The creator of “Love Hina” and now Japanese politician Ken Akamatsu has revealed that Japan’s government is debating whether artificial intelligence (AI) image generators automatically violate manga artists’ copyrights. AI art is one of the biggest problems facing modern manga artists, who often run the risk of having their work stolen and reused by AI programs. Since the introduction of artificial intelligence, many governments around the world have begun to reconsider how they should deal with programs that rely on the existence of copyrighted material to produce images.
Recently, on Twitter, Ken Akamatsuwho serves in the Japanese House of Councilors, addressed questions about an artificial intelligence program called LoRA. This program was allegedly used to generate images that closely resembled works produced by Kishin Higuchi, a popular manga artist in Japan.
- “We have received many questions about LoRA from Professor Kishin Higuchi. What’s unique about this is that the distribution area on Civitai says: ‘All images used for learning were created by ourselves, and no copyrighted work of any artist was used.’ However, even if the artist’s own copyrighted work is not used for AI learning at all, if the act of creating and using the product satisfies “similarity and dependence” in relation to the copyrighted works existing author, then it would be a violation of these rights“Akamatsu wrote.
If this determination is implemented, it would have far-reaching consequences.not only for those who generate illustrations with AI, but also for those who produce the technologies used to create them.
- “In addition to usersAkamatsu continued, “there is a possibility that the developer (i.e. the person who created LoRA) could become the infringer… The government is also considering violating non-copyright rights, such as publicity rights, with respect to artificial intelligence generated“.
Within the anime community, AI has frequently been criticized for plagiarizing the style of popular artists. Last year, Japanese publisher Shinchosha came under fire for publishing “Cyberpunk: Peach John“, an AI-generated manga that closely resembles the iconic style of the creator of “Tokyo Ghoul“, Sui Ishida. Spectators also attacked Studio OLM for using AI-generated art in an official music video for the series “Beyblade“. Much of this collective outrage is due to the belief that entertainment companies are simply replacing human performers by artificial intelligence to save time and money during production.
Fountain: Official Twitter Account
