I agree. I am part of the local art community and there is this meme idea floating around that the artist owns everything about a work they make, even the idea. At present people are using this to bash on AI art and decry it as stolen. But this is mistaken, both from a legal sense (many aspects of a work are not copyrightable), and in a physics sense (you cannot control an idea in the minds of others, information wants to be free, and so on).
I don't want to deny that AI artwork is potentially a threat, much in the way that a printing press was to scribes of the time or a camera to painters. And I understand the need to put food on the table. But the only form of protection available is limited at best, by design, and I think many of these people fail to see how they might be infringing on others' copyright under such a harsh and draconian interpretation of it.
As both an artist and an AI person for my dayjob, this is spot on. People are losing their minds (esp. on twitter ) but really it’s exactly identical to the painting to photography transition.
I had an acquaintance tell me to either learn how to draw or commission work, when I expressed that Stable Diffusion was neat for people who might want to create visual art based on their text ideas - still requires human interaction, still art in my book. It was kind of a sad lack of reflection given that their own art reproduced trademarked media from certain spicy chili sauce brands.
>"and in a physics sense (you cannot control an idea in the minds of other,"
I think we should add the caveat "yet", to your quote. I imagine it's physiological to control ideas in people's brains if you could accurately and correctly map neurons to people's thoughts.
I don't want to deny that AI artwork is potentially a threat, much in the way that a printing press was to scribes of the time or a camera to painters. And I understand the need to put food on the table. But the only form of protection available is limited at best, by design, and I think many of these people fail to see how they might be infringing on others' copyright under such a harsh and draconian interpretation of it.