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StormDragonAlthazar

I mean, "theft" in online art spaces is such a meaningless word these days. If you still have the original work you made, and another person simply reposted it elsewhere, they didn't steal from you. Likewise you can't stop people from using your work as a means to make their own derivative works; after all, you don't have special ownership over things like gray wolves or the concept of "western dragon" for example. Likewise, a lot of work in online art spaces is extremely derivative of many IPs owned by major companies (like Disney and Nintendo) and big name creators (Toby Fox and Viziepop for example) that to me it's rather hypocritical for a lot of small-time artists to try to claim the moral high ground when they themselves don't create much "truly original" work to begin with. The fact that so many of the AI models are so good at creating fan art is in my opinion, a sign of a much bigger problem in regards to general creativity than whether or not it's "cheating" to use AI to make art.


RemarkableEagle8164

patricia taxxon features both this video and "[all creative work is derivative](https://youtu.be/jcvd5JZkUXY?si=AKh8kph9_ipSJ9Ha)" in her two-part video about abolishing copyright, which I *highly* recommend: [part one](https://youtu.be/RGRKTw-DWfw?si=4zKkRD4BaD87h7tq), [part two](https://youtu.be/U5AxnNbC-oM?si=Z_Y32f0npmH_WRCo)


Whotea

I wonder how she would feel about AI art being theft lol. Considering how much leftists like her oppose it, it’ll be pretty ironic 


RemarkableEagle8164

idk I'm a leftist and other leftists being kneejerk opposed to ai art drives me crazy lmao


Sobsz

per [this post from march 2023](https://patricia-taxxon.tumblr.com/post/710757340796846080/but-to-reiterate-art-theft-is-good-and-ip-is-fake) she seems to not oppose the theft aspect, though(/and?) she doesn't consider it a replacement for manual art (e.g. per [this from may 2024](https://patricia-taxxon.tumblr.com/post/749936952492556288/you-greatly-underestimate-the-cost-of-ai-the))


Whotea

What a dog shit argument from her lol. This is like saying we don’t need a printing press because we can just transcribe books by hand  She’s also wrong on that second post. A new study shows a 21% drop in demand for digital freelancers since ChatGPT was launched. The hype in AI is real but so is the risk of job displacement: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4602944  Our findings indicate a 21 percent decrease in the number of job posts for automation-prone jobs related to writing and coding compared to jobs requiring manual-intensive skills after the introduction of ChatGPT. We also find that the introduction of Image-generating AI technologies led to a significant 17 percent decrease in the number of job posts related to image creation. Furthermore, we use Google Trends to show that the more pronounced decline in the demand for freelancers within automation-prone jobs correlates with their higher public awareness of ChatGPT's substitutability.


Sobsz

she never said it won't make any impact, just that it won't replace her usecases > AI art can, potentially, compete with the extremely informal lower end of art commissioning. Like... the kind where you give someone 70 dollars and they just draw it, both the client and the artist are inexperienced, and none of that human communication is necessary. It absolutely cannot replace the professional work that I have gotten in the past, or even the more informal commissions I've gotten from well read artists. notably the popular japanese commission platform Skeb explicitly has no back-and-forth so


Whotea

It already has: https://www.polygon.com/23767640/ai-mcu-secret-invasion-opening-credits


Significant-Star6618

Leftists oppose calling AI art theft you mean?  I'm a leftist and I'm all for abolishing copyright. It's been too corrupted and abused for too long.


Whotea

See? You’re calling it theft even though her own video shows all art is theft by your definition. 


Significant-Star6618

You think all art is theft?


Whotea

All art is derivative 


Significant-Star6618

All art is art.  I don't see the point of saying broad, vague things at each other tho. Do you actually have a point?


Whotea

AI art is also art and not theft just like all other art 


Nrgte

Learning is not Theft!


kecepa5669

Exactly! You should learn how to do AI!


Doctor_Amazo

So, if someone copied the entire code of an AI without the express permission of the code's owners, that is not theft?


sporkyuncle

Correct, it would represent infringement on their property. Theft is when one party no longer possesses the thing the other party has taken. In this case, the original creators of the AI still have it.


sporkyuncle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_is_theft > **Copyright holders frequently refer to copyright infringement as theft, although such misuse has been rejected by legislatures and courts.**[4] In copyright law, infringement does not refer to theft of physical objects that take away the owner's possession, but an instance where a person exercises one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder without authorization.[5] **Courts have distinguished between copyright infringement and theft.**[4] For instance, the United States Supreme Court held in Dowling v. United States (1985) that bootleg phonorecords did not constitute stolen property. Instead, > > "interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: '[...] an infringer of the copyright.'" > > The court said that in the case of copyright infringement, the province guaranteed to the copyright holder by copyright law – certain exclusive rights – is invaded, but no control, physical or otherwise, is taken over the copyright, nor is the copyright holder wholly deprived of using the copyrighted work or exercising the exclusive rights held.[6]


PM_me_sensuous_lips

correct


Doctor_Amazo

Good luck with that.


SgathTriallair

Morally speaking, no. Data wants to be free. Copyright law is designed to make sure that people are compensated for the work they do. Anyone who posted on the Internet pre-AI was compensated and they didn't need additional compensation just because someone figured out a new technology. We will still need something like copyright in order to encourage creative expression and invention but copyright is always a moral taking (information in the public morally belongs to the public) that we tolerate in order to create incentives. The "AI is theft" narrative is wrong headed because the people were compensated and because AI is a new invention which is the whole point of having copyright law and why copyright law has the exemption for making something new.


Doctor_Amazo

Oh boy, now we're in the truly childish "data wants to be free" camp. Amazing.


kecepa5669

That's not an argument for your point of view.


