It's fun making Studio Ghibli-style images with ChatGPT – but intellectual property is no laughing matter
- Reference: 1744633694
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/04/14/miyazaki_ai_and_intellectual_property/
- Source link:
It was sort of cute for, oh, say, five minutes after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced you could use his business's GPT-4o model to generate images when everyone started using it to mimic Studio Ghibli, founded by renowned animator Hayao Miyazaki, iconic style. But then everyone, I mean everyone, was transforming photos into pictures that resemble – read ripoff – Miyazaki's distinctive hand-drawn aesthetic, as seen in such loved movies as [1]Spirited Away and [2]My Neighbor Totoro .
Note, I said "generate," not create. There's no creation here. What OpenAI is enabling us all to do is industrial-style copy and paste. It's so cute it makes me want to puke – especially after I saw dozens of these images daily.
[3]
And that was before I saw the ChatGPT's Ghibli-style JFK assassination and Hitler being cheered on by Nazi troops. In a word, "barf."
[4]
[5]
Hayao Miyazaki, the artist and animator who co-founded Studio Ghibli and who still serves as its chairman, hasn't addressed this issue yet. But, in 2016, he called an automated animation tool " [6]an insult to life itself ," so I think we know where the elder statesman of fantasy animation stands.
Mind you, there's nothing new about this kind of theft. Even back in 2022, the famous Dungeons and Dragons fantasy artist Greg Rutkowski [7]reported that tens of thousands of AI-created takes on his art had appeared online. Things have only gotten much worse since then for artists.
[8]
It also doesn't help that even digital rights and freedoms defenders are wrong. For example, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) [9]states :
Generative AI has the power to democratize speech and content creation, much like the internet has. Before the internet, a small number of large publishers controlled the channels of speech distribution, controlling which material reached audiences’ ears. The internet changed that by allowing anyone with a laptop and Wi-Fi connection to reach billions of people around the world.
Sorry, EFF, I was there when the ARPANet was transiting into the internet you know. The internet you describe did indeed liberate people and ideas. But that Internet has been dead for decades. Just ask Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the worldwide web, who recently [10]said , "In the past decade, instead of embodying these values, the web has instead played a part in eroding them." That's because of the "dysfunction caused by the web being dominated by the self-interest of several corporations."
Unlike the internet of the late '80s and early '90s, however, there's been no golden age where individuals were free to create and profit from their works. AI is completely and totally dominated by billion-dollar companies, with only self-serving lip service for individuals or small creators.
What does OpenAI think? CEO Sam Altman [11]claims AI has made it easier for people to create art. Thanks to OpenAI, anyone can create and publish meaningful work. "If they have something interesting to say, they get it out there, and the world benefits from that."
He sees art; I see enshittification.
[12]
I have no problem with people building works on the foundation of others. But, what I see with AI art isn't people creating their own work or even a take on someone else's images. I see near-exact duplication over and over again of an existing artist's work.
This is all of a part of Altman's attack on creators. He has been claiming that his AI engine's copyright ripoffs are all "fair use" under US copyright law since almost day one. He denies OpenAI is stealing anything, but the evidence is clear that that's precisely what he's doing.
OpenAI asks Uncle Sam to let it scrape everything, stop other countries complaining [13]READ MORE
Specifically, OpenAI claims its models are trained not to replicate works for public use. Instead, "they learn from the works and extract patterns, linguistic structures, and contextual insights." Yeah, right. At the same time, OpenAI claims if "American companies are left without fair use access, the race for AI is effectively over." It sounds to me like they want to have it both ways."
Of course, Altman could pay creators, but that's just crazy talk. The cash should not go to the people who do the work but to the company that copies it in the first place.
Needless to say, I find it more than a little ironic that Altman sings an entirely different tune when an AI rival, like, say, DeepSeek, is perhaps using some of OpenAI's work. Then it's "DeepSeek may have inappropriately distilled our models, and will share information as we know more. We take aggressive, proactive countermeasures to protect our technology.”
You see, it's stealing when someone else uses Big AI's work, but it's all fine and dandy when OpenAI et al uses your work.
