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I hope the author receives just compensation for their idea!

Lots of stuff going on this week: I've created new free Mp3 music tracks for your projects. They are: "The Island of Horribleness"_LoFi "Ghouls Rule"_LoFi "Creepytown"_LoFi Good creepy fun! You'll find them on my Horror 2 page: https://soundimage.org/horror-2/ Ogg GENRE PACK PREVIEW VIDEOS You can now preview my genre packs as well as my Mega Music Pack on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7oAWDZHVlg50yMMdGs0-MPQGhh6gQ3sw CUSTOM MUSIC I'm off and running creating a custom soundtrack for "Warbound," a strategy role-playing game set in a fantasy world. If anyone needs some custom music created, I'd love to help out! You can contact me here: https://soundimage.org/custom-work/ OTHER HELPFUL LINKS (I hope) https://soundimage.org/ogg-game-music-mega-pack/ https://soundimage.org/ogg-music-packs-2/ As always, enjoy, stay safe and keep being creative!

The one we know is the other one, but OK thanks for your heads-up! : ) We have another case very likely then... This is a plague. I have nothing against technology but those people who tend to take advantage from illegitimate access? We're obviously talking about something else in fact... On that case, we're studying right now a legal action based on copyright claim. Now you've brought another case. I've just notified the author on your finding.

Right. That's what I'm saying - the plot is nearly the same as your friend's. "Chichi (Sienna Stevens) writes a letter to Santa Claus for Christmas but accidentally misspells Santa's name. This leads to the letter finding its way to Satan (Paolo Contis), who answers to the girl's wishes. Satan attempts to tempt Chichi to evil, but the girl's virtues resists the demon's plans and changes him instead." Yes, and a number of those evil assholes own the companies that make large language models.

Hi everyone, a while back I was looking into the Canon C70 and C80 as I wanted to add a 3rd dedicated video camera to my lineup of Pentax K1 II and Nikon D500 stills cameras. Currently circumstances have changed as I realized that on a multi day hike it's impractical to have too much equipment and now I am looking at a single system to combine and consolidate my stills photography needs with video where I can additionally make simple nature/wildlife documentaries as well as vlogging. Has anyone got any experience with the Nikon Z8 or Canon R5C? At the beginning I was leaning towards the Nikon as it is a powerhouse but the negatives for me is that there is no fully articulating screen and I have heard reports that like the R5, the Z8 can potentially overheat while recording video. Does the Z8 even feature videos scopes like the R5c? I'm not sure how the R5C compares to the AF of the Nikon in stills mode or even video mode, though reports state that the R5 has better video AF then the R5C version. How significant would that be when videoing wildlife for example or tracking people or vehicles? I do like the Canon lens lineup and in particular the 200-800mm lens idea as I find I can never have enough focal length as my Nikon 200-500mm f5.6 definitely comes up quite short on the APS-C sensor in the D500. Though I'm totally confused what the best options for me would be in the mid range... 28 or 24 - 105mm , 28 or 24 - 70mm , 70 - 200mm ; then f2.8 or f4 version in all cases? These videos were really helpful to me but I think in both cases use the 100-500mm lens:

I'm willing to bet you tell the worst dad jokes...🙄 there was a wright camera... In astrophotography, the Wright camera design, presented by Franklin Wright (Berkeley, California) in 1935, just a few years after the introduction of the Schmidt camera. does that help? so technically the wright camera came before too wongs i guess.. you could argue two wongs don't make a wright...

