#plagiarism is a specific thing

[bogunicorn]

I'm trying not to care about YouTubers sniping at each other anymore, but iilluminaughtii trying to accuse one of LegalEagle's editors of "plagiarizing her style" (not a thing) because he tried to ask what plugin was used for some super basic effects (a plugin HER editors didn't even create themselves), and then getting smacked down by hbomberguy with exact, uncredited quotes one of HER videos ripped from a documentary ... man, that's just camp.

I keep forgetting Blaire is still around, because I fell off of her content when she was harassing some smaller channel years ago for perceived copying. Good to know that running her own content farm hasn't changed her.

[lady-raziel]

had never heard of James Somerton before but now very suspicious that his stranger things and nostalgia video essay directly compares it to ready player one when one of the few published works of mine on the internet from college was an analysis of stranger things and nostalgia that compares it to ready player one 🤔

[thealogie]

Imagine being so talented that Sondheim gender flips a whole musical just to hear you sing a specific song. This happened to Jonathan Bailey in company. He’s going to slay as Richard II I fear

[viktoriamagrey]

Frustrating that few people talk about the fundamentally demoralizing and disrespectful aspect of AI "creations" for an individual person's identity. Voice actors have had to put up with their literal voice being stolen like some kind of horror story with no regard whatsoever for their personal autonomy. I can't even imagine how horrifying it must feel on a primal level, to hear your voice used without you being able to have a say in it. When AI discussion so often gets entangled with talk about laws and rationalizations about how "the process is very complex" (as if that changed anything about it ethically or mattered at all when technology is constantly changing anyway), it's important to remember the ways in which all these non-consenting people were abused and deprived of their rights as individuals, not a collective, theoretical group like some AI supporters like to see artists from all fields. These people have a unique voice, figuratively and literally, that feels special to them because it's theirs. It doesn't come just from training, or talent. It's a fundamental part of who they are as a human being because it is a result of their lived experiences. There is a reason making art is so important to so many people - it's an extension of who they are.

Having someone forcefully take something so personal to you to make a forgery of it as they see fit, and most of all, to hand out random people the ability to use what is rightfully yours, without your consent, is humilliating, dehumanizing, and vile. Going through entire databases of stolen art should make you sick. Hearing the voices of people saying things they didn't say should make you sick. Watching people make entire tools dedicated to copying someone's specific art style and themes like it's a sheet of paper you can pass around, should make you sick. You are not "copying" a mass of concepts, you're not "referencing" something, and what is just "harmless fun" to you shouldn't matter if it's a violation to the individuals involved. You're robbing the intent, and fingerprint of individuals to churn out what you want out of something you alone decided was fine for you to take. AI "art" is an ethical nightmare.

[gibbearish]

btw its interesting the way james tries to imply that like. well the videos that have plagiarism are the ones our dumb stupid annoying patrons requested about bad topics that didnt deserve to have the effort put in to covering them well so basically its fine. like obv thats interesting on its own but moreso the fact that he doesnt actually /say/ it, or like. give a list of the videos hes referring to, just says "those videos are very clear on which ones they were" i think as a nod meaning like "yknow the ones everyones talking about". unless what hes meaning is that like they put a note in certain videos saying "this video was requested by a patron, we here at james somertom incorporated do not espouse these views" which seems unlikely to me. idk methinks maybe it's because there is indeed a lot more than people think and with all the buzz he's not sure which ones have been discovered yet or not, so putting down a solid list that missed some would look like he was still hiding things whereas putting down a fully sourced list would be admitting to wayyyy more than anyone's found yet

[obstinatecondolement]

This isn't about any one event in particular, but sometimes I wish people would meaningfully differentiate gossiping about something and actually Doing Something that's positive and productive. I'm not condemning the very human desire to gossip, and I'm cerainly not immune to the draw of wanting in on the hot goss, but rubbernecking and rubbing your hands with glee at an unfolding trainwreck is not the same thing as taking a stand or helping people, and declining to rubberneck or not taking pleasure in it is not the same thing as refusing to take a stand.

[dullahandyke]

person next to me is using chatgpt fuck me running. YOURE NOT EVEN DOING AN ESSAY YOURE DOING A MULTIPLE CHOICE QUIZ!!! NOT ONLY ARE U USING THE FUCKO AI BUT YOURE DOING IT BADLY!!! google that shit like the rest of us!!!!

