The defendant's process appears to be:
1. Scrape copyrighted images off the internet
2. Use them as data / inputs into a machine learning model
3. Produce some output [the plaintiff characterizes these as derivative works, but that is very much unclear]
Every single artist practices by reproducing (as exactly as possible) works by the greats on the field. It's how we learn technical skills, composition, etc. I have never met a working artist who hasn't sat in a gallery and sketched a Matisse or whomever to practice their skills and to understand visual things like light and shadow, composition, subject, etc better.
As an artist of more than 40 years, I wonder if I changed a few words if this makes it sound any less evil? Let's see ...
1. Look at hundreds of images in galleries and online
2. Use them as data / inputs into my brain
3. Produce some artwork based on the general rules I've learned and what I've seen that intrigues or influences me.
I think the issue is simply the scale at which a machine can do step 1, because that step is no different than what any artist does, just at a smaller scale. We've all learned our craft on the shoulders of giants and create work that in some ways are influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by what we've seen over our lifetimes of looking at art. It's a rare thing that anyone produces anything remotely "new" these days, sorry.
I wonder if that is the fundamental issue for artists unsettled by that technology? That it's technology reproducing what an artist does (viewing an being influenced) on such a scale? I don't know, carry on.