[14]On the issue of AI copyright, Blair Institute favors tech bros over Cool Britannia
[15]Fantastic fantasy four-way fling – and family-friendly fun
[16]Maserati Ghibli S: Who cares what Joe Walsh thinks?
[17]Google's Glasses: The tech with specs appeal?
Like many other billionaires, Altman hopes President Donald Trump will help him with any possible legal trouble. Will his million-dollar donation to Trump's inaugural fund give him carte blanche to ignore those troublesome writers, artists, musicians, and publishing companies? Stay tuned to see what happens with the forthcoming US AI Action Plan.
The Register's 2023 in gaming had one final boss: Baldur's Gate 3 [18]READ MORE
Regardless of how that works out, unless someone stands up for creators, much of the "art" we'll see in the future will be endless rehashes. Think, if you will, of how today, instead of genuinely new movies and TV shows, all we get is endless reboots and remakes. If the AI companies get their way, that will be true of art, novels, music, and – yes – movies and TV shows as well.
You could perhaps have looked forward to watching Die Hard XXI , long after [19]Bruce Willis dies, starring his digital twin. That's if the rumors were true that he sold an AI version of himself; he has denied this. But when that kind of digital creation dominates the screen, it spells not a revival of creativity but art for big business, by big business forever without end. ®
Get our [20]Tech Resources
[1] https://ghibli.fandom.com/wiki/Spirited_Away
[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096283/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z_0xCgBpX0ATvI-CtBmWaAAAAMc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z_0xCgBpX0ATvI-CtBmWaAAAAMc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z_0xCgBpX0ATvI-CtBmWaAAAAMc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngZ0K3lWKRc
[7] https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/09/16/1059598/this-artist-is-dominating-ai-generated-art-and-hes-not-happy-about-it/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z_0xCgBpX0ATvI-CtBmWaAAAAMc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/02/ai-and-copyright-expanding-copyright-hurts-everyone-heres-what-do-instead
[10] https://webfoundation.org/2024/03/marking-the-webs-35th-birthday-an-open-letter/
[11] https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-openai-studio-ghibli-ai-art-image-generator-backlash-2025-4
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z_0xCgBpX0ATvI-CtBmWaAAAAMc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/13/openai_data_copyright/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/03/blair_institute_ai_copyright/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2014/06/06/game_theory_fantasy_gaming_round_up/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2015/05/24/maserati_ghibli_s_review/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2013/02/01/something_for_the_weekend_google_glasses/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/05/2023_in_gaming/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/04/bruce_willis_ai_image_deepcake/
[20] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Ghibli
Challenge has been set !!!
Incoming responses real soon .....
:)
Re: Ghibli
[1]Like this?
(Sorry planet.)
[1] https://ik.imagekit.io/mo54angn2c/ChatGPT%20Image%20Apr%2014,%202025%20at%2003_22_29%20PM.png
Altman scared of Disney?
Given Altman's viewpoint I wonder why he hasn't promoting ChatGPT's Disney-style images...
GenAI art has always sat in uncanny alley for me. I was never comfortable with it - even if they'd licensed the training data. But the idea of generating Ghibli-esque images crosses whatever line had not yet been crossed.
Ghibli is the artist's animation studio. Whilst Disney were churning out twee cliches and hoovering up the world's folklore and heritage, Ghibli came along and told novel stories, laden with meaning, subtext (and usually an environmental bent). The occasional diversions and adaptations - Howl's Moving Castle (wonderful) and Earthsea (muddled) - were properly licensed from their authors and paid for (what a concept!).
Ghibli were telling great stories long before Pixar came along and made genuine family movies (by which I mean there are as many subtle adult themes for parents in Pixar as there are plotlines for kids. Ten minutes into "Up" and the kids are thinking "that's sad" whilst their parents are having an emotional breakdown). Ghibli's sophisticated story-telling is why Disney didn't know what to do with them when they bought the US distribution rights and found these weren't the twee kids cartoons they expected.
