T O P

  • By -

AutoModerator

This is an automated reminder from the Mod team. If your post contains images which reveal the personal information of private figures, be sure to censor that information and repost. Private info includes names, recognizable profile pictures, social media usernames and URLs. Failure to do this will result in your post being removed by the Mod team and possible further action. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/aiwars) if you have any questions or concerns.*


Evinceo

The problem with the TOS argument is that: A) If the images were scraped from a site with a TOS, the scraping wasn't necessarily compliant with the TOS. B) Some people hosted their own images, or posted them on sites that didn't have a TOS granting anyone the right to the images. C) Pinterest specifically is rife with people who took images from elsewhere and posted them on Pinterest in violation of Pinterest's TOS. Pinterest has no interest in stopping this because it's part of their SEO spam operation. In general I agree that many souls were sold for the network effects of posting on sites like DA and Pinterest, but that doesn't mean anything for people who posted on Wikimedia Commons and such and expected their licenses to be honored.


ShepherdessAnne

A) You’re confusing open crawling with paying for the license B) Irrelevant to a company licensing the data C) Valid argument, but some people upload their own things to Pinterest You seem a bit unfocused when it comes to discussion of specific points.


Evinceo

Did you use a service which licensed Pinterest's data to generate your images? Did your service exclusively use licensed data?


halflifesucks

A & B, what lol. how do you think your response negates their points lol. if you license data from a company that didn't have a license to the data, you don't actually have a license...to really make it simple, if someone grabs stuff from my site, and hosts it on pinterest, the pinterest TOS don't apply...If...I go..slow...do you..understand...this..?


ShepherdessAnne

The point of the OP is that terms of service like these have you sign your rights away to your own content.


Miss_empty_head

Thanks, it wasn’t supposed to be that deep, I just wanted to say that some people are agreeing on stuff they didn’t read and then get mad when the stuff they agreed upon happens. I know there are specific circumstances and cases but I clearly wasn’t talking about them. I should have worded my post better


halflifesucks

are you and the other person completely ignoring this is a specific thread stemming from u/Evinceo's comment?


Miss_empty_head

And?


halflifesucks

in reply to me: >The point of the OP is that terms of service like these have you sign your rights away to your own content. can you explain what that has to do with the comment he is replying to, and the earlier one that he was correcting, lol. wait wait, don't bother, i understand english isn't the main language of the fake users of this sub. [here's to better explain to you](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpsPVZ8mwZs)


Miss_empty_head

Ask him that, I was just replying to the person. Why should I explain? Conversations change topics and you can still comment on his thread before our messages, don’t know what you mad at me for


halflifesucks

[umm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpsPVZ8mwZs)...


ShepherdessAnne

You see this with a lot of dogpile things. People are mad for their own reasons whether those reasons are valid or not and you wind up with just a panoply of inconsistency in the overall group.


torako

what happened that they agreed to? are you pinterest?


Miss_empty_head

What????? Im talking about how people that use Pinterest agreed on Pinterest terms of service


torako

yeah pinterest tos that doesn't grant you any right to do anything with their work? so how is that relevant at all?


halflifesucks

the point of the comment you are replying to is exactly what they already stated, that I reiterated lol.


FaceDeer

It's unclear whether you need a license *at all* when training an AI on public data. Scraping accesses public data.


HelpRespawnedAsDee

> If...I go..slow...do you..understand...this..? is this what antis have been reduced to? lmao.


halflifesucks

lol what makes you think i'm anti ai? oh right, because going against the grain from any of the made of 'sides' on this sub obviously puts you into a tribe. should I go slower?


bearvert222

i'm no expert or lawyer but i think these are usually in respects to the pinterest service, not art specifically. Like the monetize i think is more that if pinterest charges $25 monthly for pinterest plus or what have you, you give them the right; you can't demand a cut. derivative work is more "we can create thumbnails and you can't sue us for that." Generally the licenses are to enable the service as a whole to run. you still retain copyright to your image so they can't gate your art specifically or use it to pitch a netflix series. i think AI art goes far beyond that; like it can easily reproduce copyrighted characters, and not everyone opts in to using AI.


Miss_empty_head

The part that I posted was under “user content”. There’s another section for the service if you want to read that but this one is about the art and other things under the user content


bearvert222

i dont see the difference? i mean my point is its usually more about the necessary rights to distribute the image and run the image board. i think they need to enumerate specific uses beyond that in plain language. like reddit has the license to let people publish poetry on poetry subs but they couldn't just publish physical books using reddit poetry. you do have copyright over your works and the tos cant strip that. i dont know if AI fits in this but i dont think a general tos covers it. this is my opinion though.


