[everforward]

Somewhat unrelated, but I wonder if it makes a legal difference if the AI acts like a browser and goes out, finds and image and downloads it.

Basically the AI doesn't have a copyrighted image in its data set, but it will go grab YouTube screenshots or images from Google Images or something.

[stubish]

It would still be distributing copyrighted work, even if it doesn't store a copy at any stage. It would go the way of Napster.

[felipeerias]

Midjourney claims that you own all of the images it creates for you.