By taking on the meme generator, Saflor may hit a wall if the court finds that his arguments apply to any meme generator and a finding in his favor could risk undercutting the entire meme ecosystem, Goldman said.
This will definitely be an interesting case to watch unfold. In my opinion it could definitely be a win if websites that run any kind of meme generator are forced to pay the official artist to have their template on their site.
Sorry, the “meme ecosystem”? What?
And let’s assume the opposite side wins: Then there would be a ruling that if someone does not market their copyright and does not contest other people using it non-commercially, they also have to allow third others to use it commercially.
Which sounds to me like effectively abolishing the copyright system for anyone who can’t afford paying lawyers to hunt down every little infringement, only leaving it up for wealthy corporations.
…so that’s probably exactly how it’s going to go, isn’t it.
(Also, AI or not is really irrelevant for this case.)
Also, AI or not is really irrelevant for this case.
They said as much:
Saflor uses AI tools and does not believe that AI itself is the problem. Goldman pointed out that his arguments against Memes Apps would be largely the same even without the AI aspect. But Saflor considers Memes Apps’ platforms to be examples of irresponsible AI products, where the operators problematically advertise that you can “fire your ad agency” and replace all creative work with a meme generator.
Which sounds to me like effectively abolishing the copyright system for anyone who can’t afford paying lawyers to hunt down every little infringement, only leaving it up for wealthy corporations.
And yeah, that would be a really terrible precedent…
I think we found the service that’s responsible for astroturfing Reddit with thousands of memes / ads per day. The real question being asked is, is it breach of copyright to use an artist’s work for commercial uses? Probably yes. If it were a human doing it.
A.I. makes things complicated though, because it’s almost entirely created by plagiarised work in the first place, so that can of worms remains mostly sealed.
If it were a human doing it.
LLMs didn’t spring forth fully-formed out of the void, there are actual companies and actual people responsible for their construction, and thus, responsible for their output.
Just because current norms seem to handwave that responsibility away doesn’t mean that they are not responsible.
We all laugh about LLMs recommending a cup of glue being added to your pizza toppings. But there are increasing cases of considerable harm occuring from LLM “advice”, and no amount of “LLMs might give inaccurate answers” fine print attached to results is going to save big corps if something sizeable happens and multiple deaths occur.
Yeah it’s really bad situation right now, but the reality is nobody is willing to actually decide what to do about it. Lawmakers and courts are still struggling with how the internet works, let alone A.I.
