AI Art: Copyright, Ownership and Infringement (oh my!)

Lots of questions come up with the use of AI art. Just how legal is it? Do I own what the AI makes? Is it unethical or too risky to use for my own game's design? Join us as we consult with Game Lawyers Joe Newman and Jonathan Downing to discuss just how to navigate these legal landmines.

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[camoakes]

I mentioned this on Legal Eagle's video, but the use of AI generated art reminds me of the copyright laws on dance and choreography. You can't copyright any individual dance move, but you can claim copyright on a choreographed routine made from combining those individual elements together. I feel like there might be a similar approach there, at least in terms of creating new material.

[squeaksquawk]

"You should see a real-life and not-animated lawyer" Honestly, if I can find a lawyer who is animated IRL, I am definitely visiting them. Maybe not for law advice, but I'm visiting.

[DavidChipman]

Legit LOL'd at the Mickey Mouse with the hammer.

[blaster]

As a new artist trying to make a living out of university, AI art terrifies me for the future of my job security 🥺
Companies always choose the cheaper option.

[shorgoth]

What I think is: the copyright laws are obsolete and have been in SERIOUS need of changes since the 90's with the internet. The copyright laws don't do what they were intended to and don't make much sense in the current world. I embrace the AI renaissance because it will democratize means of productions to millions, this is a freedom we never had as individuals to produce our ideas without them being gated by natural talent. The argument against this is fundamentally based on abelist arguments and I welcome the day where anyone who has a good idea can realize them. It will also drastically drops the cost of production for art and democratizing its consumption by the same way its access to the less fortunate masses. I think we should subsidise artists to give them decent wages instead of the current convoluted (and often deficient) means we pay them currently. I say this as someone who tried writing novels by the way, in the current system barely any writers can even afford to have an apartment with their revenues. The system is already broken.

[chaincat]

The big issue with AI currently is the point of how AI learns. Let's say I take 5, I dunno, some sort of mechanical gadget that's protected by copyright, disassemble them, and assemble something new with parts from all of them, is this sixth thing real? Is it distinct? If it's building off of one singular reference source, sure, that's just plagiarism. But how many things does it have to pull from before it isn't plagiarism anymore? How many different artists do you need to emulate before your style is considered your own? This ultimately is circling back to originality, and the fact that it's dead.

[silverharloe]

If Jane is making a game and hires Joe to create art for it, Jane will probably sensibly put in the contract that Joe cannot give Jane AI generated art, but what if Joe does and Jane doesn't realize it? If someone sues Jane because she included the art in the game? She could presumably sue Joe for breach of contract, but she seems unlikely to recoup the losses from her own defense that way (plus the losses from having to file the suit against Joe).

[mayariboh]

I think a lot of the fear and uncertainty with AI art among non-artists comes from the sense of, if artists can be replaced, will I? The only real answer thus far is that AI will continue to be of use to us and benefit us as much as we let it up until the point where humans are no longer needed. As an example, if all jobs have been replaced except say circuit manufacturing then humans will still be around but the moment all vital jobs can be automated the path is clear for some billionaire, government, or heck maybe a rogue AI to take over.

[Ionel]

Honestly I gotta give it to the lawmakers

the fact that you can't copyright AI art is an incredible way to make it usable but not, ,OP" so to say

A very pleasant surprise

[StompinPaul]

I once heard someone join in a similar discussion with the phrase 'free art for everyone should be a utopian ideal, not a horror story', and lately that's basically been a summary of my attitude toward it. I think AI generation has a lot of potential to be useful, however as it is now I expect the people in charge (or at least providing or in control of the money) for most projects are predominantly going to use it as a way to stiff artists out of proper pay, whether that's using it directly or using the pressure of it to force artists to lower prices.