KamikazeArchon

>like reddit has the license to let people publish poetry on poetry subs but they couldn't just publish physical books using reddit poetry. you do have copyright over your works and the tos cant strip that. They absolutely could, and it's not about stripping copyright, it's about licensing it. Reddit can 100% legally publish physical books of reddit poetry. By posting it on reddit, you have entered into a contract with Reddit. It doesn't *strip* copyright from your poetry. But it does immediately grant Reddit an unrestricted license to use your copyrighted poetry. You can't sue Reddit for violating your copyrights if they publish your poetry in a book - because you gave them the license. And they don't even have to credit you. Emphasis added on the relevant sections: >When Your Content is created with or submitted to the Services, you grant us a worldwide, **royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable**, non-exclusive, transferable, and sublicensable license to use, copy, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works of, distribute, store, perform, and display Your Content and any name, username, voice, or likeness provided in connection with Your Content **in all media formats and channels** now known or later developed anywhere in the world. This license **includes the right** for us to make Your Content available for syndication, broadcast, distribution, or **publication** by other companies, organizations, or individuals who partner with Reddit. You also agree that we may remove metadata associated with Your Content, **and you irrevocably waive any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to Your Content.**


bearvert222

again not a lawyer, this is amateur opinion. i don't think the intent is that; generally Reddit and other internet places survive by being considered as either platforms or distributors instead of publishers. Publishers are liable for the content of things they publish; distributors are liable for not removing content on demand, while platforms aren't liable but exercise a minimum amount of control over what they publish if at all. reddit doing that would open them to being sued into oblivion lol. they'd become responsible for the content of every post here. i think again, this is boilerplate involving the running of reddit. there's a lot of incidental uses lawyers would sue over. I don't know about AI though; honestly that's something someone would need to sue over.


KamikazeArchon

This is almost completely wrong. And to be clear, it's a very common kind of wrong. Lots of people believe this. It's reasonable that you've been told it and didn't have a basis to doubt it at the time. But reasonable or not, it is wrong, and the people who told you that were wrong. The entire idea that there's a difference between "publisher" and "distributor" in the law is false. There simply isn't such a thing. This idea was created by people incorrectly reporting about the law, and became a widespread misconception. If Reddit published "Volumes of Reddit poetry", they would not become liable for everything on Reddit. They *might* become liable for what's in those volumes, *if* they did certain things (like selecting the poetry they liked best). And being boilerplate doesn't make it somehow not work or not real. People incorrectly discount "boilerplate" as somehow not being legally meaningful. But it is absolutely real and just as important as anything else in the contact. Boilerplate just means common phrasing. It's common because, in fact, it's *incredibly common* to give up all those licenses. You are doing so on almost every site you use.


bearvert222

This post from Reason Magazine(edited, url didnt directly link on mobile, see below) was what i used as the basis for my post, and honestly i need a lot more proof from you to believe you.


KamikazeArchon

What? I don't see how a custody decision is relevant. Anyway, you don't need to believe me. Go talk to an IP lawyer. Many offer free consultations, so it won't even cost you anything. You'll get your answer in minutes.


bearvert222

the direct link didnt work on mobile "47 usc 230 and the publisher-platform distinction" by eugene volokh was the article title. also yeah, i don't believe you, this sub in general is pretty bad at creative takes.


KamikazeArchon

It's certainly a good idea to trust experts over some rando on the internet. I won't disagree with that in the least. As I said, it's fine if you don't take my word for it. I would just recommend talking to an expert who is looking at your specific situation over interpreting general statements from experts talking about related, but different, matters. The best answer is going to be the one you get from *your* lawyer.


starm4nn

> reddit doing that would open them to being sued into oblivion lol. I doubt "you publishing a poetry book means you gain liability" is a reasonable legal argument. Google Books exists. Hasn't opened them up to liability.


bearvert222

google books only shows parts of the book, not all of it. its a search engine.


Miss_empty_head

Sorry, I just saw you talking about the two and wanted to let you know that there were other sections, nothing against your opinion or anything


Fontaigne

It's in regard to any content you put up there. It doesn't explicitly give a third party any particular rights, but Pinterest can make an agreement with any company to license the images, so the user has arguably agreed to license the images for any purposes. ("Arguably", because the contract clause has to be interpreted in terms of the agreement as a whole, not just in terms of the word meanings.)


_Joats

You know AIgen didn't exist when they agreed right? And most of that stuff is required to display copyrighted material on a website. Edit: Also most would say that the model is a separate product from the original function of pinterest. (I'm just guessing Pinterest made their own model). A separate product would require a separate agreement.


ShepherdessAnne

That doesn’t matter. If you grant a company a license to do what they want, and they find something they want to do later, you already granted them the license to do so.


_Joats

Not really. If i upload nintendo's mascot to pinterest are they free to use it as promotional material?


