> the lack of public comment on this
GitHub's CEO posted this:
> In general: (1) training ML systems on public data is fair use (2) the output belongs to the operator, just like with a compiler.
GitHub's CEO posted this:
> In general: (1) training ML systems on public data is fair use (2) the output belongs to the operator, just like with a compiler.
Based on his assertion, can I take a copy of windows (or github for that matter) and train an ML on it to replicate its behavior (assuming I have such a powerful AI)? It seems to me that is essentially what follows. In fact I'd argue that this is more akin to clean-room reverse engineering.
It also seems to fly in the face of case law for using soundsnippets in songs. Isn't what the model is doing really just a sophisticated algorithmic rearrangement of samples?
But the moment I redistribute (1) the model and that (2) model reproduces the original copyrighted training data that is an obvious violation.
My clipboard is an ML model that trains on exactly one sample at a time. Ctrl + C is a hotkey for doing a training run on currently highlighted data, and Ctrl + V is a hotkey for generating output from the previous run.
Second, code is not data, it is a copyright-protected creative work.
It’s really hard not to see this as him erasing the rights of individual developers for his own benefit.
IANAL. I don't know if that distinction exists in law. But it doesn't make sense to me. How do you distinguish code from data? Isn't the whole point of code that it is treated (by the machine) as both code and data?
Suppose I make a "copyright-protected creative work", for example a melody, and then encode that as a database table?
Suppose I have a list of population statistics? Suppose those population statistics have been ingeniously contrived (e.g. by encoding, ordering or whatever), so that given the right interpreter or compiler, the logic of a copyright software work can be replicated exactly, using the list as code?
It's hard to imagine a list of statistics that can be read by a human as easily as he can read code; but that doesn't matter. It's hard to read machine-code too; but copying machine-code without permission is infringing.
It doesn't help that copyright law has drifted over the years, and that despite international conventions, the law varies from place to place. USA and EU see copyright differently. Commenters here are not declaring whose copyright law they are referring to.
It does. Data is not copyright-able but source code is. There is so much legal precedence around this it’s nearly impossible to contest.
Calling code data is a way to minimize its status as a copyright protected creative work, so as to defend ignoring the protections it has under the law.
What do you think the 'P' in GPL stands for?
Regardless:
1) You don't need a license to look at things. Copyrights reserve very specific rights: Reproduction, creating derivative works, distribution (limited to first sale), performance, display, and in some cases, transmission
2) And data can't be copyrighted.
US IP law is based on a clause in the US Constitution, and is fundamentally bounded in reach.
While correct, using protected works in an AI model requires some form of reproduction. In Canada, even the loading of information into RAM is considered a reproduction (although such reproductions may be excluded from infringement under s. 30.71 of the Copyright Act, RSC 1985, c C-42).
> 2) And data can't be copyrighted.
True, but data is often an abstraction of other expressions that are protected by copyright. Additionally, compilations of data and database structures attract different protections in various jurisdictions. E.g. sui generis database rights in the EU.
What do you think the 'L' in GPL stands for?
GPL code ≠ public data
I'm not going to engage in a flame war here. I clearly laid out references to relevant parts of the law: (1) What a license is and is not needed for under US copyright law (2) purpose of the GPL, and (3) distinction between copyright and data rights.
If you have any sort of citation for this nonsense, please post it. Otherwise, I'm checking out here.
When you say that a computer program "looks" at my data, because my code is for public, it means that the owner of the computer program use my code to make derivative work without obeying of my license, which is explicitly forbidden by copyright law.
For example, you cannot pretend that your smartphone is just looking at a copyrighted film in a cinema. Nobody will ever bother to ask your smartphone, what it's doing. Stop pretending that your smartphone can "look at data".
Not sure I understand what fair use means in this context though and I can't believe that it's an argument that works for every conceivable model.