… at least it wasn’t printed by master printer Drew Wiley
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Danziger Gallery Exhibits "AI-generated color version" of Ansel Adams' "Moonrise, Hernadez, New Mexico" at AIPAD
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MattKing
Moderator
...meaning it might also be illegal.
It may be a civil wrong, bringinging rise to a claim for damages (in law) and other equitable relief such as an injunction, but it isn't likely to send someone to jail.
In other words, not actually illegal.
If it was illegal, we could demand prosecution for the offence against public sensibilities!
Smells like a promotional gimmick.
Probably. And a good one, too.
?????
I don’t know about the AI version, but I can take you to within a few feet of AA’s site, near a dollar store in Hernandez. The Sangre de Christos are east, and sun is setting behind the Jemez mountains in the west. And just like the sun, all over the earth (and New Mexico is backwards in some ways but not in astronomy)*, the moon rises in the east. So when it is low over Truchas Peak it is rising. And due to the perfidiousness of astronomy you will only see a full moon rising as the sun is setting** behind you.
I have taken a lot of sunrise pictures, and a lot more sunset pictures. There is no “should be” telling nature how to color the clouds. Especially in the desert, and double in the high desert. Especially if you’re not sure of direction or time.
Way off topic. I thought the cottonwoods might have actually been brighter yellow, they are striking in golden hour light for a few days in October-November. But this is the sky I see every day and the color of the clouds is not remarkable.
The gall to hang this in a gallery for sale is remarkable. Photrio should issue a boycott also.
* Pluto is our state planet
** within a few minutes, not instantaneously, with atmospheric diffraction and local aberrations such mountains.
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The colorized image is nothing more than a postcard, but this case will probably be an interesting one to follow.
Basically, intellectual property can only be assigned to and stealed by somebody in possession of civil rights. An AI does not have any civil right but is the only "actor" who made the derivative work. Same for copyright (which is what the three only major litigations against AI-based plagiarism were focused on) which can only be held and infringed by an individual in possession of civil rights. And an AI does not possess any civil right. In this case, anybody can give the same prompt to GPT and get more or less the same result, showing that the "actor" making the derivative work is indeed the LLM. I think this is the main reason why the Gallery mentioned the GPT prompt they used.
It may look like this one would be a very simple case for a court, but I bet it will not, and it might probably result in an outcome that we do not like much. Just google for the three cases of copyright infringement already ruled upon in the US and in Germany....the bottom line there is that the manipulations made by an AI that resulted in intellectual property theft or copyright infringement cannot be prosecuted, as the material theft has to be attributed to an individual in possession of civil rights.
Getting some popcorn folks, will be rigtht back
OneEyedPainter
Basically, intellectual property can only be assigned to and stealed by somebody in possession of civil rights. An AI does not have any civil right but is the only "actor" who made the derivative work. Same for copyright (which is what the three only major litigations against AI-based plagiarism were focused on) which can only be held and infringed by an individual in possession of civil rights. And an AI does not possess any civil right. In this case, anybody can give the same prompt to GPT and get more or less the same result, showing that the "actor" making the derivative work is indeed the LLM. I think this is the main reason why the Gallery mentioned the GPT prompt they used.
It may look like this one would be a very simple case for a court, but I bet it will not, and it might probably result in an outcome that we do not like much. Just google for the three cases of copyright infringement already ruled upon in the US and in Germany....the bottom line there is that the manipulations made by an AI that resulted in intellectual property theft or copyright infringement cannot be prosecuted, as the material theft has to be attributed to an individual in possession of civil rights.
Getting some popcorn folks, will be rigtht back
OneEyedPainter
Nope. A human actor promoted the LLM and post-processed the outcome. All the rest of your reasoning also doesn't hold any water; sorry. E.g. getting the same results - ask 10 bricklayers to build a wall. You'll get ten more or less the same walls. That doesn't mean anything in terms of liability.
Why don't you insert a reference to the three cases you mean so we can have a look whether you're misunderstanding the verdicts, which is what appears to be happening here.
Anyway, I don't get what the hubbub is all about. Someone colorized a photo. Woohoo.
Yep, as a start, this is the latest one, from the Supreme Court in the US:
the bottom line is that an AI cannot be a subject in copyright litigations, because copyright is all about humans.
and this is the news (in english) on the German court:
Once again, no copyright protection for AI-generated output
www.taylorwessing.com
again the rationale is that copyright is something reserved to humans.
What makes the AA's case interesting is that the table is flipped, but still the basic tenet is
that copyright matters are a "human" affair. This will not be an easy one, that's all I am saying.
Forget the color bit for a second as that’s just the cherry on top.
