Hayao Miyasaki is the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, a Japanese animation studio known worldwide for their stunning, emotional, beautiful stories and movies. At the core of Studio Ghibli’s work is a deep engagement with questions of humanity. About what it means to be a human, about how to care for one another and the world […]
Are we pretending this is new & their opinion matters in some new way it hasn’t before?
There might be an argument to demand licensing royalties on intellectual property.
Is that too capitalist?
Maybe it’s fine if we work that into the word fascism somehow, wear it out a bit more to hit that sweet spot.
Ooh.
No. We’re acting as if their opinion always mattered just as much as it does now.
While your style is not, can not, and should not be your intellectual property, you should have the right to say “I don’t want you to imitate my exact style” and people should respect that.
How does “respect” “allow” an artist “unfettered creativity”?
How exactly is instructing others how to treat/imitate their work & expecting their wishes to be fulfilled promoting “unfettered creativity”?
Seems like the opposite.
Can you break that down into logic?
Are you suggesting artists are fragile beings whose creativity only exists at the mercy of our “respect” and the slightest disrespect breaks them?
That seems rather self-important.
I submit that artists don’t need our respect to be creative: the suggestion is belittling to artists.
The real point is the article fails to argue well.
To answer your question, it’s more about arguing for basic freedoms consistently than about arguing for disrespect.
When approaching these ethical questions, I think it’s best to focus on the individual & moral reciprocity: should someone be able to express themselves in a way that offends me?
As long as it obeys the harm principle, the answer is yes.
Accordingly, anyone should be free to express themselves with imagery in the style of Ghibli (using tools such as AI) even if it offends the studio’s founder, since it results in no actual harm.
Since morality should be based on universal principles that don’t depend on contingent facts of an agent (such as their characteristics), I find it clarifies questions to approach technology with their non-technological equivalents.
Would it be wrong to train a person to learn Ghibli art style so they could produce similar works in that style on demand?
The harm of that is unclear, and I would think it’s fine.
I don’t see a general duty for a free society to fulfill a wish unless it’s more of a claim right than a wish.
In particular, criticism is a basic part of art: a duty not to criticize artists (who wish not to be criticized) would be unjust.
While an artist should get credit (and all due intellectual property rights) for their work, once it’s out in the wild it takes on a life of its own: people are free to criticize it, parody it, & make fair use of it.
Some wishes don’t need to be fulfilled.
I’m suggesting that disrespecting an artists wishes causes them unnecessary struggles which in turn unnecessarily makes it more difficult for them to do their work.
Are we pretending this is new & their opinion matters in some new way it hasn’t before?
There might be an argument to demand licensing royalties on intellectual property. Is that too capitalist? Maybe it’s fine if we work that into the word fascism somehow, wear it out a bit more to hit that sweet spot. Ooh.
No. We’re acting as if their opinion always mattered just as much as it does now.
While your style is not, can not, and should not be your intellectual property, you should have the right to say “I don’t want you to imitate my exact style” and people should respect that.
So not at all: got it.
You do.
“That’s just like your opinion, man.” meme goes here.
The argument seems to amount to “stop using/imitating my work to express yourself in ways I don’t like”, which is futile & senseless.
So, to recap, your position is this:
Artists do not deserve the respect that would allow them to be creative unfettered. Gotcha.
How does “respect” “allow” an artist “unfettered creativity”? How exactly is instructing others how to treat/imitate their work & expecting their wishes to be fulfilled promoting “unfettered creativity”? Seems like the opposite. Can you break that down into logic?
Are you suggesting artists are fragile beings whose creativity only exists at the mercy of our “respect” and the slightest disrespect breaks them? That seems rather self-important.
I submit that artists don’t need our respect to be creative: the suggestion is belittling to artists.
The real point is the article fails to argue well.
I didn’t say they needed respect to be creative. I said they needed respect to be creative unfettered.
Respectfully, I don’t see what unfettered here is adding. I clarified by editing the earlier comment to request to explain the logic.
Do you know what the word unfettered means?
Edit to add: Why are you arguing for disrespecting people’s wishes?
To answer your question, it’s more about arguing for basic freedoms consistently than about arguing for disrespect.
When approaching these ethical questions, I think it’s best to focus on the individual & moral reciprocity: should someone be able to express themselves in a way that offends me? As long as it obeys the harm principle, the answer is yes. Accordingly, anyone should be free to express themselves with imagery in the style of Ghibli (using tools such as AI) even if it offends the studio’s founder, since it results in no actual harm.
Since morality should be based on universal principles that don’t depend on contingent facts of an agent (such as their characteristics), I find it clarifies questions to approach technology with their non-technological equivalents. Would it be wrong to train a person to learn Ghibli art style so they could produce similar works in that style on demand? The harm of that is unclear, and I would think it’s fine.
I don’t see a general duty for a free society to fulfill a wish unless it’s more of a claim right than a wish. In particular, criticism is a basic part of art: a duty not to criticize artists (who wish not to be criticized) would be unjust. While an artist should get credit (and all due intellectual property rights) for their work, once it’s out in the wild it takes on a life of its own: people are free to criticize it, parody it, & make fair use of it. Some wishes don’t need to be fulfilled.
I’m suggesting that disrespecting an artists wishes causes them unnecessary struggles which in turn unnecessarily makes it more difficult for them to do their work.