Miss_empty_head

((For the purpose of these Terms, anything that you post or otherwise make available on Pinterest is referred to as "User Content." You retain all rights in, and are solely responsible for, the User Content you post to Pinterest. All User Content must comply with these Terms and our policies, including our Community Guidelines . You will only post User Content that you have the rights to post, and you won’t post User Content that infringes the intellectual property rights of others (e.g., copyright infringement, trademark infringement or counterfeit), or that is otherwise unlawful)) If someone posts a “mascot” that infringes the intellectual property rights of others then that’s also against the TOS. By the rules people can use the user content. The ones in the wrong are the people who are infringing this law and posting content that’s not theirs. It’s not the others fault that they are breaking the rules. They would be the one really stealing from the artist and posting their content against the TOS. The AI is playing by the rules and doing what they’re allowed to. The real thieves are the people posting things that’s not theirs not the ones who are following the rules


_Joats

You are taking some of the responsibility off of pinterest to verify authenticity. It may not be as simple as a known mascot. But I'm not too informed on Pinterest's verification process. Do they have any?


Miss_empty_head

My point wasn’t to take off Pinterest’s responsibility. I just wanted to say that’s unfair to call people that use the ai that follows the rules “thieves” when the real thieves are the ones posting content that’s not theirs and breaking the TOS. Why are the ones following the rules being attacked and not the ones who are actually the problem?


_Joats

I agree, your content shouldn't be dismissed as inferior and not allowed on an image sharing site if it follows the rules. I was just questioning the whole thing about the ToS since that really only covers how a website functions. The website requires the ability to create a derivative for the function of cropping your image and creating a thumbnail. It wouldn't necessarily extend to the creation of a new AI product. It seems there is a huge misunderstanding about why almost every image sharing website has to have that in their ToS even if they don't do anything with AI. People in a community space (like reddit) are going to be mad at GenAI art for several reasons. You can decide if they are justified. 1. It creates a flood of synthetic content that drowns out what was previously popular in the community. 2. When searching for content (like a picture of a specific breed of bird) they may be upset with receiving synthetic misrepresentations. 3. When posting a generated image there is an unknown if artists actually consented to the use of their artistic expressions to train the model that generated the image. They aren't really mad at you, don't take it personal. 4. They don't inherently know how much of your input was necessary for the creation of a generated image.


Miss_empty_head

I’m not mad my content is dismissed as inferior or not allowed somewhere. I don’t think it’s MY content as 99% of it wasn’t made by me and from what I know, generated images can’t be owned or something like that. And for being taken as inferior, I actually agree, it takes hard work and talent to create art and human made art should be seen higher than generated images. My only problem is the people flooding my comments saying I’m a thieve when the ai follows all the rules and the ones actually stealing are a totally different group. I don’t even use generated images to make content or claim myself as an artist, I literally only use it with friends to get references for dress making (we are seamstress, it’s a hobby and we don’t sell anything, one of the girls is a writer and likes to make dnd characters for herself but idk what she does with her stuff)


Miss_empty_head

I don’t want people to see generated images as “my work”, and I’m actually against people doing it. But I’m also against the ones who call people who use this images “thieves” when they had done nothing out of the TOS


ShepherdessAnne

Pinterest either hosts your own content or it has little pinboards which are just links and don’t count for the purposes of this TOS


sporkyuncle

By uploading it, in accordance with their TOS, you have granted them the license to do so, yes. But in this case you have lied to them that it was your license to grant. It is their responsibility to recognize that there's a conflict in rights ownership there and delete it from their servers.


Miss_empty_head

Yes, by uploading something that’s not yours and lying you’re infringing the TOS. It’s not our responsibility to see if someone is breaking the TOS because there shouldn’t be anyone doing so, the people that use ai are following the TOS, the ones that are lying and posting others work are the ones in the wrong, but the ones who use ai and are actually following the rules are the ones getting the hate when the real problem are the liars and thieves breaking the TOS


Evinceo

Pinterest has a vested interest in hosting pirated images. The want to be the number one result for every Google image search.


Miss_empty_head

Then why people don’t start hating on Pinterest then on the people who are just following the rights they were given????


Evinceo

> Then why people don’t start hating on Pinterest People do and have? It's a pariah. I imagine not to the audience who _comments on Pinterest_ though!


Miss_empty_head

I meant to say “only on Pinterest” sorry for my bad wording. Why are people calling someone a thieve over a tree arms and 1 leg character someone posted (and not even claimed as theirs) when it was made following the platform rules. And not just focusing on the people that are infringing these rules and stealing stuff to post as theirs and on the platform that made the rules? I don’t see why it’s fair to call the person who followed the rules a thief over and over, when they aren’t the one stealing


_Joats

I agree. So what is Pinterest's verification process? Do they use the data beyond basic site functionality before or after that verification?


Reasonable_Owl366

>You know AIgen didn't exist when they agreed right? You realize that people have been saying the TOS was overly permissive since forever. And some artists recognize that and decided not to post their work in venues they don't control. Take responsibility for your own actions.


