only being possible for people wealthy enough to pay for it. Much of the art you see online, and almost all the art you see in a museum, was paid for by somebody. Van Gogh died a poor man because people didn't want to buy his art. The Sistine Chapel was commissioned by a Pope. You take the artist out of the equation and what's left? Just AI art made as a derivative of AI art that was made as a derivative of other art.

You should check out this article by Kit Walsh, a senior staff attorney at the EFF. The EFF is a digital rights group who recently won a historic case: border guards now need a warrant to search your phone.

MidJourney is already storing pre-rendered images made from and mimicking around 4,000 artists' work. The derivative works infringement is already happening right out in the open.

Something being derivative doesn't mean it's automatically illegal or improper.

First, copyright law doesn’t prevent you from making factual observations about a work or copying the facts embodied in a work (this is called the “idea/expression distinction”). Rather, copyright forbids you from copying the work’s creative expression in a way that could substitute for the original, and from making “derivative works” when those works copy too much creative expression from the original.

Second, even if a person makes a copy or a derivative work, the use is not infringing if it is a “fair use.” Whether a use is fair depends on a number of factors, including the purpose of the use, the nature of the original work, how much is used, and potential harm to the market for the original work.

Even if a court concludes that a model is a derivative work under copyright law, creating the model is likely a lawful fair use. Fair use protects reverse engineering, indexing for search engines, and other forms of analysis that create new knowledge about works or bodies of works. Here, the fact that the model is used to create new works weighs in favor of fair use as does the fact that the model consists of original analysis of the training images in comparison with one another.

You are expressly allowed to mimic others' works as long as you don't substantially reproduce their work. That's a big part of why art can exist in the first place. You should check out that article I linked.

I actually did read it, that's why I specifically called out MidJourney here, as they're one I have specific problems with. MidJourney is currently caught up in a lawsuit partly because the devs were caught talking about how they launder artists' works through a dataset to then create prompts specifically for reproducing art that appears to be made by a specific artist of your choosing. You enter an artist's name as part of the generating parameters and you get a piece trained on their art. Essentially using LLM to run an art-tracing scheme while skirting copyright violations.

I wanna make it clear that I'm not on the "AI evilllll!!!1!!" train. My stance is specifically about ethical sourcing for AI datasets. In short, I believe that AI specifically should have an opt-in requirement rather than an opt-out requirement or no choice at all. Essentially creative commons licensing for works used in data sets, to ensure that artists are duly compensated for their works being used. This would allow artists to license out their portfolios for use with a fee or make them openly available for use, however they see fit, while still ensuring that they still have the ability to protect their job as an artist from stuff like what MidJourney is doing.

I actually did read it, that’s why I specifically called out MidJourney here, as they’re one I have specific problems with. MidJourney is currently caught up in a lawsuit partly because the devs were caught talking about how they launder artists’ works through a dataset to then create prompts specifically for reproducing art that appears to be made by a specific artist of your choosing. You enter an artist’s name as part of the generating parameters and you get a piece trained on their art. Essentially using LLM to run an art-tracing scheme while skirting copyright violations.

I'm pretty sure that's all part of the discovery from the same case where Midjourney is named as a defendant along with Stability AI, it isn't its own distinct case. It's also not illegal or improper to do what they are doing. They aren't skirting copyright law, it is a feature explicitly allowed by it so that you can communicate without the fear of reprisals. Styles are not something protected by copyright, nor should they be.

I wanna make it clear that I’m not on the “AI evilllll!!!1!!” train. My stance is specifically about ethical sourcing for AI datasets. In short, I believe that AI specifically should have an opt-in requirement rather than an opt-out requirement or no choice at all. Essentially creative commons licensing for works used in data sets, to ensure that artists are duly compensated for their works being used. This would allow artists to license out their portfolios for use with a fee or make them openly available for use, however they see fit, while still ensuring that they still have the ability to protect their job as an artist from stuff like what MidJourney is doing.

You can't extract compensation from someone doing their own independent analysis for the aim of making non-infringing novel works, and you don't need licenses or permission to exercise your rights. Singling out AI in this regard doesn't make sense because it isn't a special system in that regard. That would be like saying dolphin developers have to pay Nintendo every time someone downloads their emulator.