Imagine you’re a photographer who makes his living selling prints of his work. You’re walking around New York City one day and stop into a well-known art dealer to check out their current show. As you’re looking around you notice that on the wall of the gallery is an inkjet print of one of your iconic black and white photographs. You’ve never produced an inkjet print of this work before, have never authorized anyone else to do so, and the work has not been attributed to you in any way. The gallery has gone online, downloaded a digital version of your photograph and made inkjet prints from it. Furthermore, the gallery is selling editioned copies of this print for $10,000. You wouldn’t be bothered by any of this? My guess is you would. That’s exactly what the Danziger Gallery has done. The fact that the print was a poorly colorized version generated by an AI image generator only serves to make this even more egregious.
well, that's all true. However the AI manipulation here is a starking novelty. In your example, all the actors who made changes to your original picture are humans, and are subject to IP and copyright laws. They will all be held responsible under IP/copyright laws.
In this case the essential difference is that the original manipulation was made by an AI, and the recent court ruling have stated that nothing produced by AI can be the subject of any IP or copyright litigation. So the AI effectively breaks that chain of changes and manipulation made by humans, and the corresponding chain of liability (???).
I know it sounds weird, and that is why I said this case is an interesting one to follow. Whatever seems moot when only humans are involved, is not that clear-cut any more when an LLM is in the loop. And not because I say it, but because of the latest ruling on the matter. Let's see what will happen, but again, I believe this one has the potential of being a pivotal case in the relationship between AI and IP/copyright.
@oneeyedpainter in both if your examples the case presented is the exact opposite from what we're discussing here. Neither is about infringement, both are about the question whether IP accrues from the reliance on AI as a generative (as opposed to derivative) work. So there are several crucial ways in which the logic doesn't apply.
@logan2z there's a rich history of debate surrounding derivative works. Like the quasi-legal responses above, your reflection falls short due to taking a lot of relevant nuance in too simplistic strides.
As to how I'd feel personally: if a gallery would out up one of my photos for sale for $10k I'd be absolutely thrilled. And if it were a direct inkjet print for which I hadn't extended a license I'd have a very solid case in court if it would ever make it that far. Again, you're smashing it flat and as a result jump to unsupported conclusions.
Still, what's the hubbub about. Adams is dead. He literally couldn't care less.
@logan2z there's a rich history of debate surrounding derivative works. Like the quasi-legal responses above, your reflection falls short due to taking a lot of relevant nuance in too simplistic strides.
As to how I'd feel personally: if a gallery would out up one of my photos for sale for $10k I'd be absolutely thrilled. And if it were a direct inkjet print for which I hadn't extended a license I'd have a very solid case in court if it would ever make it that far. Again, you're smashing it flat and as a result jump to unsupported conclusions.
Still, what's the hubbub about. Adams is dead. He literally couldn't care less.
This is not at all what the first case mention means. "The Copyright Office rejected his application in 2022, finding that creative works must have human authors to be eligible to receive a copyright" means that the Danzinger version of the photograph cannot be copyrighted. It does not void the copyright of the originall Ansel Adams photograph.
Again, wrong interpretation. Regarding the logos, the judgment states that "The court dismissed the action for injunctive relief and denied that any of the three designs were works of art. The decisive factor was that they lacked personal intellectual creativity." The Danzinger version of the photograph is a modified copy of an artwork, made by an art gallery, sold at an art fair in order to be hung on a wall as an art work.
Moreover, anything that happens in a German court cannot be considered a precedent for US law.
Did you read the first sentence of the statement published by the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust?
"The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust was established by Ansel Adams to steward his artistic and environmental legacies, consistent with his own ethos and intentions."
The reason one sets up such a trust is precisely because you're intend is to keep caring way after you've died.
The problem with trying to keep things the way they are after you die is that the world changes. Again, Adams couldn't care less since he's dead. Obviously the Trust attempts to protect its economic interest and wants a cut of the pie.
For me, the only relevant consideration in all this is how the image does or doesn't work in color. The rest is just ways to allow lawyers to keep driving fancy cars. Uninteresting.
For me, the only relevant consideration in all this is how the image does or doesn't work in color. The rest is just ways to allow lawyers to keep driving fancy cars. Uninteresting.
this is exactly the point here, and why this case is interesting. The modification was not done by a human, and not by the art gallery. It was made by an LLM, and they published the prompt they used, which means that anybody could get basically the same result.
I know this seems moot, but in fact there is no current specific legislation on the matter. One possible interpretation is that the art gallery stole the modification made by the AI, damaging the AI IP. Alas, the AI does not hold IP on the modification, as ruled above. So the AA foundation should sue the AI for infringing IP (and making a derivative work), and the AI should sue the art gallery for having stolen its work (which is not subject to copyright). Another interpretation is that the AA foundation holds copyright on ANY modification, but so far that has made possible only by copyright law, which needs to identify the (human) subject who made the modification. Alas, the subject of the creative alteration is an LLM, which is the novel element in here.
