[karpierz]

> Let’s say that their work was left out of the training data or if it was allowed to remain that the tool never reproduced training data… is Stable Diffusion any more or any less useful?

This doesn't really have much to do with copyright.

> Is literally anyone using Stable Diffusion with the intent to reproduce one of the plaintiff's copyright protected works?

Intent isn't really a factor in terms of damages for copyright infringement. But I assume we'll figure out the extend of the damages if/when damages are awarded, since that's when they measure it out. Granted, I expect the liable parties to settle far before it gets to that; the payout seems cheap (~100k - 1m) relative to the risk (penalties for copyright infringement are per unit, and it's easy to hit millions of units on the internet).

[williamcotton]

And yes, a lawyer for the defense will show that, unlike a zip file of photos that can ONLY be copies of protected works and that anyone distributing such a zip file cannot reasonably say that they are expecting non-infringing works, with Stable Diffusion there is basically no one expecting to get copies of any of the plaintiffs protected works.

Like, literally no one who made or uses SD knows or cares about the plaintiffs, is interested in their drawing style, and even remotely interested in any of their individual protected works. If I were the defendants I would train a model without any of the plaintiffs’ work and then show the court that the results for an astronaut riding a horse are no worse without their works.

And no, some lawyer is not going to scream out “objection, intent has nothing to do with copyright”, because, again, all that is meant by the intent is this: if Stable Diffusion output an image but your intent was not to copy another image… well too bad, you’re still infringing… this all happens where the liability for disseminating the copy and foregoing any fair use is on the person using the tool. Is using the tool worth the risk? Maybe not!

The intentions of the toolmakers are very important to the courts. A tool like a torrent website that does literally nothing to police their content and even actively promotes piracy is going to be treated differently than publicdomaintorrents.info.

[williamcotton]

> > Let’s say that their work was left out of the training data or if it was allowed to remain that the tool never reproduced training data… is Stable Diffusion any more or any less useful?

> This doesn't really have much to do with copyright.

It is not specific to copyright but any private wrong heard by the courts needs a clearly defined plaintiff, defendant and property in question.

How can the plaintiffs accuse anyone of infringing on their copyrights when no one has used the tool to produce the protected works? Which of their specific works was infringed upon? Is that specific work a requirement for the tool to function?

The plaintiffs seem to be “everyone” and their property “every single digital image”, which is legally incoherent. How exactly would someone reasonably ask permission for every single digital image? Is everyone entitled to part of the settlement or just the plaintiff’s and their lawyers?

[williamcotton]

Intent is absolutely a factor when accessing the tool. Intent is not a factor when accessing the infringing work.

The intentions of Sony when they manufactured the Betamax VCR were absolutely taken into consideration in the judgment.