Fans of Studio Ghibli, the famed Japanese animation studio behind “Spirited Away” and other beloved movies, were delighted this week when a new version of ChatGPT let them transform popular internet memes or personal photos into the distinct style of Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki.
I think it will be punished, but not how we hope. The laws will end up rewarding the big data holders (Getty, record labels, publishers) while locking out open source tools. The paywalls will stay and grow. It’ll just formalize a monopoly.
I think this might be hypocritical of me, but in one sense I think I prefer that outcome. Let those existing trained models become the most vile and untouchable of copyright infringing works. Send those ill-gotten corporate gains back to the rights holders.
What, me? Of course I’ve erased all my copies of those evil, evil models. There’s no way I’m keeping my own copies to run, illicitly, on my own hardware.
(This probably has terrible consequences I haven’t thought far enough ahead on.)
I understand the sentiment but I think it’s foolhardy.
And all that mostly benefiting the data holders and big ai companies. Most image data is on platforms like Getty, Deviant Art, Instagram, etc. It’s even worse for music and lit, where three record labels and five publishers own most of it.
If we don’t get a proper music model before the lawsuits pass, we will never be able to generate music without being told what is or isn’t okay to write about.