The study demonstrates how these AI systems can be programmed to reproduce precisely copyrighted artwork and medical images. It is a result that might help artists who are suing AI companies for copyright violations.
Researchers from Google, DeepMind, UC Berkeley, ETH Zürich, and Princeton obtained their findings by repeatedly prompting Google’s Imagen with image captions, like the user’s name. Following this, they analyzed if any of the images they produced matched the original photos stored in the model's database. The team was successful in extracting more than 100 copies of photos from the AI's training set.
These image-generating AI models are apparently produced over vast data sets, that consist of images with captions that have been taken from the internet. The most recent technology works by taking images in the data sets and altering pixels individually until the original image is nothing more than a jumble of random pixels. The AI model then reverses the procedure to create a new image from the pixelated mess.
According to Ryan Webster, a Ph.D. student from the University of Caen Normandy, who has studied privacy in other image generation models but is not involved in the research, the study is the first to demonstrate that these AI models remember photos from their training sets. This could also serve as an implication for startups wanting to use AI models in health care since it indicates that these systems risk leaking users’ private and sensitive data.
Eric Wallace, a Ph.D. scholar who was involved in the study group, raises concerns over the privacy issue and says they hope to raise alarm regarding the potential privacy concerns with these AI models before they are extensively implemented in delicate industries like medicine.
“A lot of people are tempted to try to apply these types of generative approaches to sensitive data, and our work is definitely a cautionary tale that that’s probably a bad idea unless there’s some kind of extreme safeguards taken to prevent [privacy infringements],” Wallace says.
Another major conflict between AI businesses and artists is caused by the extent to which these AI models memorize and regurgitate photos from their databases. Two lawsuits have been filed against AI by Getty Images and a group of artists who claim the company illicitly scraped and processed their copyrighted content.
The researchers' findings will ultimately aid artists to claim that AI companies have violated their copyright. The companies may have to pay artists whose work was used to train Stable Diffusion if they can demonstrate that the model stole their work without their consent.
According to Sameer Singh, an associate professor of computer science at the University of California, Irvine, these findings hold paramount importance. “It is important for general public awareness and to initiate discussions around the security and privacy of these large models,” he adds.
A bill aimed at combating online piracy has been submitted to the State Duma of the Russian Federation. The document will allow copyright holders to independently enter links to sites with illegal content in a special register, after which these links will have to be removed from the search results on the Internet within six hours. Currently, this practice applies only to those companies that have signed the Anti-Piracy Memorandum.
"The fight against the spread of pirated content is extremely complex and requires the efforts of both the state, its supervisory and regulatory bodies, IT specialists, and the entire community of Internet users in general," said Andrey Trofimov, chairman of the Crimean Union of Journalists.
He added that it is necessary to fight not with ordinary users, but with distributors of pirated content, illegal file-sharing sites, and online cinemas.
Illegal online resources offering to watch any movie “for free” and “without registration” often contain malicious code.
Today, the level of viruses and targeted hacker attacks is extremely developed. Previously, in order to hack and penetrate, attackers offered the user something to download and install on a PC. Now it is enough, for example, to simply open the letter. This will trigger the launch of a program that encrypts data on your computer.
The Anti-Piracy memorandum has been in force in the country since 2018. The document was signed by the largest Russian Internet companies, including Rambler Group, Mail.ru Group and Yandex, as well as the copyright holders. According to the document, copyright holders submit links with pirated movies and TV series for consideration, and Internet sites remove them from search results. At the moment, its validity period is extended until August 1, 2021.
Recall, E Hacking News conducted an interview with one of the founders of a new startup Digital Witnessor (https://www.digitalwitnessor.com/) and lawyer Mr. Dhruv Bagri. He shared with us his knowledge about copyright, how to securely register it, quickly and easily, using Blockchain, and from a legal point of view.
The world is changing, technology is changing. We conducted an interview with one of the founders of a new startup Digital Witnessor(https://www.digitalwitnessor.com/) and lawyer Mister Dhruv Bagri. He shared with us his knowledge about copyright, how to securely register it, quickly and easily, using Blockchain, and from a legal point of view.
If you have created your own software, your clothes design, a choreographic dance, wrote a poem and do not know how to register copyrights to your creation, how to protect your rights, then this article is for you.
My name is Dhruv Bagri, I am a Lawyer at RDB Associates. We frequently work on matters relating to Intellectual Property protection, including a lot of copyright infringement work. I’m also one of the founders of the platform Digital Witnessor.
We have developed a platform called Digital Witnessor that creates timestamps using blockchain on your works. This allows you to protect your intellectual property rights in just a few seconds. The timestamp is considered official proof of ownership, and this saves you a considerable amount of time and legal fees in case of infringements and helps in more than one way. As the Company is based out of Estonia and the Service provided has been structured, studied, and developed by industry veterans from Cyber Security Privacy Foundation PTE Ltd, a Singapore based cyber security company, it boasts of maintaining high levels of privacy in accordance with GDPR guidelines and also provides high levels of security protection to any and all content passing through the Platform.
A copyright is a right in rem, which means that the right exists on the person who created the work right from the time such work was created. The platform is created at a time when there is a lot of uncertainty in the law with regard to copyright. Music and Art and their associated businesses are booming in the last decade. All these come under copyrightable work. So, the copyright timestamped entity that is Digital Witnessor helps protect individuals and companies against copyright theft.
