Everything is Ghibli

Copyright, Legality, and Training on Ghibli Works

• Strong disagreement over whether this constitutes “massive industrial-scale copyright infringement” or a legal “information analysis” use under newer Japanese rules.
• Broad consensus that style itself is not copyrightable in most jurisdictions, but many argue the infringement lies in training on copyrighted films without consent, not in the outputs’ look.
• Debate over liability when outputs are infringing: model creator, hosting platform, or the user.
• Some see this as morally wrong but legally permitted; others argue any uncompensated use of artists’ work for commercial AI is theft-in-spirit and should be stopped or paid for.
• A minority want to weaken or abolish IP entirely; others defend copyright as necessary to sustain professional art.

Miyazaki’s “Insult to Life Itself” and Its Context

• The widely shared quote comes from an older demo of a grotesque AI-driven zombie-like figure; several commenters argue it’s misapplied to image generation.
• Others insist his underlying critique—art made without lived experience, pain, or empathy—applies equally well to today’s generative models.
• There is disagreement on how much of his reaction is to the specific imagery vs to the underlying automation of animation.

Cultural Impact vs Technical Superiority

• Many echo the article’s point: Ghibli-style selfies hijacked public attention while a major Gemini upgrade got far less mainstream notice.
• Some argue “vibes beat benchmarks” for consumers and even influence where top researchers choose to work; others counter that serious practitioners switch models purely on price/performance, not memes.

Democratizing Creativity vs Devaluing Craft

• Supporters frame this as “democratizing execution”: non-artists can finally realize ideas (family portraits, game art, infographics) without years of training, similar to photography or DAWs.
• Critics say users are not “making art” but consuming auto-generated pastiche, undermining incentives to learn skills, hollowing out artistic meaning, and crowding out human careers.
• Long analogies (mountain climbing, cameras, canned music) illustrate the tension between valuing toil vs embracing convenience.

Ownership of Style and Artistic Legacy

• Some note Ghibli has long had close imitators (e.g., ex-staff studios), arguing style diffusion is a historical norm and even a mark of greatness.
• Others stress the difference between apprentices with a personal relationship/permission and a distant corporation mass-cloning a studio’s aesthetic for growth and branding.