Greg Rutkowski, a digital artist known for his surreal style, opposes AI art but his name and style have been frequently used by AI art generators without his consent. In response, Stable Diffusion removed his work from their dataset in version 2.0. However, the community has now created a tool to emulate Rutkowski’s style against his wishes using a LoRA model. While some argue this is unethical, others justify it since Rutkowski’s art has already been widely used in Stable Diffusion 1.5. The debate highlights the blurry line between innovation and infringement in the emerging field of AI art.
His work was used in a publicly available product without license or compensation. Including his work in the training dataset was, to the online vernacular use of the word, piracy.
They violated his copyright when they used his work to make their shit.
The product does not contain his work. So no copying was done, therefore no “piracy.”