The moment of Openai Ghibli’s viral studio highlights AI’s copyright problems

The last OpenAi update comes on the heels of Google’s release on a similar feature of AI Image in its model Gemini Flash, which also caused a viral moment earlier in March when people used it to remove watermarks from images.

The latest Openai and Google tools make it easier for them to re-create copyright styles simply by introducing a text prompt. Together, these new features of the AI ​​image seem to object to the concerns of several lawsuits against the generative developers of the AI ​​model. If these companies are training copyright, do they violate the Copyright Act?

According to Evan Brown, an intellectual property lawyer at the Neal & McDevitt Law Firm, products such as the native GPT-4O image generator are working in a legal gray area today. The style is not explicitly protected from copyright, according to Brown, which means that Openai does not seem to violate the law, simply by generating images that look like Studio Ghibli films.

Brown, however, says it is plausible that Openai has achieved this like it by training its model in millions of footage from Ghibli’s films. Even so, several courts are still deciding whether the training of AI models of copyrighted works fall under the protection of honest use.

« I think this has raised the same question we have been asking for several years, » Brown said in an interview. « What are the consequences for copying rights from going out, networking and copying to these databases? »

The New York Times and several publishers are in active court cases against Openai, claiming that the company has trained its AI copyright models without appropriate attribution or payment. There are similar allegations filed in court cases against other leading AI companies, including the launch of Meta and AI Image Generation Midjourney.

In a statement to TechCrunch, a spokesman for Openai said that while Chatgpt refused to repeat the « style of individual living artists », Openai allows him to reproduce the « broader styles of the studio ». Of course, it is worth noting that there are live artists who are credited to pioneering the unique styles of their studio as co -founder of Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki.

Obviously, users have also been able to use the GPT-4O image generation feature to re-create styles from other studios and artists. Someone else made a portrait of Mark Andresen in the style of Dr. Seuss, and the wedding couple again created their wedding photos in the style of Pixar.

We have tested several popular AI image generators – including those available in Google, Grok of XAI and Playground.Ai – to see their ability to match the Studio Ghibli style. We have found that the new Openai image generator has created the most accurate replica of the style of the animation studio.

So far, the new Openai and Google images are a leap forward in what AI models can generate, which seems to lead to a jump in use. Openai delayed the presentation of his new free -level users’ image tool on Wednesday, referring to high demand. This may be the most important for these companies today, but we will have to wait for the courts to weigh their legality.