But Ghibli don't just tell great stories. They films are a labour of love. The Boy and the Heron took seven years to make, used hand-cell animation throughout and is the most expensive movie ever made in Japan. One four-second scene in "The Wind Rises" took over a year to animate, because it's a crowd scene in which every element moves in every frame . They could have interpolated from a handful of key frames, but instead the artist hand-painted ~96 frames. Lunatics. And we love them for it.
To generate (not create) rip-off Ghibli-esque scenes through AI (OpenAI have surely not paid a license fee to ingest that material) is cheap and nasty. It assigns a value of "zero" to the artistry built up over decades. And this applies to evey creator who has been stolen from, but to mess with a beloved house like Ghibli is the sort of silliness that hardens people's resolve.
It's time Miyazaki's lawyers went to war. Or Ghibli tell a story about a sad world in which nothing new exists because all "cultural output" is just a mid-slop coming out of factories.
This is truth totally unadulterated !!!
This ^^^^^^^ 1000^1000^1000 times !!!
I cannot agree more !!!
This needs to be shouted from the rooftops, ripping off true artistic skill really gets me MAD !!!!!
(Be it Music/Art/etc or some Artisans hard work ....)
:)
General Ignorance does not help
The fact that outside of IT circles (and even within some of them) people don't understand LLM's and the current generation of "AI" is no more intelligent than an eight ball and a spreadsheet with a bayesian function picking from a larger list of responses based on input makes this harder. To get the electorate or even just the house of commons to stop the government allowing the proposed piracy (AI exemption from copyright), or to convince a jury of harm, individuals need to understand that the "AI" is not creating anything but using statistics to respond to the prompt based on the material it was trained with, in this case copyrighted Ghibli art. With all the marketing hype and the bias of the social media lenses: google (including you-tube), Facebook, twitter et al towards AI its not an easy message to get through.
P.S. The historic hostility to digital from a small subset of copyright holders like RIAA as well as the conspicuous wealth of some organisations which buy up a lot of copyrights has not helped the chances of getting a sympathetic audience. Even if these individuals and groups could not be further from artists like those at studio Ghibli if they tried.
Ahh, sweet revenge
I really love your last paragrah... instead of the classical legal eagles, an smart move using your own tooling.
Anyway, I have a doubt: Which is going to take more, a lawsuit or a 7 years hand made animation plot ;-)
"AI" is simply bullshit generation
Most people instinctively know that "AI" is just bullshit generation. The sooner the "AI" bubble bursts, the better.
Bullshit, used on an industrial scale, is extremely harmful to society and even, perhaps, humanity.
Re: "AI" is simply bullshit generation
> Most people instinctively know that "AI" is just bullshit generation
Actually, that's the problem... in my experience, most people DON'T know that AI is statistical bullshit. They kneel down to it and accept it like a small tin god.
I had a co-worker not get his roof fixed "because he sent the drone photos to chatgpt and it said his roof was ok"
Then why the f*ck is it leaking? That's the definition of NOT OK. Whatever. It's your roof, and you go on the list of "shit flinging monkeys"
Outlook
I have a feeling that AI is what's going to make the capitalist market economy finally show its true face to everyone, not just to those billions who already have been and continue to be suffering badly from its inability to humanely distribute resources and goods across the planet, let alone in a peaceful way. Art is only where this starts.
Re: Outlook
I don't entirely disagree, but I also think AI happens to be the hot-button thing at a time when decades of Friedman economics is coming back to bite. It is perhaps emblematic of the problem, but only coincidentally provides an excellent illustration of the rot that has been taking place in our society for decades.
We have no shortage of examples of the public sector collapsing under the cost of [1]renting hospitals and [2]long-term infrastructure deals with dodgy PFI providers . The notion that renting services and buildings in perpetuity is somehow cheaper than ownership is hilarious when the same people telling us this have mortgages because they simultaneously know that growing equity in their home is better long-term than renting.
Thatcherite-Reaganomics have effectvely seen maintenance deferred past breaking point across western government estates. This siren song that the private sector will save us and do it all cheaply and efficiently has been thoroughly discredited.