Got it! : ) No, not this one... Title means nothing ; ) It is much beyond a single title but not about this one in particular. Take a look again on the plot... And information disclosed. Yes, there are countless ways to take something from someone, tweak it just enough (disgusting attitude to take advantage without giving proper credit, especially when it’s so obvious where it came from), and voilà, pass it off as new. Revolting to say the least... To people handling this in a daily life, AI looks like a children's play. I know it's not. But there are many more evil ar$eholes other than a damned LLM... : P A different title and outfit won’t cover up what it really is. But not the case you've pointed out. It wouldn't be wise to elaborate further, here and now. The original author knows my legal advice for the subject matter. I believe that speaks volumes, considering what's already out there ;- )

Right, but I was asking if he was associated with this one that hasn't been released yet, also made in 2024, but Filipino and with the same plot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_Satan

Others who were familiar with his script brought this to him (and there are additional details I’ll omit mentioning here) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_Santa_(2024_film)

@eatstoomuchjam I was only half joking with that last line, I was trying to come up with an example that fits the topic ; ) On the leftover and also to @KnightsFan now... That case unfortunately goes far beyond a mere synopsis... As with everything in life, there’s a deeper reality beneath the surface. The real problem comes when we tend to oversimplify things, stripping it of its intrinsic complexity. There's always a hidden part somewhere. And details obviously count even when they don't make all the difference. Once again, we face the B&W dilemma. The palette holds countless shades... It’s one thing to replicate 'external' models... it’s something else entirely to build in layers upon the rough sketches of one’s own process. And between the two lies an infinite universe of possibilities in how it can be used. So... Yes. The pairing of my copyright, legal, and film background and roots—strictly fueled by creative commitment—keeps me tethered. A good producer pays just as much attention to copyright stuff as to the creative side of things. I would never simply drift away.

Are you saying that you trained an LLM entirely on things where you owned the copyright and all other appropriate rights? If so, that's cool and ethical. On the other hand, if you're saying that you used one of the existing LLM's that were made by OpenAI/Google/HuggingFace/etc, then you're not using your own stuff. You're using a tool that could not exist without massive copyright theft on a previously unprecedented scale. The part that's black and white to me is silicon valley buttholes who have admitted that their business model cannot possibly function without stealing content. I've heard that some people (Getty images, maybe?) are allowing people to opt in to AI training for some compensation. I think those people will be short sighted and a bit foolish, but the resulting AI would be, in my opinion, fully ethical. Maybe I'll go ask AI how to make my dick bigger than everyone's. That is also very bad. But "Hollywood also steals things" is a kind of a terrible justification for "AI companies steal things." Was your friend's script the one that was used for the Filipino film that google tells me also exists with that name that was made by Mavx productions? If not, it seems like the Phillipines also stole from your friend (and that's also bad). But also, knowing that the other exists makes me want to intentionally not see the Hollywood release and go see the other one, at least partly because I don't like supporting that kind of theft. The phrase doesn't make a lot of sense in English so I don't think you'll have to worry too much about it being stolen. Did you mean something like "Where people present things with good will, a thief finds victims?"

There's a pretty big difference between one person stealing a screenplay or synopsis, and scraping the entire internet to make a generalized tool that billions of people use daily. Both can be unethical, but it's a few orders of magnitude difference in how many people it harms and to what degree. I believe that we should create technology for its own sake. I don't want to halt AI progress. There just needs to be a way to ensure that it benefits all people, particularly the people who (unwillingly/unknowingly) contributed to creating the models.

Of course but don't forget the prior discussion brought to the previous page about the whole case of the history of this medium, no less... And yes, AI is clearly a space where copyright violations make it even harder to protect original work. My point is, this problem didn’t start with AI... not even close. Here's a blatant example: the original work (years in the making!) of a close associate and business partner of mine has been stolen by... Hollywood! : X Go figure... And it has nothing to do with AI. Does that strike a chord? ; ) Now imagine how real thieves are using this technology today. This isn’t a simple problem... it goes far beyond AI. At its core, it’s about a lack of ethics, shady alliances, and the pursuit of profit with no respect for others’ work. Let’s be clear: this didn’t start with AI. In the worst-case scenario, the introduction of this new technology can only make things worse. In my country, people are used to saying something like this, although pessimists are also often seen as realists: «An optimist sees opportunity in every challenge; a pessimist sees a problem in every chance.» Unfortunately, I guess we could replace it here (not only for the things discussed in this thread but also for others) with: Where goodwill finds a chance, the thief finds a catch.™ (not stolen anywhere... : D this line is copyrighted right now LOL ;- )

If you think that it is unethical to copy a commercial movie and personally sell those copies without the permission of the movie's owner, then it's hard to imagine how it could be ethical to use that same movie to train a model that is then sold without the permission of that movie's owner.

