Art theft implies actually stealing something from someone. IE taking something away from someone else. So that they no longer have access to that thing. For instance the occasion discussed in the article is about art being stolen from a museum. So that people can no longer go to that museum and look at that art.
I hope you can see the difference between that and the "theft" of "intellectual property" that is so hyped today.
>Art theft implies actually stealing something from someone.
This implies art is by definition a physical thing, which is not something I or many others would agree with. Art can be many things, some of which are tangible, and some which aren't (A live performance, a digital painting etc.).
While the article is talking about physical paintings, I posit that the biggest art theft in history is happening now via AI training. AI which is endangering the very same artists that unwittingly trained it for nothing in return and benefit for others.
>This implies art is by definition a physical thing
It doesn't, you're reading something that isn't there. It defines "theft", not "art". Regardless of what you think, theft has a pretty clear definition, and intellectual property cannot be stolen. It can be "damaged" by other means - call it plagiarism, data laundering, copyright infringement, commoditization, losing distinctiveness (trademarks can be lost that way), impersonation, but whatever you call it, it's specifically not theft, neither legally nor logically. It was discussed a million times and trying to retrofit theft onto intellectual property is manipulation.
I truly hate how people try to worm their way out of these discussions with their "um actuallys". I'm extremely confident a majority of artists did not consent to this use of their work. You can define whatever you want or make whatever shitty legal argument you want, the AI companies knew what they were doing was unethical or they would have released some provenance with respect to their training set. This is very new and a legal grey area. I don't think we need to mince a lot of words to state that clearly the work of artists is being exploited here without credit, consent, or compensation. These models simply would not exist without alienated labor. These products are clearly intended to be a substitute for artists work. If it's determined to be legal, fine, but society doesn't have to pretend you're not a piece of shit for doing this stuff.
The OP is about physical museum heists. Any actuallys belong to those who are trying to bring the %current_event%-related snark into the discussion in the first place, especially while ignoring a pretty important distinction which hurts those discussions and tends to turn them into emotional shamefests with little substance.
I agree, people arguing in favor of these models deserve to feel shame. And you're right, I am emotional. In fact I'm outraged. If you have a scrap of empathy, you should be too.
This is missing the thrust of my argument. By stealing a physical painting you are removing the ability for other people to look at that painting. When a digital painting is used in the training of some AI model it is not removed from the internet. Anybody can still go look at that digital painting wherever it is posted. Nothing is being stolen from anyone in this scenario.
The argument then is that the AI model is stealing potential profits from the artist who posted the image. This also doesnt make sense because the artist is not charging to see that image. It is posted for anyone who has the link and a web browser to see it.
Artists make public portfolios to find work and get jobs. Being available to view publicly is not the same thing as the artist giving you permission to do whatever you want with their work. In fact, I saw a blurb under one of these posts from an artist that explicitly said they did not want their work used in any ai training, earlier today.
The problem that you're ignoring is that these models can substitute for the product these artists were making. Why go to a particular artist when you can train an AI model on their public portfolio and reproduce their style? That's the argument that this isn't fair use, it damages the market and reputation of the original artist.
I've given plenty of nuance in comment after comment on this site. I'm tired of hearing the same slimey garbage over and and over and over again. "It's not theft. It's actually way more complex than that and artists have no right to be upset because they said the model was a database".
If this hurts the art community, that's the fault of the AI companies that scraped their work. If it's legal, I guess you can go and do it, but I'm not going to stop saying it's theft to your faces. AI has alienated a generation of artists from their work. You ought to at least feel bad about it.
Look, I am an artist. I was raised by artists. I live with and love many artists who work in many mediums. Some of them dont like AI some of them do.
The world changes. It is possible that the age of doing gig and illustration art online is coming to a close. I doubt it, but it is possible. Either way some people will have to switch professions or mediums. I definitely feel for those artists who will be effected by the rise of image generation more than I feel for knowledge workers who will lose their jobs to LLMs.
None of this makes it theft. You can say it as much as you like but that wont make it so.
There is always the danger with putting anything online that someone will come along and use it for something you disagree with. Many artists dont put any work online or only do so with caveats because of this. This is no different. Its just one of the risks of putting yourself out there.
I respect what you're saying here and I mostly agree. I still think there's an opportunity to push back on some of what I think is abusive and exploitative technology. I'm gonna stay mad about it. I do think it's theft in a way that using reference in art isn't and I hope we normalize making it unacceptable to automate the artistic process. That doesn't have to mean it's legally theft.
Someone call the University and shut down the art department. All of those students being trained off of examples from other artists before them are nothing more than thieves!