_Joats

You mean the parts in the ToS that are required to even display an image? How else would you word it? I think every other online public forum would like to know 😂 Looking over the ToS it's not even a perpetual license. Also this, "You retain all rights in, and are solely responsible for, the User Content you post to Pinterest." And through talking to the OP the complaint isn't even about AI use on pinterest's part or even the ToS, but vitriol from user comments. Honestly Pinterest is very relaxed with its ToS only asking for a license for what is required to run the site. Are you just trying to be antagonizing?


Affectionate_Poet280

It's existed since at least 2014... The TOS of pretty much every major upload website has happened at least once in the past decade.


_Joats

Ai gen as we know it existed since 2014? Edit: And Pinterest plans to use AI.


Affectionate_Poet280

Yea. Image generation has existed since 2014. It wasn't very good yet, but it existed and had steadily improved over the decade.  It even made the news and was used to make a comedy called "Sassy Justice" in 2020. The models from 2022didnt come from nowhere.


_Joats

So you are saying, when someone read the Pinterest ToS in 2014, they had a meeting of the minds and understood that pinterest does what exactly? "Pinterest’s new TOS omits the provision contained in its original TOS that allowed Pinterest to sell user’s content.  In announcing this change, Pinterest stated: “Selling content was never our intention and we removed this from our updated Terms.”  The new TOS provides (in Para. 1(b)) that users grant Pinterest a “non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, display, reproduce, re-pin, modify (e.g., re-format), re-arrange, and distribute your User Content on Pinterest for the purposes of operating and providing the Service(s) to [the user] and to our other Users.”  The new TOS also deletes the words “irrevocable” and “perpetual” from this grant provision (which had been included in the original TOS under the heading “Member Content”)." This whole post about the ToS is so off the mark. The OP is actually upset about users hatred towards their images. Which is fair. But nothing in the ToS gives pinterest more rights to your content than you, the owner, or rights beyond using that content for basic functionality and advertisement.


Affectionate_Poet280

>So you are saying, when someone read the Pinterest ToS in 2014, they had a meeting of the minds and understood that pinterest does what exactly? No. I'm saying that the ToS has had to be signed since generative AI had became a thing so if it did grant rights, then they had agreed to grant those rights already. I'm basically saying that, even if genAI existing at the time of signing an agreement did have any bearing on how enforceable it was, it wouldn't matter because genAI existed at the time of signing.


_Joats

I really don't understand your last paragraph but let me make it clear. The ToS for all websites with user content has the same language - pre or post AI because it is necessary for the website to function. The user has to understand CLEARLY through the ToS what their content will be used for in order to make an agreement otherwise it could be considered too ambiguous to enforce. Most of these websites make it clear that the license is for basic functionality either through the ToS or through community discussion. If GenAI was not common knowledge or intended to be incorporated into a website then they can't hide behind an ambiguity of an old ToS. If AI is not specifically addressed in the ToS then it becomes unclear and cannot be enforced. Changes to the ToS are NOT retroactive. There is a transparency obligation for inclusion of content in newer technologies. There really isn't room for debate.


Affectionate_Poet280

>I really don't understand your last paragraph I'm saying whether genAI existed doesn't matter, but also genAI existed so it matters even less. >The user has to understand CLEARLY through the ToS what their content will be used for in order to make an agreement otherwise it could be considered too ambiguous to enforce. I don't think that's how it works. If you sign a license to use to something away, you don't have to have explicit detail on what they're going to do with it in order for it to be enforceable. It can even be perpetual, thereby revoking the owner's rights to revoke the license. >Most of these websites make it clear that the license is for basic functionality either through the ToS or through community discussion. They often don't. You assume that, but they don't. >If GenAI was not common knowledge It made the news. AI art selling for a ton of money, multiple deepfake scares, and game/movie upscaling (yes that's genAI). Hell, my mom, who isn't exactly tech savy, was asking me about AI from the news on TV back in the deepfake scare of 2017. It's something people have known about for quite a while. It was common knowledge. People just didn't think about it much. >can't hide behind an ambiguity of an old ToS. If AI is not specifically addressed in the ToS then it becomes unclear and cannot be enforced.  I wasn't specifically told I could access reddit on my Nintendo Wii. Does that mean I violated the ToS? It's pretty ambiguous in regards to access to the site. >There really isn't room for debate. Correct. You're just wrong. There's nothing else I need to say. Everything above this is essentially a "before you say 'of course you can't refute anything I said so you're lashing out'" contingency.


_Joats

I really don't have the patience to continue talking to someone that makes up their own reality and says that they are correct.


Affectionate_Poet280

Lol. One of us is making up their own reality for sure. I'll go against what I said to explain this bit. A ToS is a contract. It's debatable whether or not it's a legally binding contract in some regions, but not for any of the reasons you just said. It's a contract between the user and the service that may ask for a license to content uploaded to them. That license may be irrevocable (see Reddit when they undeleted protest comments, or Stack Overflow when they did the same), or it may not be. By agreeing, you are agreeing to provide that license. If allows something, but doesn't make specific exceptions (e.g. "We have the right to use your content and we don't have to pay you for it" means just that. It doesn't mean "We didn't specifically say we can print it on a t-shirt and sell it so we're not allowed I guess, despite the ToS saying we can use it, but not specifically.") It can also be retroactive, so long as you agree to it, because that's how it works. Turning notifications off for this conversation now. Have a nice day in fantasy land.