[dashiellqvverty]

ive only ever seen like 2 or 3 james somerton videos max and i forget what the first one or two i watched even were (something to do with disney i think?? but not the evil queens one im almost certain) but i have hated him ever since i watched the attack on titan video and he said something along the lines of "yeah this isnt an ALLEGORY bc the ghettos in the show arent literally identical to actual historical ghettos" and i was like what do you think an allegory IS

[kindasleepycryptid]

I keep obsessing over the neural oscillation technology the twins used in the street fighting quest,

Like???? so much potential???

The amount of ideas it gives me for fics is INSANE

[miss-celestial-being]

i fucking hate turnitin i literally got an originality report on the word "of" 😭😭

[yangjeongin]

.

[mossolantern]

one of my sociology class's requirements is that you can't express nay opinions in your assignments

[guiltyidealist]

been visiting therian spaces lately (kinda vibe) and man when I tell you they have a crediting problem

[lolotr]

There is nothing new under the sun.

-Ecclesiastes, but probably someone else first

There's a tweet that's gone viral where a person laments realizing that Star Wars "ripped off" Dune, and how learning all the elements Star Wars took from its inspiration tainted it. And I think it shows how poisonous the emphasis on originality in art can be. Because yes, it's wonderful when art makes something new, but it's also wonderful seeing how art plays on what came before, and the conversations it has with its predecessors.

There's going to be a lot of people talking about how much of an impact Goku from Dragon Ball Z has made on fiction in the wake of Akira Toriyama's recent passing, and all the characters who were inspired by him and his story. But Goku himself is derivative - he's inspired by the Monkey King from Journey to the West, one of the first novels ever written. He's far from the first character inspired by the Monkey King, either, and also far from the last.

None of this makes Goku's impact any less than it is. None of this decreases how Goku's story has inspired countless imitators. Just as Toriyama created a new icon from imitating what he loved about Journey to the West, so did Toriyama inspire countless artists to make their own iconic works with his take on the Monkey King's archetype. Goku is, in many ways, the heir to a legacy that spans back to the 16th century, and likely beyond - because I doubt the original Monkey King was formed in a vacuum.

We're taught to think that originality and imitation are opposites that cannot coexist, but they're not mutually exclusive. One can follow in another's footsteps and still take a new journey with its own unique twists and turns. The great works of art are not spawned in the absence of inspiration - they are in conversation with what came before and what will come after.

[soysaucevictim]

Lrb having a tag comment abt deadnaming buildings just making me think about the currently named Kaseya Center. Its last name was the FTX Arena (not the first one, tho.) :,D

(I just have a bile fascination in just how gd awful SBF/FTX/AR was.)

[chromegnomes]

the most frustrating thing about AI Art from a Discourse perspective is that the actual violation involved is pretty nebulous

like, the guys "laundering" specific artists' styles through AI models to mimic them for profit know exactly what they're doing, and it's extremely gross

but we cannot establish "my work was scraped from the public internet and used as part of a dataset for teaching a program what a painting of a tree looks like, without anyone asking or paying me" as, legally, Theft with a capital T. not only is this DMCA Logic which would be a nightmare for 99% of artists if enforced to its conclusion, it's not the right word for what's happening

the actual Violation here is that previously, "I can post my artwork to share with others for free, with minimal risk" was a safe assumption, which created a pretty generous culture of sharing artwork online. most (noteworthy) potential abuses of this digital commons were straightforwardly plagiarism in a way anyone could understand

but the way that generative AI uses its training data is significantly more complicated - there is a clear violation of trust involved, and often malicious intent, but most of the common arguments used to describe this fall short and end up in worse territory

by which I mean, it's hard to put forward an actual moral/legal solution unless you're willing to argue:

Potential sales "lost" count as Theft (so you should in fact stop sharing your Netflix password)

No amount of alteration makes it acceptable to use someone else's art in the production of other art without permission and/or compensation (this would kill entire artistic mediums and benefit nobody but Disney)

Art Styles should be considered Intellectual Property in an enforceable way (impossibly bad, are you kidding me)

it's extremely annoying to talk about, because you'll see people straight up gloating about their Intent To Plagiarize, but it's hard to stick them with any specific crime beyond Generally Scummy Behavior unless you want to create some truly horrible precedents and usher in The Thousand Year Reign of Intellectual Property Law