Getty Images CEO Says Content-Scraping AI Groups Use 'Pure Theft' For Profit (fortune.com) 64
Getty Images CEO has criticized AI companies' stance on copyright, particularly pushing back against claims that all web content is fair use for AI training. The statement comes amid Getty's ongoing litigation against Stability AI for allegedly using millions of Getty-owned images without permission to train its Stable Diffusion model, launched in August 2022.
Acknowledging AI's potential benefits in areas like healthcare and climate change, Getty's chief executive argued against the industry's "all-or-nothing" approach to copyright. He specifically challenged Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman's assertion that web content has been "freeware" since the 1990s. The Getty chief advocated for applying fair use principles case-by-case, distinguishing between AI models for scientific advancement and commercial content generation. He also drew parallels to music streaming's evolution from Napster to licensed platforms like Spotify, suggesting AI companies could develop similar permission-based models.
He adds: As litigation slowly advances, AI companies advance an argument that there will be no AI absent the ability to freely scrape content for training, resulting in our inability to leverage the promise of AI to solve cancer, mitigate global climate change, and eradicate global hunger. Note that the companies investing in and building AI spend billions of dollars on talent, GPUs, and the required power to train and run these models -- but remarkably claim compensation for content owners is an unsurmountable challenge.
My focus is to achieve a world where creativity is celebrated and rewarded AND a world that is without cancer, climate change, and global hunger. I want the cake and to eat it. I suspect most of us want the same.
Acknowledging AI's potential benefits in areas like healthcare and climate change, Getty's chief executive argued against the industry's "all-or-nothing" approach to copyright. He specifically challenged Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman's assertion that web content has been "freeware" since the 1990s. The Getty chief advocated for applying fair use principles case-by-case, distinguishing between AI models for scientific advancement and commercial content generation. He also drew parallels to music streaming's evolution from Napster to licensed platforms like Spotify, suggesting AI companies could develop similar permission-based models.
He adds: As litigation slowly advances, AI companies advance an argument that there will be no AI absent the ability to freely scrape content for training, resulting in our inability to leverage the promise of AI to solve cancer, mitigate global climate change, and eradicate global hunger. Note that the companies investing in and building AI spend billions of dollars on talent, GPUs, and the required power to train and run these models -- but remarkably claim compensation for content owners is an unsurmountable challenge.
My focus is to achieve a world where creativity is celebrated and rewarded AND a world that is without cancer, climate change, and global hunger. I want the cake and to eat it. I suspect most of us want the same.
That looks like fun (Score:2)
If you're still reading I'll expect those smackaroos. Failure to pay me is pure theft. I'll prove it by noting anything similar you ever say to the following random word list and suing you if I find them.
finger
link
husband
brilliance
chew
surgeon
gas
contemporary
recovery
fibre
Because the transformative work going on in your brain is pretty close to what happens with an LLM and because you're capable of r
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Let me try: By reading this comment you agree to pay me $400. If you don't agree with this, stop reading now. If you're still reading I'll expect those smackaroos. Failure to pay me is pure theft. I'll prove it by noting anything similar you ever say to the following random word list and suing you if I find them. finger link husband brilliance chew surgeon gas contemporary recovery fibre Because the transformative work going on in your brain is pretty close to what happens with an LLM and because you're capable of remembering the list.
I'm unable to produce a response.
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Freeware. (Score:3)
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I found a bunch of Microsoft software on the internet, must all be freeware.
Re:Freeware. (Score:4, Informative)
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Just don't download MS-DOS please, because that's sof
cancer, global climate change, global hunger... (Score:2)
but more importantly, the nightmarish AI reels you see on instagram
Someone who sells crap complains... (Score:2)
...about robots creating crap
Clip art and stock photos never made anything better
Stealing (Score:4, Interesting)
The same Getty Images that demands payment for public domain images and images they don't own
Re:Stealing (Score:5, Informative)
And for copyrighted images they have no rights to, demanding payment from the person who does. [latimes.com]
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True (Score:3, Insightful)
The AI industry is industrial-scale piracy for profit with just enough obfuscation to allow the companies to become too big to jail at launch. I doubt we'll see any lawmakers calling for these companies' ISPs to be held accountable for their behavior though.
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The AI industry is industrial-scale piracy for profit with just enough obfuscation to allow the companies to become too big to jail at launch. I doubt we'll see any lawmakers calling for these companies' ISPs to be held accountable for their behavior though.
The law is set up to protect the owner class. AI in its current iteration is a smokescreen for the owner class to take complete ownership of the web. Forget about open communication. It'll be flooded with AI derived crap until there's nothing left but rot and lawsuits for daring to use AI generated content without paying the owner class for the right. Progress!
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This is wrong, there are many free models you can use. But even if you use closed models, the benefit sits with you as the user. You set the task, you give the inputs, you give the feedback, and you apply the ideas in your own life. OpenAI makes cents / million tokens, running at a loss. The beneficiaries of AI are whoever use AI because they get the outcomes.