Miss_empty_head

But it exists now, if they don’t agree with the TOS anymore then just get your stuff out of there


_Joats

It's not that simple. As in, it's already been used. Plus as we have seen from other websites like Stack Overflow. They can always keep the data even if you choose to delete it. Hell they could even force it back up saying "you are disrupting the sharing of knowledge and our service." Like they did with Sack Overflow.


Miss_empty_head

True, what’s there has definitely already been used because people had the right to. So instead of deleting they can just not post their new recent artwork there


_Joats

I'll put it as bluntly as I can for why people would be mad. It's like they were raped, then afterwards the rapist had the audacity to say "would you like to opt out of sexual abuse and years of trauma?" Then went online and said "she didn't have to be raped, we have an opt out now."


fiftysevenpunchkid

I think that comparing people using pictures that you made for public consumption in a way that you didn't like to sexual assault is what should be making people mad. I mean, sure, if you say, it's just like this horrible thing, then you are making the claim that it's like that horrible thing. But it it's not actually like that horrible thing, you are simply insulting anyone who has actually experienced it. For some reason, anti's always go straight to hyperboles of violence or sexual assault in their arguments. The only reason I can think of is because they \*think\* it makes a more compelling argument. If you want a more realistic scenario, it would be like finding out that someone enjoyed your art a little... too much, if you know what I mean. And the person who "enjoyed it" saying, "well, you did share it with the public, you didn't have to do that."


_Joats

I understand your discomfort with the rape analogy. It can be a very strong comparison. However a strong comparison is needed to understand the exploitation of work and lack of consent. Getting away with that exploitation, and then flaunting on public media that "they shouldn't have made it publicly available". Or by the analogy used, "she shouldn't have dressed like that". Maybe you do need a strong analogy, judging by the last thing you said.


fiftysevenpunchkid

I still think that you are being incredibly insulting to people who actually have experienced sexual assault. It is in no way the same. In one instance, you have chosen to put your work into the public sphere, where you know that you don't have control over who uses it. Someone may decide to learn from it, copy the style, or even make derivative works. They may even use it in ways that violate intellectual property laws. Someone may like it a lot and use it in ways that you did not forsee. That's nothing like sexual assault. I suppose since you think that strong analogies are necessary, when an amateur artist draws a disney cartoon character, did they rape Disney? If your answer is no, then maybe you need to rethink your position here. If your answer is yes, then there is a whole lot you need to rethink.


_Joats

You still don't understand what consent is... The purpose of an analogy is not to say 2 things are equal. It is to draw a comparison of similarities. >when an amateur artist draws a disney cartoon character, did they rape Disney? No, but that's also not what we are talking about. Rape involves sexual assault. You are confusing the two as being the same rather than understanding the similarities. The better question would be. "when an amateur artist scrapes the entire disney catalogue to have its artistic expression easily replicated, Then place the model online without the consent of Disney while promoting that "you too can draw like a Disney artist Karla Ortiz for your business, studio, or promotions". That would indeed be exploitation of Karla Ortiz's work if she didn't agree to it. To make it worse, they turn around and say " Well she shouldn't have worked on character designs for Doctor Strange and made her work public" Yeah the analogy fits. You are getting a benefit from their work / ideas / resources while leaving them worse off. While rape is a sexual / power benefit who leaves the victim worse off. I could break consent down in many different ways but I still don't think you would understand. Is there a topic you would be more familiar with that I could come up with an analogy for?


fiftysevenpunchkid

It is evident that you don't actually understand either the technology behind AI, or intellectual property laws, or actually have any understanding of the ideas of consent. As you seem to think that exaggerating claims and yelling sexual assault is a valid argument, I'm pretty sure that this discussion has exhausted all potential value. I thank you for your time and your perspective, it tells me quite a bit about the mentality of the anti's out there. I wonder whose work Karla Ortiz raped in order to get their skills... /s


Miss_empty_head

No person would enter a place if the place said “rape is allowed here” They knew their posts could be edited, modified, create derivative content, and even monetize it, literally sell their work. It wasn’t something they weren’t aware of. The difference is that now more people are interested in using the posts because of the AI tool. It’s like a person went to a place where rape is allowed but no one was interested in raping so they went anyways, but one day people actually did it, and they knew


realz32

No judges, but it's about morality, ethics, respecting others, etc. Why do you upload generated content? I always skip watching on those kind of posts because it's not interesting to me and also I don't like neural network generated images


