Midjourney Copyright Law: What AI Artists Need to Know

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The full leaked list of Midjourney artists:

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[Opinionerded]

This whole vid was AI-bro babble, just with a nicer voice and more elegant accent. AI prompters are not artists. You're quoting Mark Twain...if he were alive, what would he have thought about a machine that allows every single person around him to write JUST like him, rendering him obsolete, through the commodification of his rare talent?

[flamart]

What I need is an AI tool that detects AI images. The web is flooded with AI production and I don't want to use it for inspiration. I want to be inspired by human creativity, not artificial algorithms.

[JGeo]

Simply put, pay all the non-public domain artists that were directly ripped off to train the model. Pay them handsomely, give them stock, make sure they are not made homeless by the software that owes its existence to them. Pay the artist to point that the AI programs are barely profitable.... it is the only right thing to do.

[ArtEntity]

i love using ai art but i have been extremely unimpressed with most peoples ai creations. i am fully back onto REAL art. i use the ai for inspiration rn not posting ai stuff anymore

[BoneLonesome]

I am on that list and I did not give permission. If they want to use my work I want a BIG cut. They can't do this without the artists and honestly, I don't want to be part of it. Use my work...PAY ME!

[Thex-W.I.T.C.H.-xMaster]

11:50. Just because we in the "west" (America and Europe) put such pity limitations on A.I art generation does not mean that others will be so noble... such as our friends in Russia and our Chinese friends... do you people who call yourselves real artists really think that your "art" will or hasn't already been used by countries or people who live in those countries that have no "copyright laws" that you can use to limit them? I don't think so and I don't think you will ever see true "copyright laws" protecting your "art" from being used by them in their own specific A.I. models 🤔🤷‍♂️. Even if you win some court cases here and even mange to limit A.I. generated art here the people in other countries like Russia or China may still most likely break whatever new A.I. "copyright laws" we might come up with in the coming years... just think about how... not so smart you are being hopefully your tiny brains can finally understand this

[alexl]

What they should do, is remove all rights for AI generated art to have copyright. That would devalue it enough for money milkers to again focus on Human generated art.

[BarKeegan]

Yeah, it’s still a tricky one, I understand that you can’t put the ‘toothpaste back in the tube’, and hard for the LLMs to unlearn the data, but it still remains that those models required an initial injection of vast swathes of data before they could effectively operate. There was clearly value attributed to collected data of that size, but without acknowledgment, or permission sought from the owners of that data.

[DanHammonds]

Does this mean we can sue anyone who used our art work as inspiration and be sued by anyone who inspired us? As a digital artist I'm among those most affected by Midjourney, but I don't think it's reasonable to sue them when they're not directly duplicating our work.

[JamesChristopherHill]

I'm a fine artist and illustrator and if MidJourney had me on that list, I would be flattered because at the end of the day, it's not going to affect my overall sales versus showing my art on the internet as Chinese companies like Cotosen saw fit to be nice enough the steal several of my Steampunk Designs to put on their shirts, their shorts, hats, etc., and they are popular items apparently. There is absolutely NO WAY I can begin to sue this company as they just change their name. To CYA, they even have the audacity to have a part where you can write and let them know that an image on a piece of clothing as they have hundreds of images that it's obvious they stole from American and European artists, that you can write them about the infringement and they will "Immediately STOP using said images!" - BS! I've written over six times to the company and their "sister companies" on the web and Meanwhile, my designs are helping someone else make money - I'm so glad the I could help! Eyes ROlling upward. My point is that it did not take A.I. to steal my art. They did that on their own just fine with a 20 year old image enlargement program.

I was more affected by Marvel and DC when the movies came out as suddenly EVERYONE and their brother started to steal the works on the hardworking artists and clearly trademarked designs of Batman, Wonder Woman, Ironman and then re-print them for Con Show prints, t-shirts, etc. Everyone didn't want original art, the crowd wanted Another image of Wonder Woman or Batman!! Hundreds, if not thousands of artists that were quite capable of coming up with their own characters decided to steal the images and repaint them in Photoshop or Clip Studio. They then had the audacity to sell 4 large prints for just $20 turning conventions into flea market mentalities.

Suddenly my prints of my work was too "overpriced" at the ethical $25 per 11x14 print of my own designs when I would sell at least 4 to a customer easily up until 2012-2014. I believe in creating my own styles, my own environments from my imagination and characters. This problem started in 2009! These thievery did not require A.I. Then either. So, the problem is NOT A.I. and training with certain artists styles, the problem is simply now insecure artists are threatened once again by the fact anyone can now create art. In the end, A.I. will be just another tool and novelty. It will help more than it will hurt and problem create millions more jobs than before. This is so common that I've seen major market shifts and people screaming foul for fear of what they don't understand. Board Drafters screaming back with AutoCAD and other computer based drafting came out. It's just another evolution of technology. My advice to the artists that want to sue, save your dimes and nickels and outsmart the A.I. by leaning it and keeping up with the technology just like traditional cell animators had to do when computer animation stated to dominate movies. Just the way it is. Sorry Charlie.

[ImJustGenerallySpeaking]

Myself being an artist, I often wondered about that very issue. I agree with the artist A.I has bypassed the artist, I do believe they should be compensated for these images. Inspiration, copying and mimicking along with imitation all have different meanings in a sense drawing inspiration then giving credit is what makes the difference! If u can’t be honest about what you have copied, what you’re mimicking then you’re stealing and it’s dishonesty at that point and you lose credibility within that craft and or what you’re saying!