Typically, the company would be the copyright holder, even though an employee might create it on behalf of the company. That is usually the structure that is in place and is an industry-standard. However, there are times when the company would not be holding the copyright. And that basically implies that the company needs to go ahead and register the copyright with country-specific entities/registrars that are available within their respective jurisdictions, which would create a legally binding registration that could be affected in a court of law. However, without that, litigation becomes a big hassle when copyright has not been registered. It becomes harder to prove that the work is originally theirs. So, Digital Witnessor takes away this problem for the company. We will generate a timestamp for the company data that needs copyright using blockchain technology. In fact, it's just a hash that is created and that could stamp your creation. The main file would also not be required to be uploaded. A file would be stamped without giving us access to its contents in case of any sensitive and confidential information which creates a bit of a hesitation in the holder of the works as to providing such content to us.
From a legal point of view, a proceeding that includes a hash-signed block is an electronic document that can serve as written evidence in court.
It would also be helpful in case you are applying for copyright after a particular period of time, for example, you need to apply for copyright because the company is selling its entity and the buying entity would require such IP rights to exist. Similarly, a company receiving investments, the investor would always be more favorable to companies holding IP rights as this would deem to be an intangible asset in the company books. So, a timestamp would help the registration authorities to access this document in itself and in determining the exact time on which such the work was created. That makes things simpler. Secondly, a timestamp would be binding in a court of law. Blockchain has been implemented in quite a few countries across the world. So, it would definitely be helpful in most of the countries around the world.
Timestamp plays the role of a virtual notary and is much more credible than the traditional one. Because nobody can alter the information on the blockchain, not even the Company and I think that is the beauty of this Product.
We are using a public blockchain. Firstly, in a public blockchain, anyone can take part by verifying and adding data to the blockchain. Secondly, A public network is more secure due to decentralization and active participation. Thirdly, a private blockchain is more prone to hacks, risks, and data breaches/ manipulation. In a private blockchain, anyone who is overseeing the network can alter or modify any transactions according to their needs.
As I mentioned earlier, it can be uploaded on the platform. It is not necessary that the design in itself be uploaded onto the platform.
Post which the platform would timestamp that particular uploaded file, in this case, that file will contain a shoe design. Once that is timestamped and the credentials of the author are stamped, it enters the blockchain.
It should be noted that the content of the original works is never available to be viewed on the blockchain or exposed publicly. It is not visible to us as and it's not visible to any third party either.
So, what we provide is a time stamping facility which allows you to do three things:
• Legally establish yourself as the copyright owner of the work.
• Legally establish the date of creation.
• Take legal action against anyone who infringes on your copyrighted work.
Ease in assignment and transfer of said Copyrighted works to 3rd Party entities and individuals
RDB Associates is a full-service multi-specialty law firm based out of Bangalore in India and with multiple offices across India. I am one of the founding partners of the firm, which started in 2017. We believe that in our country as well many people are not going to go and get their copyrights registered, or we see that people do that for their other available Intellectual property rights such as trademarks, industrial designs, Patents, etc.
But with copyright, no one really gives that extra push to get their works registered. So, we noticed that there were many infringement matters wherein copyrights were in question and it was very hard for even the opposing counsel and for us to prove that such and such copyright existed at a particular time or not.
We did find a way to prove that the creations are in fact created on those particular timelines. It made the process a little more streamlined and a little more simple especially since it's not easy for everyone to approach the registrar for the Copyright and requires properly drafted applications. With the introduction of the platform Digital Witnessor, one can do it in a few seconds and get the process of registration started with ease.
We have a separate intellectual property team that works on registration and cases of infringement. We are integrated into the whole aspect through the onboarding of our clients onto this Platform or giving legal opinions on whether copyright exists or not, sending out legal notices in case of any infringements, and so on and so forth.
What is the distinctive feature of your company from others on the market?
Presently there aren’t many timestamping companies. We don't technically provide the same service as other competitors in the market dealing with similar platforms. However, one of the features that is distinctive is that we provide for easy assignment of copyrights from the copyright owner to third parties. So, that is a great feature that is available on our platform.
However, our other main USP is that our platform is going to be used across the world. Most of the companies that exist are very jurisdictional specific, so they only apply to certain areas thereby limiting their rights to such certain jurisdictions alone.
Some benefits that the company would get is primarily establishing their definite right in rem and streamlining the process of registering with applicable registrars/entities in their jurisdictions by making it much easier for registration of their work.
It will ease the process in a way that quicker decisions would be made regarding the infringement of copyrights. And individuals do not have to wait longer and go through a long, arduous litigation process to get justice. So we believe that in case of IP rights, it is important to establish definite rights and to not leave it open-ended whereby one invites liability. Streamlining the process is very important and that's the main benefit that the platform would be providing.
We do have certain things lined up and planned for the next couple of years, for starters, the integration of the technology for agreements. Enforceability of contracts and agreement terms would be made much easier. So once this facility is provided, I think many companies would be or would in fact like using this platform just to streamline the internal processes as well.
But currently, I think we need to concentrate on copyright protection, and we shall take it one step at a time.
I think we covered most of the aspects of the platform and its benefits. Just looking forward to see how this develops, grows, and integrates itself into the market in the coming few months