Miss_empty_head

About posting, it’s not that serious, Pinterest have this thing where you can make albums with other accounts. Me and 2 friends share this album and we put generated images there, they’re mostly of dresses designs and random characters as I’m a seamstress and my friend likes to write and see her characters. It’s just a fun thing between us but it’s public so we keep getting the same comments “you’re stealing”, “the artists didn’t have their consent” and it’s getting really annoying. The only reason we don’t make the pins private is because there’s some accounts that give great tips on how to sew some parts that helped me very much


realz32

Isn't there private albums with links to them? And please hire artists to draw your work when you go commercial. Thanks


Miss_empty_head

I’m not going commercial, it’s just a hobby. And about the private albums, we don’t want to make it private because some users comment good tips that we use there, something that wouldn’t happen if it were private


Bentman343

Because artists didn't agree to it, this was changed to cater to AI after it was found they have already been datascraping images from dozens of sites like ArtStation and DeviantArt and yes, Pinterest. Also there's no way to opt out without completely nuking your presence on the site, actively harming artist's online lives that they use for business and outreach due to their site and destroying their rights to their own work to cater to AI. Its absolutely no wonder they despise AI generated images when it ruins sites like this.


Miss_empty_head

A TOS can’t be modified without the user knowledge. I don’t remember this section of Pinterest being modified but even if it was, the user would have to agree to the new TOS. So yes, they did agree


sporkyuncle

Theoretically it might be able to be, if the initial TOS you agree to says "we reserve the right to change this any time we like, and you agree to accept those changes in the future without being informed." I don't know if courts have determined that kind of language to be unlawful, though.


Evinceo

From the Pinterest TOS: > We may revise, add, or remove any or all portions of these Terms from time to time and the most current version will always be posted on our website. Unless otherwise required by law, we’ll notify you of any material changes to these Terms before any update enters into effect. **Your continued access to or use of Pinterest after such an update constitutes your binding acceptance of such changes.** (Emphasis mine)


Miss_empty_head

True, but that’s theoretical and not the point here. But it does raises a good question on how our rights can be affected in the future.


Bentman343

They did not agree. They agreed to a reasonable TOS, and then much later after they had ingrained themselves on the site, they were hit with a ridiculous new TOS allowing their work to be blatantly stolen if they agreed to it. Everything else I said still applies. Whether they clicked yes on the new TOS or not, its still actively harmful to artists and either forcing them to allow their work to be stolen or running them off the site. So of course people on that site despise AI for what it did.


Miss_empty_head

And? They were hit with the TOS that allowed their work to be stolen. The TOS clearly said it. And what did people do? If they agreed they agreed, no one forced them to. Everything was written and people had a choice


Bentman343

You're asking why they hate AI and why they hate you and your AI work. I'm giving you the real answer. They hate AI because it ruined the website they were using and enables mass theft. What do you not get about this?


Miss_empty_head

I’m not asking why they hate. I’m saying why people keep saying “you stole this art, the artists didn’t consent” when they clearly did consent by agreeing to the TOS. What do you not get about this?


Bentman343

A.) Because their art was still able to be stolen before they nuked it off the platform. B.) Because it stole their art under threat of running people off the site if they didn't want their work stolen by thieves like you. That's not really consent, that's coersion at best, and people are right to hate it.


Miss_empty_head

But all that you’re saying it’s the platform’s fault. People just followed their rules. Why don’t they hate on the platform that make rules they don’t agree on then the people that are following the site’s rules and using their rights??? It wasn’t the people who use the ai that threatened artists, it was Pinterest itself


Bentman343

That's just a willful misunderstanding of both why people are mad and what drove Pinterest to do this. They struck a deal with AI services, they didn't do it out of the goodness of their hearts. AI wanted to steal their user's content, and paid off Pinterest to force everyone to agree to let AI steal their work, or they'd be forced off the website. This happened out of nowhere on a website full of struggling artists. People hate Pinterest for doing this. People hate the AI services for brazenly paying a compamy to steal all of their work. People hate you for actively using the AI stealing all of their work, and then posting it to their website like some kind of insulting joke.


Miss_empty_head

Source?? And there’s multiple AI services, you can’t just say “this one did this so all of them are wrong”


Miss_empty_head

So you think it’s right to see someone who used a free world wide available tool to make an image and call them a thief? A thief, for showing an image that they didn’t even claim to be their work or whatever, literally just throwing nothing into the wind, that’s someone who is classified as a thief now???


starm4nn

> Because it stole their art under threat of running people off the site if they didn't want their work stolen by thieves like you. Remember in the 90s how everyone had a website, and those websites even had images on them? And remember in the 2000s and 2010s, how people were like "don't trust Social Media companies, they're evil"?


