AI generated imagery, video and text have matured enough to be very viable alternatives to humans manually producing them. And while the world is raging about both quality and plagiarism on any number of use cases, some others have filed suit for neither being told nor paid when their work was being used to train these AIs. Where did these artists and creators get their influences? From artists and works of bygone eras? Did they pay each of those artists of a bygone era? Did the Salvador Dali or Jackson Pollock or Wassily Kandinski pay Sigmund Freud? Is the number system patented? Should we not all pay someone every time we say a number?

Soon there will be TV channels dedicated to art where the only commercials will be lawyers asking you to call them if you think your art was used to train an AI so they can get you the best compensations that exist. Wait! Do patents and copyright exist solely so lawyers can get paid?

Where does knowledge start: I have previously opined on the role for the new artist and that of AI in the world to come and how each might get paid. I have suggested that AI should become the knowledge keeper/ museum and that new artists must train themselves using such AIs. I have suggested further than only when they create something the AI cannot produce should they be called creative. And now copyright and rights and payment battles are spinning up. Lets go back to the very first painters and sculptors. Did they not influence artists who came after them? Were they paid anything, much less something like a royalty fee? Yes, the world is different now with many many more eyes able to see and use such works. Yes sometimes a museum might charge you to see them. Perhaps the museum even acquired such works of the artist from someone who had previously paid for them or from the artists’ family. However, rest assured that many works of the same and many other artists never made it into a museum. Rest assured that many artists who greatly influenced artistic sensibilities never made it into any museums. Rest assured that many an artist who was an influencer and perhaps even being displayed by museums is not actually getting paid for it.