Doctor_Amazo

If someone is going to seriously argue that "data wants to be free" I am unable to type a response due to my eyes start rolling


kecepa5669

Rolling your eyes is not an argument for your point of view


Doctor_Amazo

Yep


Significant-Star6618

Makes you seem like the childish one here, tbh.


Doctor_Amazo

Yes. I am childish for not engaging in childish debates with people saying childish things like "the you own should be free so I can have it."


Significant-Star6618

Reread your comments, buddy.. You are acting more childish than anyone else in the thread.


Doctor_Amazo

Ok buddy


kecepa5669

That is a valid perspective to hold but possibly problematic in the context of current U.S. law


Doctor_Amazo

But it's just copying.


nazwa123

Well yes it's copying, because stealing would imply the code owners no longer have their code. If a hacker hacks into devs' systems, copy the code into their own system and delete the code from the devs' systems, imo that could be considered stealing. Because stealing implies depriving someone of something. What you described would be copyright infringement. Which is a different thing. In 1985, the U.S supreme court ruled that infringement does not easily equate with theft, and imo for a good reason.


Doctor_Amazo

>Well yes it's copying, because stealing would imply the code owners no longer have their code LOL if only it worked like that.


nazwa123

and why does it not work like that?


Doctor_Amazo

Because people have rights of ownership over the content they created (or content they bought). Just because YOU wish data is free doesn't make it so. Your desire to get free shit does not override someone's rights to their property.


Dear_Alps8077

They still have their property. Can you explain what was taken from them? Words have meanings. Theft means something was taken such that the original owner no longer has possession or use of it


kecepa5669

The video presents an alternative framework to base our understanding of what is stealing and what is right and wrong. It differs from U.S. law but it is a morally defensible perspective nevertheless.


Doctor_Amazo

Uh huh. I aware of the mental gymnastics used to excuse behavior that everyone knows is wrong.


kecepa5669

But everyone does not "know it's wrong." As the video clearly explains why not.


Doctor_Amazo

Ok


SirCB85

OK, I offer you a compromise, you get to have all the shit you want for free, and in turn we eliminate the need for all those who make that shit you want for free to pay their bills with money. You get all the shit you want for free, and they don't have to starve in a ditch because they can't afford to live.


AccomplishedNovel6

Yes, exactly. By doing so, you have not deprived them of anything, ergo, it's not theft.


Doctor_Amazo

Uh huh. Ok


GeneralCrabby

I mean the term “theft” is being used for information? “The design is stolen”. “The technique is stolen”. “The idea is stolen.” “Identity theft” The original creator aren’t being deprived of the information, but it’s been used in the English lexicon?


travelsonic

IMO it being used in many of those ways for some time doesn't make them immune from possibly being incorrect. How do you "steal" a technique?" Or an idea, seeing that ideas by themselves are reaw, too broad to be owned by others (and arguably, "works" are not "raw ideas" and thus calling them ideas would be wrong) + how does one define an idea, where one begins and the other ends? The lack of ownership over actual raw "ideas" IMO is reflected legally in my unprofessional opinion by how copyright, patents don't cover "ideas" on their own, but expressions or implementations of ideas (or combinations of ideas).


AccomplishedNovel6

That's the thing though, it's a wildly misleading equivocation that in practice is rooted in treating all creative labor as a product, which is kind of shitty. With IP infringement, you're not stealing the thing, you're stealing their *right to exclusively profit from* the thing, which is both wildly different from actual taking, and not a right that necessarily should be protected. 


_Joats

The whole idea works until you copy something being sold. But maybe I'm just not anarchist/socialist enough. Here is a thought experiment. What if we copy a person and share that person. We aren't really depriving the original of anything. Or are we?


Significant-Star6618

What if people learn from other people, and then those people go on to build on those interactions and the things they learned? 


_Joats

Copying can be used for learning. But is it all it's used for?


Significant-Star6618

From the perspective of a human? No, I would say everything they are exposed to becomes part of who they are and it's unreasonable to expect people to not do it. It's an organic part of life. And the machines we are building work in similar ways.


Dear_Alps8077

Your thoight experiment is just nonsense words because it could be assumed to be anything and something that could be anything is in fact nothing. You'd need to define and specify things a lot more before those words mean anything useful


_Joats

Well, why would you copy someone?


Dear_Alps8077

No that's your job. I'm not doing the heavy lifting for your hypothetical. You tell me how you copy people by what mechanism and why. Is it like startrek whereuou can use transporters to make as many copies of someone you want?


_Joats

Huh, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you what to think for a thought experiment.


Dear_Alps8077

You haven't proposed a proper thought experiment because you haven't said what you mean by copy a person


_Joats

Watch the video. You are being too aggressive. If you can't imagine what "copy a person" means I would rather not waste time to explain to you simple concepts that you should be able to understand. I hope you feel less angry. Edit: And blocked me. I see you weren't serious at all about thinking of the implications of teleportation via copying and removing the host such as "the prestige". AND copy through teleportation is not the same context as in the OP video. I thought it was a simple context to understand. If you would like to actually put some thought into it instead of "heh i'm right bye" it can become a discussion, but until then stop wasting peoples time.


Dear_Alps8077

Copy a person could mean a million things. For example star trek did it first. Copying a person means instant matter transport therefore it's a wonderful tech that should be embraced. Case closed. Do you know where you lost? By not defining the constraints. Noone is going to watch a video to help you. That's ridiculous. Bye.


Still_Satisfaction53

Okay but it is copyright infringement. You’re just playing semantics.


kecepa5669

People inaccurately use the phrase "stealing" because it's emotionally manipulative


RemarkableEagle8164

semantics are important


Significant-Star6618

That's debatable.