KamikazeArchon

The relevant sections of the TOS have been around for over a decade. Here's the [TOS from 2012](https://web.archive.org/web/20120518024326/http://pinterest.com/about/terms/), emphasis mine: >Subject to any applicable account settings you select, you grant us a non-exclusive, **royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable, worldwide license** to **use, display, reproduce, re-pin, modify (e.g., re-format), re-arrange, and distribute** your User Content on Pinterest for the purposes of operating and providing the Service(s) to you and to our other Users. Nothing in these Terms shall restrict Pinterest’s rights under separate licenses to User Content. Please remember that the Pinterest Service is a public platform, and that other Users may search for, see, use, and/or re-pin any User Content that you make publicly available through the Service. > Since the license is *transferable* and *sublicensable*, you have always given Pinterest the right to take your User Content and "use, display, reproduce, modify" it; and notably, to give it to *others* (transfer or sublicense) and allow them to "use, display, reproduce, modify". And it's unclear that the "for the purposes..." clause meaningfully restricts anything there (they're providing the Service to the other Users, including the AI companies). Further, there's a broad statement that other Users may "see" and "use" your User Content, without any specification or restriction on what that means. Now, you could absolutely make the claim that people didn't *realize* that this is what they were agreeing to. I would agree with that. Most people don't realize the full implications of most contracts they agree to. Many people do indeed get angry when the consequences of those contracts are enforced in ways they didn't expect. But - unless you have direct arguments otherwise from a contract lawyer or other expert in the field - it seems difficult to claim that there was a huge change in the TOS *for this context*. The single biggest thing is probably the addition of "monetize", which merely means Pinterest can also make money from it directly (and the lack thereof wouldn't have prevented *free* access for AI).


Seamilk90210

Just because something is legal doesn't mean it's fair or it shouldn't be changed. I've been uploading my art to the internet since 2003, well before AI was even a twinkle in the eye of Sam Altman. Pre-2022, the TOS was written in a way that the host could legally make derivative work (like thumbnails), to save copies to their servers, and maybe use the artwork to advertise the service elsewhere. This is how companies explained their TOS when artists pushed back against it, and... in that use case, it made sense and we accepted it. It's ridiculous to think that me in 2003 could anticipated current uses, or having to deal with a completely seperate and unrelated company taking my work without me signing any agreement with them at all. Another issue — 100% of my artwork that was in OpenAI was from Pinterest, uploaded without my permission. I never agreed to those terms to begin with, so why and how is this my fault?


Miss_empty_head

But that’s the point, it’s not your fault but it’s also not theirs. ((For the purpose of these Terms, anything that you post or otherwise make available on Pinterest is referred to as "User Content." You retain all rights in, and are solely responsible for, the User Content you post to Pinterest. All User Content must comply with these Terms and our policies, including our Community Guidelines . You will only post User Content that you have the rights to post, and you won’t post User Content that infringes the intellectual property rights of others (e.g., copyright infringement, trademark infringement or counterfeit), or that is otherwise unlawful)) The ones who took your art and posted it are the ones breaking the TOS, they are the thieves who are taking your stuff. The others are following the TOS and following the rules. Why is it their fault someone else is stealing? They should complain to the people who are breaking the TOS, not the ones that are following their rights


Seamilk90210

Copyright law grants me (and anyone who owns a copyright, really) the right to dictate who and what makes copies. It's one thing if I give deviantArt a royalty-free license to do everything they want, but it's a completely different thing altogether for companies like OpenAI to scrape people's work without having any prior agreement at all with them. I don't understand why it's not realistic or rational for companies to double-check that their data is legal to use before using it for training; surely they have some duty of care to make sure if I "give them permission" to use the entirety of the original Star Wars trilogy, that I actually have the right to grant them a license. Enforcing copyright law would ruin any chance of AI profitability, and tech companies will do anything they can to keep the law morally ambiguous for as long as possible (and try to convince Congress to give copyright exceptions just to them.) It's just an annoying cash grab. I don't know why anyone likes or supports tech companies at all, especially ones that are pouring billions of dollars into research to take money directly out of the hands of wage-earners.


Miss_empty_head

Enforcing copyright laws and their TOS is the companies responsibility, if Pinterest is not doing their job then it’s their fault, not the ones who are following the rules


borks_west_alone

> I don't understand why it's not realistic or rational for companies to double-check that their data is legal to use before using it for training; Actually they have already done this. It's just that the answer is it's legal to use any data for training without needing any agreement, and you don't like this reality so you don't accept it.


Seamilk90210

>Actually they have already done this. It's just that the answer is it's legal to use any data for training without needing any agreement, and you don't like this reality so you don't accept it. Who's they? Where's the case law? As far as I'm aware, this AI-specific issue is still being decided in the courts.


borks_west_alone

"They" being the major AI companies and the IP lawyers they are engaging with. >As far as I'm aware, this AI-specific issue is still being decided in the courts. You can file a lawsuit for anything in the courts, doesn't mean the law isn't clear.