You do realize that you basically just confirmed every fear that artists have over AI, right? That they have no rights or protections to prevent anybody from coming along and using their work to train an LLM to create imitation works for cheaper than they can possibly charge for their work, thereby putting them out of business? Because in the end, a professional in any field is nothing more than the sum of the knowledge and experience they've accrued over their career; a "style" as you and MidJourney put it. And so long as somebody isn't basically copy+pasting a piece, then it's not violating copyright, because it's not potentially harming the market for the original piece, even if it is potentially harming the market for the creator of said piece.

The Dolphin analogy is also incorrect (though an interesting choice considering they got pulled from the Steam store after the threat of legal action by Nintendo, but I think you and I feel the same way on that issue - Dolphin has done nothing wrong). A better analogy would be if Unreal created an RPGMaker style tool for generating an entire game of any genre you want in Unreal Engine at the push of a button by averaging a multitude of games across different genres to generate the script. If they didn't get permission to use said games, either by paying a one time fee, an ongoing fee, or using games that expressly give permission for said use, I'm sure the developers/publishers would be rather unhappy with Unreal. Could it be incredibly beneficial and vastly improve the process of creating games for the industry? Absolutely. If they released it for free, could it be used by anybody and everybody to make imitation Ubisoft games, or any other developer, and run the risk of strangling the industry with even more trash games with no soul in them? Also absolutely. And a big AAA publisher has a lot more ability to deal with knock-offs/competition like that than your average starving artist. The indie game scene is the strongest it's ever been thanks to the rise of digital storefronts, but how many great indie game developers go under after producing their first game and never make a second? The vast majority. Because indie games almost never make a profit, meaning they can't afford to make another.

The issue with AI is that it opens a whole can of worms in the form of creating an industrial scale imitation generator that anybody can use at the push of a button. And the general public have long made known their disdain for properly compensating artists for the work that they do, and have already been gleefully doing a corporation by using AI to avoid having to hire artists. This runs the risk of creating a chilling effect in the field of creativity and the arts, as your average independent artist can no longer afford to keep doing art thanks to the wonders of capitalism. There will always be people who do art as a hobby, but professional artists as we think of them today? Why go into debt by training at an art school if all your job prospects have been replaced because people generate art for free with some form of LLM instead of hiring artists. I myself never went into art beyond a hobby level despite wanting to because of how abysmal the job prospects were even 15 years ago. And I simply cannot afford to do it as much as I'd like (if at all) between work, the time investment, and the expense of it. And that's not even getting into the issues of LLM generated porn of people, advertisements generated using the voices of dead (and still alive) celebrities, scams made using the voices of relatives, and all the other ethical issues.

I used to work at a fish market with a kid who was a trained electrician who was set to follow in the footsteps of his dad who had been one of the highest paid electricians in the US, except he gave up on it because the thing he liked doing the most in the field was replaced with a machine by the time he graduated from technical school. Obviously the machine is more efficient (and probably safer), but instead of entering the field at all, he ended up working a job he hated and to this day has never found a job he has any passion for. What happens to art when professional artists are only NEETs, who have minimal living expenses, and those hired by corporations and the wealthy? Are we going to get the fine art market on steroids, with the masses only having access to AI generated art that will degrade in quality over time as the only new inputs are previous AI generated pieces, unless there's enough hobby artists to provide sufficient new art, while the wealthy hold a monopoly on human-made art that the rest of us will probably never see?

This is all pure speculation, but it's the Jurassic Park question: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

You do realize that you basically just confirmed every fear that artists have over AI, right? That they have no rights or protections to prevent anybody from coming along and using their work to train an LLM to create imitation works for cheaper than they can possibly charge for their work, thereby putting them out of business? Because in the end, a professional in any field is nothing more than the sum of the knowledge and experience they’ve accrued over their career; a “style” as you and MidJourney put it. And so long as somebody isn’t basically copy+pasting a piece, then it’s not violating copyright, because it’s not potentially harming the market for the original piece, even if it is potentially harming the market for the creator of said piece.