[TheBackyardChemist]

The real deal and opportunity comes not from using AI to generate the files you ship, but *ship the AI models themselves* . We have seen how powerful procedural generation can be in Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, No Man's Sky and others. This could be an immense leap in procedural generation, imagine a game world that is not only unique for every playthrough, but also changes over time. This is the dream that Bethesda tried, and miserably failed to achieve in Oblivion, Skyrim and Fallout 4 with the "radiant quests". This is not something that fits in the trend of "push 2x the polygon count every generation" type of stagnation that characterizes the last 10 years of gaming. This could revolutionize game mechanics.

[kainingyao]

For now, AI-generated art would be best used not as the end product for one's art, but instead as a reference point for inspiration that should by iterated upon by human artists to make something original. After all, art AI is just about as much of an art tool as Photoshop and so on.

[graefx]

I think about how wild the industry changed in the late 00s early 10s. It was the wake of XBLA, Steam, and XNA, and then Unity and Game Maker burst onto the scene. Suddenly all these voices got to have access to games tools, and in the case of Game Maker, empowered people without any coding background. Easy distribution methods and a lower technical barrier of entry, and suddenly we had all these games filled with ideas and voices that were knew and unique from what the standard thinking had been. That period of experimentation was awe inspiring. It gave rise to the Indie mega star and AAA Indies. Time is cyclical. Games started from college students screwing around with new technology, then moved out of basements into silicon Valley and big companies like Atari. But then it cycled back to the basements and kids like Doom and sold in ziplock bags after the first level was free on file sharing sites. Things crept back to a big company era of the console wars. Steam, XBLA, Unity, game maker back to the bedrooms and dorms, before it when back into the big companies again now. I think AI might be the next cycle downward to hobbiests and non traditional voices. We'll have to see what that yeilds

[SaiyanHeretic]

Automation is meant to free humans from mundane labor so that we can focus on occupation which enriches society, like making art. If we jump right to computers making art without human inspiration (typing prompts don't count -- that's insipid not inspiration), then something has gone horribly awry.

[styrax]

Thank you for pointing out that the amount of references AI uses and the the amount of pictures it creates from that makes it an uneven comparison to a human using references.
I'm also worried that it'll lead to low or medium quality art drowning out the great art by sheer volume.

[joshuaneiswinter]

AI art is interesting.. on one hand I love that as someone with no artistic talent can see my ideas rendered, but I don't like that the people who took the time to learn their craft are very suddenly not as valued.

[Waltman]

With how complex it is in terms of legality and ethics, how does it affect the more creative-ish uses of AI?

As in:
-Generating 1 or more results, kitbashing different parts together to form something different, then redrawing the entire thing to morph it into your own creation (complete with small/additional changes by a human).
-Touching up a background YOU drew to appear more painting-like
-Using the AI generated pieces in a specific context (example: a character being on a drug trip with the AI's imperfections representing weird and distorted visions).

[RasakBlood]

Copyright should be reduced in duration to like 20 years max applied to all art. That would make this all simple and and the law gets back to promoting creation of new things instead of protecting Disney. The reason for copyright to exist at all is to motivate creation and protect peoples ability to make a profit of their creations. The only real argument against the concept of ai art is that artists will get payed less when anyone can create good art. This is not a compelling argument. Even more so when you consider that artists can also use AI tools and always do better then the laymen. Also the idea of stifling all the creativity and artistic creation of the masses ai art will unlock is disgusting. Simplification and fixing of copyright will improve the world and save us from meaning less arguments about it AI is copying or learning from.

[micahfk]

Good start for considerations around AI and art issues in game design. Would have loved a further discussion of where all this can go as AI gets integrated into more systems, e.g. AI quest creations in MMOs.

Can easily see this heading into training an AI on your game's quest system to generate not just art, but common quest writing campaigns, the placement of where the quests should be in your world (and on average) and the generation of that quest from start to finish, massively scaling up the number and more intricate kind of quests rather than the basic "go kill 5 hogs" grind.

[xNWDD]

The whole AI art conversation feels so wrong at so many levels, focusing the discussion around training on copyrighted work being bad is just flawed.
If we want any resemblance to correlation to exist between ethics and law the focus should instead be a permanent subset of copyright focused on the actual use that is being made of the model.