[chrisknyfe]

Those of you who are desperately trying to soften the blow - "they're talking about facebook, not OpenAI", "it's fair use, the license terms are irrelevant", "nothing has been taken from them" - you need to allow yourself to think the thought that maybe your AI startup's business model is only valuable because of theft. You need to let yourself entertain the idea that maybe you are only getting paid a cushy tech salary because you're aiding and abetting theft. You need to at least try to learn how to draw hands, the hard way, before hopping on Midjourney and saying "art is easy, why do these artists think they deserve to get paid for this?".

[endo_bunker]

nothing has been taken from them

[chrisknyfe]

The understanding you're missing is that artists benefit when they are credited for their work. Let's say you drew concept art for a videogame, and your name appears in the credits. You can now go to recruiters and hiring managers and say "I worked on a game that shipped" and get hired.

Let's say, during hard times when you don't have a job, fans of the game you worked on notice you on twitter and say "hey I loved your work, here's $5 for your patreon." Now you can pay your medical bills this month.

Their livelihood was taken from them. Midjourney is theft.

[Cheer2171]

Nothing except their ability to make a living.

[rimeice]

Value has been taken. Motivation to create has been taken if the second you upload something it gets sucked in to a model that any old person can create infinite iterations.

[gedy]

Honestly digital media in general has greatly cheapened the value of images, music, illustration, etc. and this has been been a long time coming.

It was clear to me over 20 years ago when I realized that I wouldn't be able to earn enough in the arts, and ironically due to creative people sharing so much good content for free.

While I feel for people who didn’t realize this, but it’s no surprise if you try to earn your living by adding digital content to the global network of computer systems that something like the current AI trend was bound to happen.

If you love art - paint a painting, make a sculpture, perform in a play, perform live music, dance, etc. Digital is a dead-end goal in and of itself.

[xyproto]

All human endeavors are dead ends, in the end.

[artninja1988]

>only valuable because of theft

It's not theft though

[gumballindie]

Spot on. Most ai model value is in the stolen content. These criminals need punishment.

[jMyles]

You are using the word "theft" in a way which does not describe conduct that is actually theft.

Not all of us participate in the form of thought control that has been euphemistically pushed as "intellectual property."

[Cheer2171]

I'm just curious if you believe that physical property or real estate is similarly a form of "thought control" that does not actually exist. "Property is theft" is a common saying in some intellectual-political circles, especially about land.

[jMyles]

I don't know... I seem to go back-and-forth on the larger property question throughout my life.

But I certainly think that the casting the act of copying bytes from one medium to another as "theft" is propagandistic and dishonest.

[ronsor]

Your question is disingenuous IMO. Physical property is about physical things, not thoughts. "Intellectual property" is literally about thoughts and work based on them - it's in the name.

[chrisknyfe]

Hey, sorry, I read your profile briefly before replying... do you play bluegrass as your main gig or as a side hustle? Your new album is a bop.

Anyway, I don't think there's much I can say to change your mind - talk to other artists, especially those who are artists as their main hustle.

[jMyles]

> do you play bluegrass as your main gig or as a side hustle?

Main gig, although of course the sands are shifting rapidly with regard to what that means, for precisely the reasons this conversation is so stimulating.

> Your new album is a bop.

Jeez man that's a nice thing to say. I'm really proud of it. We worked really hard on it. It has been fascinating to see and hear the responses; the story that I tell is one of "open source" and "traditional" having roughly the same meanings as applied to the intellectual property frameworks surrounding them.

I'm curious to hear what you might think of the album played in this order; I think it gives a darker and more contemplative perspective:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2ucmjLc88iZdfKi9zlU5HP

> talk to other artists, especially those who are artists as their main hustle.

As you can see from the ensemble on my record, I've become friendly with a good chunk of the mainstream bluegrass world (which is a fairly tight-knit community). I think that a lot of artists are just very frustrated with the system as it is, where they are pitted against their own fans (or whomever wants to simply download and listen to their music) with the industry acting decidedly as a middle-man.

I am reasonably (but not totally) confident that musicians, and particularly purveyors of what have come to be called "the traditionals", will be among the main forces seeking to dismantle the IP system in the next couple of decades.

[WesternMAGeek]

And those who are getting paid those great tech salaries, should be willing to send 100% of their paychecks to artists while they code for free.

Because . . . they're not creating value with their code. It took them years to learn how to code well. All that effort should be contributed to the world for free.

[rideontime]

Good point! The software engineers whose work was used to train Copilot, etc. should also be getting paid.

[boolemancer]

> It took them years to learn how to code well. All that effort should be contributed to the world for free.

I mean, there is a plethora of open source work that is actually contributed to the world for free, right?