So here are some notes:
Since we’re in an age of innovation in machine-learning-driven art, we need to develop a bill of rights for the practice, especially when it comes to name emulation and use of trademarked properties.
Let’s assume that generative art via machine learning will eventually be able to perfectly emulate the style of a named artist, creating a pushbutton corpus of work that may be indistinguishable from samples that the artist labored to create by hand or voice.
For the purposes of play and experimentation, some artists will enjoy seeing their name / style emulated (I’m one of them), but others won’t. Living artists should be invited and should be able to opt out. The styles of artists who are dead / public domain / Creative Commons should be fair game.
If a machine-generated artwork using name emulation is offered for sale, a living artist should share in the proceeds, and there should be an agreement in advance governing the venture that addresses approvals, distribution, etc.
We need to work this out. Machine learning tech is advancing rapidly. It may soon be able to invent new songs by Bob Dylan and new paintings by Norman Rockwell. To avoid confusion, infringement, and fraud, autonomous works should be clearly labeled so people know whether they are synthetic or authentic.
Prompt: "A stunning photograph of a Pikachu wearing a cape, 8K HD, incredibly detailed"
Pikachu originally designed by Atsuko Nishida and Ken Sugimori,
For the purposes of play and experimentation, some artists will enjoy seeing their name / style emulated (I’m one of them), but others won’t. Living artists should be invited and should be able to opt out. The styles of artists who are dead / public domain / Creative Commons should be fair game.
Artist Studies by Remi Durant. Follow the link to explore various artist prompts
We need to work this out. Machine learning tech is advancing rapidly. It may soon be able to invent new songs by Bob Dylan and new paintings by Norman Rockwell. To avoid confusion, infringement, and fraud, autonomous works should be clearly labeled so people know whether they are synthetic or authentic.
8 comments:
The art community is in dire need of level-headed thinking like yours on these topics. There's plenty of new tools and possibilities emerging in the art field, but they end up feeling like a race towards dystopian technocracy because a lot of people seem to have forgotten the basic notions of personal rights, laws and regulations, and that the latter exist for very good reasons.
The art community is in dire need of level-headed thinking like yours on these topics. There's plenty of new tools and possibilities emerging in the art field, but they end up feeling like a race towards dystopian technocracy because a lot of people seem to have forgotten the basic notions of personal rights, laws and regulations, and that the latter exist for very good reasons.
AI is going to introduce many scenarios such as this. We've already experienced the problem of so-called "deepfakes".
In this case, how would any of artists' rights be enforced? Even if your works are copyrighted (ie: with a governmental entity), tracking down the offenders, prosecuting - all of that within a digital world could be out of reach for many.
Picture the same types creating and selling these (silly, IMHO) NFTs based on derivative works. Nightmare.
I don't mean to sound negative, but I work in IT/tech (I'm also an artist) and I just see all of this potential happening.
One application I would enjoy seeing, potentially spoiling things, is if AI could take a work from (for example) Da Vinci and literally articulate all the steps likely taken to compose the work (sfumato etc). I would be glued to that demonstration so I could learn :)
I don't believe AI is "bad" per se, but it is how AI is utilized (ie: by humans) that create benefit or problem. Conversely, I think AI can really help our world in many ways that humans aren't capable of (medical, environmental, technology, ... ).
And so here we are.
As I recall, artwork retains copyright for 70 years after the artist's death (which is why, for instance, you can't find many public domain images of an artist like Georgia O'Keeffe. Even though some of her art is 100 years old, she died on March 6, 1986, which means her artwork will not be out of copyright until March 6, 2056.
In addition there are ways to legally extend that copyright in some cases.
Also, Artists Resale Royalties should be considered, especially in cases where the artist was impoverished during her/his lifetime, and then works sold for millions of dollars after their death.
This info is from The Observer, certainly something to think about (The US has abandoned Artist Resale Royalty laws, but they are alive and well in Europe.) I think it makes sense.
"Artist Resale Royalty laws were born in France in 1920 with the name Droit de Suite (meaning “right to follow”) as a way to assist the widows of artists killed in the First World War: Collectors of artworks on the secondary market would, in effect, provide a type of pension for these widows and their children. In time, the law was expanded to include not just heirs (for 50 years after the artist’s death) but living artists, providing a royalty payment of three percent when that artist’s work was sold publicly for a price in excess of 100 francs. A resale royalties law has remained on the books in France ever since and has spread to the other 26 nations of the European Union, as well as to 47 other countries in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America."
An interesting question with the AI images is how it will influence it’s own image making as the images it produces are uploaded to the internet. A search now will come up with 99% human made images, but when this takes off, will half of its source mages be ones that it itself created?
By the, way here is the link to the art emulating AI images if anyone missed it last time:
https://weirdwonderfulai.art/resources/disco-diffusion-70-plus-artist-studies/
-Jenna
Wow awesome and disturbing at the same time. As always thanks for letting us know.
Wow awesome and disturbing at the same time. As always thanks for the info.
I hear that Midjourney is now charging a subscription fee - I hope they have funds in reserve to cover all the copyright lawsuits they are about to face. LOL
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