Again I know this seems clear-cut, but it's not, IMHO. I have been following closely the legislation on copyright and IP for the last 25 years, although I am not a lawyer by trade, and this looks like something really new.
I am interested in seeing how it evolves, as it could be a very intetesting precedent, in any case. I might be totally wrong here, and that would not be a first anyway
Since I haven't had enough coffee yet to come up with good counterarguments to "the word changes therefore nothing remains the same" and "when you're dead you're no longer alive," best we agree to disagree
.
As in"Your Honor, I may have prompted to gun to fire, but the actual killing of that person was done by the bullet" ?
There is a reason why some AI companies in the US are pushing to get whatever the AI says protected by the first amendment. They fear criminal liability in cases when AI speech leads to a crime or — and we've seen more and more of this — leads a person to harm himself. This means they acknlowledge that someone may be deemed responsible since some thing cannot be. Right now, they are kind of having it both ways, but that won't last.
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As in"Your Honor, I may have promted to gun to fire, but the actual killing of that person was done by the bullet" ?
There is a reason why some AI companies in the US are pushing to get whatever the AI says protected by the first amendment. They fear criminal liability in cases when AI speech leads to a crime or — and we've seen more and more of this — leads a person to harm himself. This means they acknlowledge that someone may be deemed responsible since some thing cannot be. Right now, they are kind of having it both ways, but that won't last.
agree with your point. That is exactly what makes this case interesting.
If you layer Danziger over Adams in an image editor you’ll see the foreground vegetation is completely different and everything else is similarly off to varying degrees. The AI had issues with some of the smaller crosses too.
Should legal action be taken by the Adams trust I imagine this could come up as part of the defense, i.e. it’s not a colorized Adams photo, it is a new AI construction inspired by Adams’s image.
The closer you inspect the AI image the worse it looks. I bet the largest sized print they offer looks pretty bad up close, as many AI images do.
Should legal action be taken by the Adams trust I imagine this could come up as part of the defense, i.e. it’s not a colorized Adams photo, it is a new AI construction inspired by Adams’s image.
The closer you inspect the AI image the worse it looks. I bet the largest sized print they offer looks pretty bad up close, as many AI images do.
Wasn't Adams known for being a photographic progressive who actively exploited new materials and technologies for both artistic and commercial purposes? It seems that the Trust may be managed by photographic/artistic regressives... and profit oriented as mentioned earlier. Adams, if he were to were to wake up this morming and look at the colorized derivative, may very well says something like, "Veeeeerrrrry interesting; teach me how you did that. But I still like my versions better."
And taking pictures with Hasselblads, in an attempt to keep up with the dentists.
Most civil offenses are not considered "illegal", but they are "unlawful".
But fraud, for example, can be criminal or civil. In the case of an individual or business being the victim, it is a civil case, but if the government brings the case it is criminal -- such as a recent famous case in New York of someone "cooking the books" -- which resulted in 34 felony convictions.
Wonder what would come out of the following?:
AI prompt:
Use this Danzinger Gallery color image [attached jpg] and convert it to black and white in the style of Ansel Adams.
I don't care enough to try, but as AI is generating loads of content based on previously published internet content and AI bots are now creating content based on AI content, the enshitification of the internet is almost complete.
AI prompt:
Use this Danzinger Gallery color image [attached jpg] and convert it to black and white in the style of Ansel Adams.
I don't care enough to try, but as AI is generating loads of content based on previously published internet content and AI bots are now creating content based on AI content, the enshitification of the internet is almost complete.
MurrayMinchin
Membership Council
Doesn't copyright last at least 70 years after an artists death in the US? Ansel died in 1984, so the free-for-all will start earnestly in 2056.
The legal question will be; is it derivative or transformative? Below is a snippet from a court case about this very topic, where a photographer who photographed another photographers photographs lost the case:
"The preamble of Section 107 describes certain types of works that fit within the purpose of fair use, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching scholarship or research. The four factors are to be considered in examining the purpose. Courts have distinguished infringing derivative works from transforming fair use by requiring that the new work must “supersede the objects of the original creation…altering the first [work] with new expression, meaning or message.” A derivative work is one that merely “recasts, transforms, or adapts an original work into a new mode of presentation.”
cdas.com
The legal question will be; is it derivative or transformative? Below is a snippet from a court case about this very topic, where a photographer who photographed another photographers photographs lost the case:
"The preamble of Section 107 describes certain types of works that fit within the purpose of fair use, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching scholarship or research. The four factors are to be considered in examining the purpose. Courts have distinguished infringing derivative works from transforming fair use by requiring that the new work must “supersede the objects of the original creation…altering the first [work] with new expression, meaning or message.” A derivative work is one that merely “recasts, transforms, or adapts an original work into a new mode of presentation.”
How Much Is Too Much? Transformative Works vs. Derivative Works: Photographer Wins Appropriation Art Copyright Case | Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard LLP
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