Alas, governments are still locked into this thinking, with the British Chancellor under the impression that the private sector will build a new station at Euston for HS2 out of the goodness of their hearts - that they won't cut corners, and that it will represent a good value bit of infrastructure with space to grow over the next 50 years. Excuse me whilst I pick myself up off the floor laughing.
Early failures like RailTrack were written off as exceptions. But the dam is no longer crumbling - water is coming over the top. High profile problems such as school maintenance in Stoke, and shifts in policy such as the nationalisation of Sheffield Forgemasters and reacquiring the MoD Married Quarters Estate - as well as recents goings on in Scunthorpe over the weekend to secure the country's last blast furnaces. There is growing recognition that the private sector will generally just asset-strip any business you throw their way unless they're regulated into oblivion. Likewise, recognition that boards do not owe a fiduciary duty to their shareholders (Friedman's great lie that people ended up thinking was actual law!). Board members owe their duties to the company - and manipulating share prices or quarterly results to do a good turn for their shareholders are increasingly recognised as unlawful if they harm the stability and long term outlook of the business. Not that we can expect to see any sort of enforcement on this point...
Unfortunately we haven't reached the second part of the epiphany - that we fund this by taxing the tossers who have been making out like bandits (and by not caring too much about running a deficit if the spending is on infrastructure investment which increases the wealth of the nation). Inevitably we will see more cuts to social security, and to public services such as the courts and CPS - which will then be met with
[1] https://www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/healthcare/2022/05/pfi-repayments-are-costing-some-hospitals-twice-as-much-as-drugs
[2] https://schoolsweek.co.uk/pfi-expiry-warning-as-stoke-schools-hit-with-20-fee-rise/
Booo-hoo
As long as no money is made off it and it's for personal use, people should take a chill pill. Ghibli surely already have, as they have not reacted - and they shouldn't, other than to make sure Disney+ has enough streaming pipe available for all those watching queues that will be brushed off and squeezed to screens world-wide (or at least - everywhere where it's available).
The name "Ghibli" has been pushed to a number of people worldwide that is orders of magnitude larger than the amount of people who have seen a Totoro plush but don't know what it is, which in itself is orders of magnitude larger than the amount of people that know what Ghibli is. Someone should look at before/after streaming numbers, if any are available.
As for Hitler or JFK Ghibli-style - they have always been available to anyone who would think of such thing, on DeviantArt and whatnot.
I am saving my outrage for the day when ChatGPT will be able to output Schindler's List - Michael Bay style (Ghibli-style is not needed, as Death of the Fireflies was already more depressing), or Dora the Explorer Zack Snyder style, or The Fifth Element with Alexandra Daddario as LeLoo.
And on that day, my outrage will be about not having enough lives to watch them all.
Quote: "Think, if you will, of how today, instead of genuinely new movies and TV shows, all we get is endless reboots and remakes. "
That ship has already sailed, no AI needed!
Homer in the bar...
I haven't seen Homer in a bar surrounded by Ghibli style characters...
[0.003 seconds on google..]
Aaaaand there it is...
https://www.reddit.com/r/simpsonsshitposting/comments/1jmickx/this_ghibli_ai_on_socials_disgust_me/
I think it is wrong. It should pay to Ghibli studios for. every. single. image.
This one is ok though, made still in Simpson style (the image can be update at any moment, hence a description of what I saw):
https://imgflip.com/tag/homer+bar?sort=latest
If copyright were a sensible 15 or 20 years, I might find it in myself to agree with the article. But nowadays copyright is excessively long - a complete perversion of its original intent - so I have no sympathy with the case being presented.
Reboot.
Think, if you will, of how today, instead of genuinely new movies and TV shows, all we get is endless reboots and remakes. If the AI companies get their way, that will be true of art, novels, music, and – yes – movies and TV shows as well.
I just noticed in this morning's news that Max (aka HBO Really Expensive ) has announced a [1]Harry Potter TV Series .
Any further questions?
[1] https://deadline.com/2025/04/harry-potter-tv-series-john-lithgow-nick-frost-janet-mcteer-paapa-essiedu-1236367535/
Ghibli
But then everyone, I mean everyone,
Then why there is no El Reg in Ghibli style?