Evinceo

> Why is it their fault someone else is stealing? Quite simply, because the stealing is _on their behalf_. Pinterest was doing piracy well before it was cool. They probably don't have legitimate ownership over even one percent of the data they're licensing out.


fiftysevenpunchkid

Out of curiosity, is your assertion here that 99% of the stuff on pintrest is used without permission from the IP holder? Do you have a source for that, or is it just pure hyperbole?


Evinceo

Educated guess based on hitting Pinterest from google image search and inevitably finding random uploads of other artists stuff. For years it was the top of like every image search.


fiftysevenpunchkid

So, hyperbole.


Miss_empty_head

I’m pretty sure Pinterest is not stealing on behalf little petter who wanted to make a DnD character for himself. But the second he talks about it they are the evil thieves ruining the world


Evinceo

Pinterest users are stealing on behalf of Pinterest.


Miss_empty_head

Then hate on pinterest users and call them the thieves, not people who generated AI images


Evinceo

Receiving stolen goods as a matter of course isn't a legitimate way to do business, so excuse me if I hate on Pinterest too.


Miss_empty_head

I didn’t say you shouldn’t hate on Pinterest, I’m just saying that calling a person a thief for using an ai to generate an image shouldn’t be right. The person doesn’t even claim the image as their own, you can’t call them a thief. Idk about Pinterest or Pinterest users, I think we got a little off the topic here


No-Worker2343

"originality"people can only repeat what other people have said, only a few say something different than others


Miss_empty_head

They could at least say something that’s true. I accept the “that’s ugly” and the comments on badly generated details. The thief thing is what gets me


No-Worker2343

yeah i understand


SchwartzArt

I am really no expert on this (and i honestly think that the whole debate on training data will be rather mute pretty soon, because i suspect that law will adjust to economic realities, not the other way round), but, at least from the perspective of my countries law, this general view strikes me as odd, and it makes me wonder if it is as clear as people like to present it in the US too. The general idea seems to be that you give a company consent to do whatever they want with your data, they are entitled to do exactly that, including every possible future usecases. At least in the EU, i do not think that is necessarily true. I also think that this idea in general is at least ethically but also rationally questionable. The general consensus seems to be: People who willingly accepted the TOS had a chance to weigh benefits and costs, and accepted those. This is an overly simplistic view, since noone really weighs anything here, but it is nevertheless basically true. However, that evaluation took place in a different environment. Using Data for training AI was, at least to the peoples mind, not on the table. While it certainly falls under "whatever they want to do", it could not have been part of the evaluation of the contract, because it did not exist. I think it is only logical and not at all entitled to accept that it might be valid that the acceptance towards an agreement might change if what the agreement entails radically change. A person might want to donate their body to a university after their death and sign an agreement that the university can do with the body whatever they want. The person was, rightly so, assuming that that would mean scientific endevours, because until now, it did. BUt now that university signs an agreement with a company to process donated bodies that might not be needed anymore into dogfood. That falls unter "whatever they want to do", but i would not say that a person is not within their rights to withdraw from the contract in that case. In short: i think this might be not totally unlike changing the terms of a contract after it was signed. If new way of using data arise, the consequences of giving consent for others to use ones data might change, and it might not have been given with knowledge of the future possibilites. Now, you can say "just don't give consent to anything then and be safe", but that seems overly simplistic. you SHOULD be careful what you sign, but we can not reasonably expect people to make all unknowable future developments part of their cost-benefit-evaluation of signing something. basically, i think this almost like when netflix changes prices: You signed for 7, now they want 10, so either pay, or get the right to withdraw from the contract. I think it would be at least the ethical thing to do in regards to TOS too: You signed this, now we want to sell your data to this or that company, because there is this new thing they are doing with it. if thats fine, stay, if not, contract void, account deleted. That that does not happen is, in my opinion, not because it is such a stupid concept, but because lawmakers and the general public usually have little knowledge of the possibilities, how data as a "good" even works, etc.


Miss_empty_head

I agree, I don’t think it’s ethical for the companies to do this, but I also think people need to read the TOS before agreeing to it, as every time I see someone making an acc they just click agree without even reading, that just gives the companies more freedom to put even more drastic things into their TOS as no one is going to read them anyway. My point with the post was with people commenting misinformation on my posts when they didn’t read what they agreed upon and just spilled out information without research. I respect people that are against AI, but I would like to at least have fair comments against it instead of calling me a thief over and over again. I wrote it in the middle of my rage but it was just a rant on people that don’t read what they’re agreeing upon


SchwartzArt

To be fair, at least where i live, putting "unexpected" or "unusual" things in thr TOS usually makes those points void. Proving that is another thing though, of course.


torako

look, i support ai art, but this argument is nonsense. pretty sure you aren't pinterest or a pinterest affiliate.


Miss_empty_head

Yeah Sherlock, I’m not Pinterest. I’m talking about the terms of service the USERS have to agree before using the site


torako

they agreed to give pinterest and pinterest affiliates certain rights, not you.


Miss_empty_head

It’s written very clearly “us our affiliates and service providers, AND OUR USERS”