A professional career can't be reduced down to a style. There's a lot more that goes into art than styles.

The Dolphin analogy is also incorrect (though an interesting choice considering they got pulled from the Steam store after the threat of legal action by Nintendo, but I think you and I feel the same way on that issue - Dolphin has done nothing wrong). A better analogy would be if Unreal created an RPGMaker style tool for generating an entire game of any genre you want in Unreal Engine at the push of a button by averaging a multitude of games across different genres to generate the script. If they didn’t get permission to use said games, either by paying a one time fee, an ongoing fee, or using games that expressly give permission for said use, I’m sure the developers/publishers would be rather unhappy with Unreal. Could it be incredibly beneficial and vastly improve the process of creating games for the industry? Absolutely. If they released it for free, could it be used by anybody and everybody to make imitation Ubisoft games, or any other developer, and run the risk of strangling the industry with even more trash games with no soul in them? Also absolutely. And a big AAA publisher has a lot more ability to deal with knock-offs/competition like that than your average starving artist. The indie game scene is the strongest it’s ever been thanks to the rise of digital storefronts, but how many great indie game developers go under after producing their first game and never make a second? The vast majority. Because indie games almost never make a profit, meaning they can’t afford to make another.

Profit shouldn't be the sole motivator for creative endeavors. If a tool like the one you describe existed, we wouldn't need to have to "afford" to make things. We could have more collaborative projects like SCP, but with more fleshed out rich detail. I certainly don't spend my time lamenting the fact that I can't monetize every one of my comments and posts.

I used to work at a fish market with a kid who was a trained electrician who was set to follow in the footsteps of his dad who had been one of the highest paid electricians in the US, except he gave up on it because the thing he liked doing the most in the field was replaced with a machine by the time he graduated from technical school. Obviously the machine is more efficient (and probably safer), but instead of entering the field at all, he ended up working a job he hated and to this day has never found a job he has any passion for. What happens to art when professional artists are only NEETs, who have minimal living expenses, and those hired by corporations and the wealthy? Are we going to get the fine art market on steroids, with the masses only having access to AI generated art that will degrade in quality over time as the only new inputs are previous AI generated pieces, unless there’s enough hobby artists to provide sufficient new art, while the wealthy hold a monopoly on human-made art that the rest of us will probably never see?

Your problem is with Capitalism. Your friend is a victim of the capitalist logic of prioritizing cost-cutting over human well-being. The question of what happens to art under capitalism is also a valid one, as capitalism tends to reduce everything into a product that can be bought and sold, but I think the potential outcomes for art are less predetermined than you make them seem. As long as we keep encouraging and nurturing diverse voices, I think we can come out winners.

This is all pure speculation, but it’s the Jurassic Park question: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

I don't think it's wrong to give people a free tool to expand their ability to communicate and collaborate.

2 more...
2 more...
2 more...
2 more...
2 more...
2 more...
2 more...
2 more...
2 more...
2 more...
2 more...
2 more...

The issue is simply reproduction of original works.

Plenty of people mimic the style of other artists. They do this by studying the style of the artist they intend to mimic. Why is it different when a machine does the same thing?

No, the issue is commercial use of copirighted material as data to train the models.

It's different because a machine can be replicated and can produce results at a rate that hundreds of humans can't match. If a human wants to replicate your art style, they have to invest a lot of time into learning art and practicing your style. A machine doesn't have to do these things.

This would be fine if we weren't living in a capitalist society, but since we do, this will only result in further transfer of assets towards the rich.

It's not. People are just afraid of being replaced, especially when they weren't that original or creative in the first place.

Honestly, it extends beyond creative works.

OpenAI should not be held back from subscribing to a research publication, or buying college textbooks, etc. As long as the original works are not reproduced and the underlying concepts are applied, there are no intellectual property issues. You can't even say the commercial application of the text is the issue, because I can go to school and use my knowledge to start a company.

I understand that in some select scenarios, ChatGPT has been tricked into outputting training data. Seems to me they should focus on fixing that, as it would avoid IP issues moving forward.

AI image creation tools are apparently both artistically empty, incapable of creating anything artistically interesting, and also a existential threat to visual artists. Hmm, wonder what this says about the artistic merits of the work of furry porn commission artist #7302.