[heartshinemusic]

Inspiration and influence is very hard to legally pin down. If you got a musician who scores a number one hit on the charts, and then they uncover a Spotify list of 20 artists that the creator listened to in the past 5 years. Can those 20 artist claim that their music was the source of that hit record? Because the artist was inspired and influenced by it? That would be crazy... 'cause who inspired and influenced those artists? They didn't start from scratch. Even listening to something could subconsciously have an effect on a creator's own creative output, without knowing it. Through the ages, creative people have copied and have been inspired by other artists, giving it their own spin. It only becomes a problem when the work is an actual copy of another work, like a cover song which has the same exact melody and lyrics.

[cdxx]

Without the true artist midjourney and the ones who call them self’s “artist” just because they type properly would never be near the artist category, midjourney stole from people that worked their ass off, a prompter would never understand true effort. So if company’s get paid by the effort of others they should pay back, nothing is free in life. So stop being a idiot it should be public if there is no going back, but the ones who truly gave the data to make this work should get payed and at least respected, now they are at risk of automation with no compensation.

[mortavius-the-mad]

I've trained my own local AI on my own style, and it has increased my productivity 100 times.

Now, I can scan in my sketches and go through finishing it fast in my own style. It's great!!!

[UnSortedGirl]

The new style reference parameter for MidJourney seems to be a way to remove the liability from the app itself, placing it onto the prompter's "plate". I've noticed that when using style reference images (--sref), any artist names used in the actual prompt seem to be meaningless.

[CarlosMinay]

the thing with Midjourney and AI related companies, its that its profits from artists without even saying thanks, if it was free for everyone to use it would have less problems i think. Im aware of the computing power needed for the machines to work, just saying that if it was free, maybe artist would not care THAT much about machine inspiring on them... those companies are making tons of money while artist have always struggle to get paid jobs in what they like to do...

[anubisswift]

I think that people are misinterpreting what Nick Cave means which is that a lot of people will never explore their abilities because exactly what they want will be done for them and in turn when they don't have the thing that will do it for them they will be helpless in creating the world they want

[mmorenopampin]

I've never thought of the ai lawsuits as a problem amongst individual ai creators getting in trouble... (its not ai artist vs anti ai artists)... I could care less and its impossible to police anyway... the concern is big corporations replacing roles. Screen writers, story board artists and concept artists. It's true that "we could "use ai as an "assistant" tool in the process but particularly in these departments most artists involved would rather do the work manually. its fun and its the best way to improve and learn a plethora of skills. Specially as a jr artist. As a Sr concept artist myself I'm concerned that we will loose traditional art fundamentals knowledge to the next generation of ai artists. I'm not sure how we can reason that choosing to give up on 10, 000 years of perfecting our ability to craft an image by hand is actually a "good thing" for progress? to me knowledge IS progress. Investing in skills, to learn, to understand optics, perspective, how light behaves, how to trace and visualize shadows. Drawing and painting are tools for visual learners to make sense of the world. I just hope we still have a place in a society that is run by ai. For me the best compromise for ai assimilation would be some kind of tax break or tax penalty depending on the size of a company and the genuine demand for human workers to do labor manually vs automated. If there is a shortage of human interest in a particular labor task, automate that. If a large number of humans like to do something manually... let us preserve that skill. For very small companies ai could serve as a catalyst until it starts to grow. Lastly I'm pretty sure (myself included) many more artists would be more willing to embrace ai in the future if a model gets trained with only creative commons data. Currently they ARE taking advantage of ppls data and privacy... Big businesses don't easily get away with unlicensed software... why is data any different? data has A LOT of value in the new ai economy. I'm fine with waiting to see how these ethics get sorted out in court. Regardless learning new software is ALWAYS easier then learning the foundations of any new skill. Ai tools will only become easier to use and will hide the true knowledge in the automated process. So unless the new advice to artists is to learn how to code neural networks because that's the only viable future of art I'm gonna continue learning as much as I can about the world as a visual learner by drawing, painting and 3d modeling. Hopefully such skills will still be valuable to future clients for many many more year to come. Its incredible how capable humanity is with and without ai!

[camizanatta]

I was a manual artist who fell in love with the agility offered by AI. Every artist uses works by other artists as a reference, to learn, train, improve. But I've never seen anyone credit and pay commission to the artists they used as references. What is the difference? Their ego is hurt, because with our human limitations, we need a lot of time to perfect something that an algorithm can do in seconds. The only option is to swallow the ego and continue being a manual artist by choice, because you like what you do, or accept and use technology to your advantage. Have you ever thought if we were charged for all the works we see, process in our brain and then express on paper?
Every artist "steals" from other artists, to become an artist. Every human creates based on countless previous creations. We are a species that essentially learns by example. So, this is a fight in the name of vanity, and nothing more.

[judilynn]

I love using technology as a tool in my workflow. I am a graphic artist and abstract painter. I consider myself a mixed media artist. However many of my painter friends are up in arms because they know that the average person will go for low cost AI generations instead of hiring them and paying the price for organic skilled work by an artist. That is the problem for them. And I understand their fear.