The once-prophesized future where cheap, AI-generated trash content floods out the hard work of real humans is already here, and is already taking over Facebook.
you can take a movie still-frame and make an oil painting of it and it’ll be your work.
Maybe but not usually. This is making a derivative work. Derivative have their own copyright, but permission of the original owner is required to make them. In US terms, it might be fair use, if the painter wants to, say, make an artistic statement about consumer culture. EG Mickey Mouse has shown up in South Park episodes for the purpose of satire. That’s fine.
Whether the OP describes infringement is doubtful to me. No one owns the right to make pictures of EG people next to wooden dogs. On its face, there is no infringement.
OTOH, if there’s nothing deeper behind the painting, then it’s just unlicensed merch. EG, Disney has come down on day care centers for using their IP.
I’m not sure if it affects your larger point, but I suspect the problem with day care centers is not that they’re copying a specific work, but that they’re using characters that Disney owns.
True, I chose a very bad example there and muddied the waters.
Normally, trademarks aren’t so bad, relatively speaking. As long as there’s no confusion about who is responsible for the product, and there’s no defamation, you should be able to use those pretty freely. When “trademark dilution” comes into play, it can get onerous, though.
Maybe but not usually. This is making a derivative work. Derivative have their own copyright, but permission of the original owner is required to make them. In US terms, it might be fair use, if the painter wants to, say, make an artistic statement about consumer culture. EG Mickey Mouse has shown up in South Park episodes for the purpose of satire. That’s fine.
OTOH, if there’s nothing deeper behind the painting, then it’s just unlicensed merch. EG, Disney has come down on day care centers for using their IP.
Whether the OP describes infringement is doubtful to me. No one owns the right to make pictures of EG people next to wooden dogs. On its face, there is no infringement.
Mickey Mouse and various other Disney stuff is trademarked which is a whole another can of worms.
I’m not sure if it affects your larger point, but I suspect the problem with day care centers is not that they’re copying a specific work, but that they’re using characters that Disney owns.
True, I chose a very bad example there and muddied the waters.
Normally, trademarks aren’t so bad, relatively speaking. As long as there’s no confusion about who is responsible for the product, and there’s no defamation, you should be able to use those pretty freely. When “trademark dilution” comes into play, it can get onerous, though.
There’s no difference from s copyright perspective