Retail workers can be replaced with self checkout, translators can be replaced with machine translation, auto workers can be replaced with robotic arms, specialist machinists can be replaced with CNC mills. But illustrators must be where we draw the line.

copyright laws need to be abolished

That would make it harder for creative people to produce things and make money from it. Abolishing copyright isn't the answer. We still need a system like that.

A shorter period of copyright, would encourage more new content. As creative industries could no longer rely on old outdated work.

That would make it harder for creative people to produce things and make money from it

no, it would make it easier.

it would be harder to stop people from making money on creative works.

You write a book, people start buying that book. Someone copies that book and sells it for 10 pence on Amazon. You get nothing from each sale.

You write a song and people want to listen to it. Spotify serves them that song, you get nothing because you have no right to own your copy.

That's how free/libre and open-source software has worked since forever. And it works just fine. There is no need for an exclusive right to commercialise a product in order for it to be produced. You are basically parroting a decades old lie from Hollywood.

Yeah, you don't need exclusive rights for it to be produced. But artists, especially smaller artists, need that right to do silly things like paying for food and rent.

you can still sell your book

you can still sell your song.

but your song can be a remix. your book can be a retelling of a popular story.

you can still make money. you just can't stop other people from making money. that is all copyright does, and it is wrong. it destroys culture.

I don't think you understand how copyrights work. If they are abolished, everybody is free to redistribute your creation without compensation or even acknowledgement. The moment you put it out there, it's instantly public domain.

That means we'd have no more professionally produced movies, series, books, songs, games, etc., but would be stuck with what's essentially fan art.

Sure, there are talented artists out there who produce music as a hobby, youtubers who make great videos and such, but it would be the end of commercial productions.

That means we'd have no more professionally produced movies, series, books, songs, games, etc., but would be stuck with what's essentially fan art.

we had professionally produced songs and books and games and plays before copyright. you are making that up.

I don't think you understand how copyrights work

They are idealizing a pay-the-creator system. They are arguing for a system that is kinda coming together with patreon-like stuff.

You seem to be arguing that people will just buy the cheapest identical copy. Which is hard to argue against, but there are people out there that pay creators that give their work for free. Copyright law certainly protects creators. But it's cool to see some creators monetizing on open-licensed work.

I think you replied to the wrong comment

Yeah, kinda. I forgot which side of the argument the reply I replied to was on. I guess you can just flip the "you"s and "they"s. Or am I still off-base?

Yeah, just make your own Spotify, how difficult is that?

Relatively simple actually, without copyright. Download Spotify, rename app to Spudify, re-upload to app store. Done, easy peasy. Hardest part about it would be decompiling the existing app, which is definitely possible and may not even be necessary.

The real truth is, however, that in this hypothetical world there would be no Spotify to copy and there would be much, much less music available to stream on Spudify.

Yeah cuz musicians and artists only ever do it for the money...no other reason ever, nope.

If they can't afford to do it, then you're relegating creativity to only those wealthy enough to be able to afford to do it.

The vast majority of art throughout human history was paid for by somebody, or sold by the artist. Van Gogh dies a poor man because people didn't want to buy his paintings when he was alive. The Sistine Chapel was commissioned by a Pope. Just because you think your have an intrinsic right to the work of somebody else doesn't mean you do.

without copyright standing in your way, it is a cinch.

That would be an update, not sure it would be a good thing. As an artist I want to be able to tell where my work is used and where not. Would suck to find something from me used in fascist propaganda or something.

As an artist I want to be able to tell where my work is used and where not.

that would be nice. a government-enforced monopoly isnt an ethical vehicle to achieve your goal.

I'm open for other ideas, until then I take laws. I don't see anything wrong with people making rules for interactions.

rules are ok. laws are unjust.

Rules that are not enforced don't make any sense whatsoever.

wrong

You are master debater sir, difficult to disagree with such eloquent and well thought out argumentation.

I presented exactly as much support for my position as you for yours

1 more...
1 more...
1 more...
1 more...
1 more...
1 more...
1 more...
1 more...
1 more...
3 more...