![](/static/253f0d9b/assets/icons/icon-96x96.png)
![](https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/2QNz7bkA1V.png)
Would it be transformative if I sold you a database of base64 encoded images? What about if they were encrypted
No.
Also no.
There is a long history of examples set by court cases on what does or doesn’t count as transformative. Law is very good at handling exceptions like this and it’s been handling them for decades.
An encoding is not transformative. It’s just the same information sent a different way. Same with encryption.
Hell, you can hire me to paint based on prompts you give me. That’s the exact same service an AI provides, no? I’m going to study copyrighted materials to get better at my service.
All perfectly legal and commonly done.
So you give me the prompt “Mickey Mouse” and I draw this. This is “custom art”. You think you can use that commercially?
No. Not for you and not with AI generated art either.
Copyright controls your ability to copy and distribute creative works. You can learn to draw Micky mouse, you can even draw Micky mouse, but anyone who tries to sell or distribute that copy can and probably will quickly get sued for it.
And if you realize that you can’t, why do you think I should be able to legally sell you this service?
If AI companies were predominantly advertising themselves as “we make your pictures of Micky mouse” you’d have a valid point.
But at this point you’re basically arguing that it should be impossible to sell a magical machine that can draw anything you ask from it because it could be asked to draw copyright images.
Courts will see that argument, realize it’s absurd, and shut it down.
Then the site is wrong to tell you that you can use the images in any way you want.
Or you are wrong for assuming you can intentionally violate copyright and trademark by using the AI tool to generate Micky mouse and then get all offended that “but the site told me I can use the pictures, it’s their fault”.
Nobody knows yet. For the most part it hasn’t happened. Big services like DallE will assume all legal liability for you. Small services? It’s on you to make sure the image is clean.
You seem to have forgotten a small detail here.
This is already how it works. Every character has thousands and thousands of fan works, often supported by artists with donations and patreons. The status quo is that none of them get caught and sued until they get big enough, and that anyone who tries to sue these people are assholes abusing copyright law even they’re legally correct.
Straw man?
Reading comprehension. This is an argument-by-comparion. It shows how your point is absurd and doesn’t work by comparing it against a magical machine that doesn’t yet exist. It shows how your idea of how copyright should work here is regressive, harmful, and dangerous by pointing out that you seem to believe that just because something could violate copyright that it should be prevented from existing, being used, or being sold.
You don’t own a copyright on a pattern or a brushstroke. You own copyright on works of art.
Are you suggesting it will be impossible to do this? Because this will be quickly proven wrong and there will be a day and a description specific enough to produce Micky mouse from a machine that’s never seen it.
The mere fact that it will happen one day is enough. I don’t have to literally go invent it today.
It’s already being done ethically.