Elise Hecht I'm all for artists getting paid fairly for their work. ...
· Comment — Archer T. Ships replied to Elise Hecht's comment. · View on Facebook · Markdown source
Elise Hecht I'm all for artists getting paid fairly for their work. But what is fair compensation? An artist could read previous artist's works from freely available library books or purchase them from Amazon/etc. If the artists work is on the web, then an artist could typically view it for free. In none of those cases, does a human artist owe anything to previous artists for works they might subsequently create that were influenced by their studies. And if an AI company does the same, I don't see how they owe previous artists either. Now, if the AI companies are scanning pirated works, then a case could be made for prosecuting them for piracy. But I would wager a lot of working artists pirate art as well. If an artist downloads pirated copies of Giger's art books, I think that might create an obligation to compensate Giger's estate for the pirated work, but I don't think that the Giger estate has a claim to Giger-esque works that the artist might subsequently create.