Studio Ghibli lost out on millions today.

Don't get me wrong, the world is far better with AI. AI empowers 8 billion people around the world - the teenager in Argentina, the aspiring artists in Kenya, the hobbyist in NYC.

But AI companies also use IP without compensation.

This https://t.co/KQzxc5jZzA

Another galaxy brain take in the wrong direction. Studio Ghibli IP is worth 1000x what it was worth yesterday.

Michael

exactly https://x.com/mmay3r/status/1905379104482099311?s=46

design @splits | /wireframe /latenightcrew /event-pass /feud

I'm not quite sure.
How is it worth x1000 more if, evidently, AI companies can use their IPs without compensating them, enabling anyone to act as mini studio ghibli?

I think that's quite the opposite.

/monad ecosystem growth | ex telco.in & everwave.xyz founder | /music moderator | writing on web3 & culture https://paragraph.xyz/@alixkun.eth

I don't think memes and short clips threaten the business performance of the movies at all. If anything, it's quite the opposite. You drive hype amongst a culture who cares, and spread that culture to more people. That inevitably leads to more interest in the brand and more returns. How many parents, grandparents, spouses, etc have now heard of studio ghibli and austensibly find it interesting as a result of seeing their family photos ghiblified?

As the QTer said, if you try to make your own studio ghibli movie and profit from it, you'll still get quickly cease-and-desisted, which I agree is what should happen. But I agree with him that the trade-off of brand awareness is way stronger here.

I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding here.

Why would a court issue a cease and desist for a full length movie made with chatgpt, but not force chatgpt to pay ghibli for its data?

Those actions are related to the same principle, which is IP rights. If chatgpt wins their law suit and training AI models is deemed fair use, then there is no ground for a court to issue a cease and disist to me doing a full length ghibli look a like movie using chatgpt.

What the quote tweet you shared seemed to miss is that the value of an IP only exists if it can be protected. If it cannot be, then its value less, and its called public domain 🤷‍♂️

Not a lawyer either, but I don't see a world where you can justify the one without justifying the other. 

If training AI models using Ghibli's data is fair use, then there cannot be a justification from a copyright standpoint for suing me, whether I make a meme or a full length movie. AI doesn't 100% copy a work. Like, it's never gonna recreate Totoro frame by frame with 100% accuracy. it will just create a work that is so resemblant, that anybody can tell where it's coming from (here, ghibli studio).

It is costly to Ghibli, because it means that moving forward, they have 8 billions competitors. Sure, they still have their protected IPs, but these will end up in the public domain one day or another. Now to create new IPs, they'll have to compete with virtually billions of competitors using the same art style and animation style it took them years of craft to develop, at the cost of an OpenAI subscription (of which ghibli will get nothing).

Saying that this profits Ghibli's IP is a very short term view. imo

Not a lawyer ofc, but winning the fair use lawsuit says nothing about me creating something with copyrighted IP and directly profiting off it. AFAICT that would still be copyright infringement, even if training models on copyrighted data is considered fair use.

The difference is profit. If I make a short meme video and share it to my personal social media audience, and it happens to use a studio ghibli image, and I'm not directly profiting off it—my guess is that would be fair use. Whereas if I make a full length movie and charge people for access or for tickets to see it, that's a completely different story.

IMO the important point is that short-form content, memes, fun and games, whatever you want to call it, generally do not harm the original IP. If anything it is the opposite. They amplify and augment the value of both the IP and the fandom around it.