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Comment by bink | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting to compare two scenarios. The first is if you feed an LLM solely the works of a famous current author, say J.K Rowling, and ask it to create a new work in the style of her franchise.

The second is if you include all of her works but also throw in every other book written in the last several years and ask it to create a work in the style of her franchise.

Is the latter somehow "better" than the former? I'd personally consider the former to be a clear case of copyright violation while with the latter we don't really have a way of knowing how much of her previous works were included. I'd still lean towards the latter being a copyright violation, and it's where I think we are currently with services like ChatGPT.

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Replace LLM with 'young author'.

If you feed a 'young author' the works of a famous current author, E.G. Rowling, and ask them to write a new work in the style of that reference author...

Or if you include the current N 'Best Sellers' and ask them to write whatever's popular.

I'm not so convinced creativity is any more magical than a naturally evolved and refined version of what computers are starting to approach. Humans naturally add far more background, results filtering, and implicit selection parameters (personal biases / preferences).

Maybe the correct line is somewhere around; tracing (direct copying) is bad, but freehand (from memory) is OK. However computers inherently have more perfect memory than humans; how precise is the detail from the source work? Is there a meaningful threshold where the memory of a work has decayed from a representation of the source work?

I have a question along the similar lines. Let's extend your analogy. Someone read all J.K Rowling books and created a work in that style. Would that be a copyright violation? I'm assuming not.

In that case, is that difference here that it's not humanely possible to train on world's information compared to a single human getting inspired by specific works. And hence an algo doing that is violation?

> Would that be a copyright violation?

Quite possibly, it depends on what specifically is meant by style and the degree to which the new work is transformative.

Style is not copyrightable.

Again depends on what is meant by style. Another post in this thread suggested plot elements as part of style Aka “a wizardry school for preteens.”

Sharing a few surface levels elements like that is fine, but if a one page description could equally well be used to describe both works you’re well over the line.

> if a one page description could equally well be used to describe both works

lots of disney animations could've been described this way. And it's because they took storylines from well known folk tales and adapted it.

the idea of a teen wizard/witch going to a special school, fighting a villain, etc, doesn't seem to be copyrightable. While the russian ripoff version seems very similar and skirt the line between a copy and an original work, there's plenty of room where such a story could've been told and not be an infringement.

Disney would be infringing on copyright except the works are in the public domain so it doesn’t matter. The Russian example was also ruled to be copyright infringement even though the main character was a girl and various other aspects of the story didn’t exactly match up.

How about Tonya Grotter, the Russian Harry Potter?

https://www.amazon.com/Tanya-Grotter-i-pensne-Noya/dp/569984...

You can’t copyright the idea of a wizardry school for preteens. You can’t copyright a style.

You can definitely trademark your own name.

Edit: It was judged as copyright infringement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanya_Grotter

A wizardry school for preteens isn’t on its own particularly unusual. But the question becomes how similar would the works be if the original was never published. You aren’t in the clear of a few paragraph book summery would apply equally well to both works. Barring the normal exceptions, Spaceballs is making reference to other works not just imitating them.

That Russian book series is a direct knock-off. Even the font looks similar.

It’s also not a copyright violation because the question of how similar it is to the idea of Harry Potter is irrelevant with regards to copyright.

If it was too similar and it was actively confusing consumers then it would be an issue of trademark.

By making the protagonist a girl without glasses it does enough to differentiate itself that no reasonable confusion would ensue.

As long as the books don’t contain verbatim copies of text from Harry Potter they are non-infringing!

Except the book you’re referring to was infringing.

“Despite its reputation in Russia and the many books it has spawned, the series is not available in English translation, because of the first book having been judged a breach of copyright.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanya_Grotter

So, respectfully you are simply mistaken.

Doh, I picked one that flew too close to the sun!

That doesn’t mean I am incorrect about style not being copyrightable.

Again depends on what is meant by style…

Anyway, many Russian works would be considered copyright infringement in other countries. The country however has minimal interest in respecting foreign copyrights. So if that’s your benchmark I can see why you might assume more leeway than actually exists.

I have two young children and while I was conversing with you I was cooking them dinner and getting them ready for bed.

Otherwise I would have done the bare minimum of reading the Wikipedia entry on the book. All I did was Google for “Harry Potter knockoff”, saw that the book was on Amazon, and thought that was enough.

Reading the Wikipedia article it is clear that this series took much more than just the idea of a wizardry school and copied verbatim plot elements. It was not the right example to use.

Here’s what I mean by style. Reggae music. How different is one reggae song from another? What about when a reggae musician sells the rights to one song and then write another song in their own style? Are they infringing on the previous work they just sold to a music publisher?

Here’s what happened when John Fogerty was sued for sounding like John Fogerty:

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/27501/time-john-fogerty-...

This logic seemed pretty sound to the jury. It only took two hours of deliberation for the jury to determine that the two songs didn’t meet the legal standard of being “substantially similar” that would have constituted copyright infringement. The Fogerty camp let out a collective “huzzah!”

