AI companies have been making headlines recently as they are being sued for copyright infringements, but what many people don’t know is that AI-generated images also present a potential legal risk to end users. In a paper published on IEEE Spectrum, cognitive scientist Dr. Gary Marcus and film concept artist Reid Southen outlined the growing visual plagiarism problem AI art generators have.
Midjourney v6, for example, is able to generate images that look extremely similar to screen grabs from copyrighted blockbuster movies with some careful prompting. Midjourney’s Terms and Conditions now warn users that if they use its platform to produce material that infringes on copyright they could be banned and could face legal action. Reid Southen was subsequently banned when he pointed out the plagiarism issue Midjourney v6 had.
Even if you don’t intentionally prompt Midjourney or DALL-E to produce images of Disney characters, there is a more subtle risk in using these tools. Marcus and Southen found that even generic prompts often returned copyrighted material. If a user innocently prompted “popular 90’s animated cartoon with yellow skin” they would get a copyrighted image. Similarly, if someone used DALL-E to write a book for kids and wanted an image of “animated toys” they could end up with a copyright lawsuit.
The good news is that Marcus and Southen propose solutions to this issue. They suggest removing the offending training material, improving prompt filtering, and some other options. However, they acknowledge that making an AI image generator that is really good but doesn’t break legal and ethical rules is a challenge.
To protect yourself, it is best to run any image you plan to publish through a reverse image search to make sure you don’t join the AI copyright lawsuit melee. Although this issue is a potential legal risk to end users, Marcus and Southen’s proposed solutions could be the key to unlocking the potential of AI generated images without infringing on copyright laws. So, let’s get excited about the amazing possibilities of generative AI and take the necessary precautions to make sure we don’t get caught up in any copyright infringements!