And you miss the forest for the trees. The concept is that you, through use, are training this thing to do whatever task it is you are trying to accomplish, so that someday, some "higher up" can accomplish that task without you. Benefit now? Questionable. Benefit later? Someone else's, if the fantasy fetishists pushing this computer god concept are right.
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I agree that copyright law is garbage that's harming progress, but I'd prefer if it was applied consistently.
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I agree that copyright law is garbage that's harming progress, but I'd prefer if it was applied consistently.
I look for the next update to copyright law to take some of the ideas free-thinkers espouse "limit copyright to seven years" to small producers, and corporation owned copyright to be forever plus infinity, to justify the Disney types stealing creative output from actual talent, then "owning" it outright forever. We've hit a point where the corporations control not only the government, but also the public narrative for the most part. People will cheer when the last of their rights are trampled into oblivion.
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You obviously don't understand copyright law, and the nature of derivative vs transformative works.
All data is copyable (Score:2)
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Comparing CD and 320 kbit MP3 (Or VBR 0), no I cannot tell a difference.
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Then AI will be trained on AI
Will that end up like mad cow disease? Infection spreading through consumption.
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"The only difference" is the point. A lot of law is predicated on intent and consequence. What's the difference between stealing 5 dollars and 5 million dollars? Well, nothing, it's both stealing money .. and yet, we realize they're two different acts because of the difference in scale.
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Sataya does not seem to have a clue how copyright (Score:4, Insightful)
.. law works.
By his logic, if I find a Windows 11 ISO and Activation Key somewhere online, it is "freeware" and I can do anything i want with it.
Of course, that is pure baloney, because Microsoft owns the copyright regardless of how I come across it, and Microsoft dictates the terms around how I can license that content.
There is zero difference whatsoever in copyright law between
- A piece of software
- An image
- A book
- A blog post
They are all creative works, and all afforded identical status in copyright law.
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You would feel differently if you found out that Microsoft, OpenAI, and Google were making billions of dollars off of something you created, and *did not post for free*, but licensed out to individuals.
That's what these photographers (who Getty represents) are suing for. They never gave consent to any of this.
Re:Sataya does not seem to have a clue how copyrig (Score:4, Insightful)
But he does obviously remember the old school internet and www culture from the 1990s. It didn't start out this corporatized and sanitized and controlled and DRM'd thing it's been allowed to become. The "social contract" on the web was originally that when you put anything up on port 80, you were channeling William Mulholland and telling the world: "There it is. Take it." You were expected to give credit and put your own stuff up on the web for others to use in return, of course. But no one kicked in Craig Peters' or Lars Ulrich's or Hillary Rosen's door and took their stuff. They and their ilk barged into other people's pre-existing potluck and put their dicks in the mashed potatoes.
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Good thing "social contracts" do not have the force of law.
Also, once again - if I find a copy of Windows 11 and it's license key on "port 80", that apparently means it is free game by your logic. I am sure Microsoft would agree with that as well?
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Ah, the old doctrine of "I found it, therefore, I own it"
Good thing that isn't how copyright law works, at all.
Oh bite me, Getty (Score:2)
These days Getty's just a clearinghouse for meaningless stock imagery, the sorts that will very soon be replaced by AI-generated schlock.
You know, all those smiling health-care professionals, and that IT dept. that looks like it's around 20 years out of date.. all those placid, pleasant images you see in advertisements are 99.9999% stock photos bought (or taken) from places like Getty.
All of that will be AI inside 3 years from now.
Getty's only value is in their historical photographs.
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The only way that AI knows how to make any of those photographs, is because it was trained on Getty, and therefore they should be compensated.
That is the whole legal argument here.
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No, each and every photog who took stock pix and sent 'em to getty only to get a fraction of a penny for every time such a picture is used are the ones who should be compensated.
Getty, the in-betweener, can go pound sand. They've already made their fortune on the backs of the great bulk of never-was photographers who contributed to their trove.
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Er....
How do you think Getty pays their 45% royalties to the photographers, if they don't get paid by OpenAI and Stability?
That is *EXACTLY THE POINT OF THE LAWSUIT, GENIUS*
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Getty should talk (Score:4)
#irony (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah no, fuck off Getty ya two-headed cunt.
CEO says 'oh no my protection racket!' (Score:3)
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And so the humanity hits the wall with absurdity o (Score:2)
Re: And so the humanity hits the wall with absurdi (Score:2)
Being creative is something Humans enjoy doing. (Score:1)
Stop trying to take those tasks away from humans. Where's my AI that does my taxes? Or finds me a new job? Or does the dishes? That's what AI should be doing: Freeing humans from drudgery.
But, of course, those are things that people monetize, so we can't have AI do that...
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