We’re clearly not talking about the same thing. There’s obviously no need to use AI to violate copyright, that’s not its only purpose! That’s exactly the point I was making. Stolen scripts? I’ve seen that happening since the ’90s (when I started to work in this business, for Elias Querejeta as professional script reader FYI), a long time before AI ever came into the picture. Has this technology made things worse? I wouldn’t be surprised. I fully share that concern, in any case. Honestly, there’s nothing new here. And yup, it’s a high price to pay for adopting this kind of technology indeed. If we’re using our own stuff, then nothing is being stolen. The meaning up there (@my posts) is very clear: AI is just a tool. The use of it is something else, though so yeah, what you’re saying fits too. But that’s not really the point I am making. It’s the usual tone in these kinds of discussions: always about taking sides. WOW We have to pick a side or risk being seen as a minor part of the picture. And if we don’t explicitly state our stance, we risk no longer being seen as part of our own group : P or being taken as pure thieves!! Phew... If people prefer to see things in B&W, they shouldn’t blame the world we live all in, later on. I’m done with binary thinking, always have been BTW. And I’m not here pretending my dick’s bigger than anyone’s. Everything you wrote, I stand. I don't retract a single word of mine up there either... What about that? ;- )

I'm not aware of any existing generative AI model that could be even remotely considered to be ethical in its construction and any of use of the generated results should be considered generally unethical. Any use of Generative AI is using an unprecedented amount of stolen material. The AI companies even admit as much, saying that being obliged to require permission from the rights holders to use their existing content would be fatal to their business model. It's like a thief saying that the invention of locked doors presented an existential threat to their business model. And keep in mind that the end game for most/all of these AI companies is not to make your life better unless you are one of the huge businesses that are financing their development or a totalitarian government.

I don’t know how you can say that with a straight face. The BFI have just published a report saying that 130,000 films and scripts have been used without permission or accreditation. It is all about violating copyright. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/09/ai-plundering-scripts-poses-direct-threat-to-uk-screen-sector-says-bfi

I had that camera for about 1 month and then sent it back to Amazon because the GX80 came out at the same time. Still, I recorded some great moments on it. One of the videos is so precious that I have it on my desktop at all times.

I think you should. I think you’d be pleasantly surprised at the degree of enhancement the accumulated knowledge of these intervening years brings. It’s a camera that has always appealed to me and I’ve been waiting patiently to pick a used one up for £200 for years now. Still waiting ! Which is likely a testament to how many people have held on to them and are still getting great results .

Man, I lost my GX7 years ago --and when I look at that 1080 footage I still find myself coveting it.

Not exactly, although low budgets can now achieve more than ever before : ) We can move faster, take on more projects simultaneously, and access work that was previously beyond our financial reach. For creators who used to get stuck a few steps in, things that once seemed impossible are now within reach. I’ve seen many talented people leave the craft or reduce it to a side project but now, the path forward feels more open.

People paying far less for it though right?

Indeed it is, and indeed I do! Haven't turned it on in.. well.. some time. I must admit I find it funny that my first video-first camera was the XC10 but moved on because I wanted shallower DoF, and now I'm back to shooting deep DoF with a 10x zoom lens. This is why I never sell anything - I've lost count of the number of times I learn something new and then pull things out of the discard pile again, and although it's mostly lenses, you never really know.

A great benchmark. Do you still have that XC10?

hmm to be fair this theory of “everyone who is involved and interested in this clearly terrible product is a pedophile” makes more sense than anything i can come up with