I don't think that impacts legal things, however you are correct, AI art can never go away.

If the legal hammer falls on the bad side of this, corporations/people with decent sized assets are unable to use these tools without paying some sort of royalty.

>I understand why artists are depressed now

As someone who isnt an artist, I wish I could sketch something quickly, use controlnet, and have my idea turned into reality in a few seconds. Non artists are basically at the whim of other creators + the randomness of txt2img. Heck, it seems there is something I want changed with nearly every AI art picture, with actual art skills, you could fix these.