Winning here doesn’t actually mean style across all art is safe just safe in that specific instance:

The case was litigated rather than being thrown out because style is legally recognized as falling under copyright. “In 1993 the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit shot down that appeal, though, on the same grounds—the original suit had been neither frivolous nor brought in bad faith.”

The Supreme Court didn’t disagree, they ruled on a different matter.

Ok, so then back at you:

That Ms. Rowling and her publisher won doesn’t mean that style is covered by copyright either. It could just mean they had a more expensive legal team.

One of the key elements of copyright is this doctrine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea%E2%80%93expression_distin...

An adventure novel provides an illustration of the concept. Copyright may subsist in the work as a whole, in the particular story or characters involved, or in any artwork contained in the book, but generally not in the idea or genre of the story.

Also, let’s take a step back. What do you think is a fair outcome, that once John Fogerty sold the rights to one CCR song that he is no longer able to write music? Or that he needed to learn to write and play an entirely new genre?

Does the first music publisher to buy a reggae song now own the rights to every single reggae song produced after?

What are you arguing for?

I am not arguing for anything, just describing the system as it exists.

> Or that he needed to learn to write and play an entirely new genre?

As the court case you mentioned shows genre isn’t specific enough to be problematic. I can’t draw a clear line in the sand and say this is safe because ultimately that’s up to the courts to determine in each instance. But, it is important to understand the general areas that are risky.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharrell_Williams_v._Bridgepor...

Appellate Court Judge Jacqueline Nguyen wrote a dissenting opinion: “that the judgement allows for protection over musical style”

That doesn’t mean “style” is enough to lose a copyright case, but shows such things are potentially problematic.

All it shows is that rights-holders with a large legal war chest can win specific cases. There is not a single musician or songwriter that I have met who wasn’t appalled by the Robin Thicke ruling. Luckily history didn’t repeat itself with Ed Sheeran.

Here's a concise explanation of why this was a terrible ruling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1COYitP8hI

If the entire music industry operated in such a manner it would suffocate creativity.

I think what you’re really trying to do is win an argument that supports your opinions on LLMs.

Generally speaking, the Robin Thicke case was an aberration. If it was the norm then the music industry would look incredibly different. As in, there wouldn’t be a music industry.

We can go back and forth cherry-picking court cases or we can discuss the doctrines that courts are encouraged to follow, like the idea-expression distinction.

An overwhelming number of copyright cases have been decided based on this doctrine! It is disingenuous to suggest otherwise!

I understand your perspective, but I think you’re still missing my point.

Winning a court case isn’t safe, getting the court case thrown out before it needs to be litigated is. You really don’t want to be in a position where someone with deep pockets can make a reasonable argument for infringement.

The question of LLM’s is really secondary. It’s likely they could win, but that in itself is very dangerous territory.

So to be safe a songwriter should just quit music, just as Ed Sheeran said he would do if he lost his case… gotcha.

That’s clearly not what I said. To be a safe songwriter, don’t imitate other works. The lines are actually pretty gentle in practice as long as you avoid actively copying from other works.

Go find a Black Keys song that isn’t playing the same blues rock riffs that guitarists have been imitating for the last 70 years!

What about a drum pattern like a four-on-the-floor disco beat? What about entire genres of electronic dance music?

What about chord progressions? Should songwriters avoid the I-IV-V? Do you know how many songs are ii-vi-V-I?

What about literally any classic country song?

Do The Strokes owe the band Television royalties for imitating their driving 8th note, interwoven guitar riffs?

Here's a good conversation around the roots of an aphorism typically attributed to Picasso, "good artists copy, great artists steal.":

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/

Are you a songwriter or a musician? If so, how can you make music without imitating any number of factors? Do you make your own instruments? Do you have your own harmonic system with your own scales?

I can't think of any creed that is more destined to result in terrible art than "playing it safe"!

EDIT: Oh, "don't imitate anyone" is a close second! The one-two punch of playing it safe and not imitating anyone is just, I mean, I can't even...

Look, if you can find several independent examples of something then no you’re not imitating someone specific. But, if out of millions of songs there only one person who did X don’t assuming copying X is fine.

The line isn’t anywhere close to the hyperbole you and many other people are bringing up. Don’t copy other peoples work isn’t some unrealistic burden, it’s the basic foundation of copyright.

To anyone else who might come across this discussion and you make or want to make art, please don’t take this person’s advice.

I am a songwriter and a recording artist. I and every other musician I’ve ever worked with have conversed in the language of our predecessors. We constantly listen to other records while making our own and borrow drum patterns, guitar sounds, chord progressions… just as all of our favorite musicians did before us.

If you don’t do this and you go off on some quest for pure originality, you are engaged in pure narcissism and you will make terrible art.

Show me your favorite record and I can break down where every single element of every single song came from.

I'm going to guess that you have basically no experience making music. Here's just a couple of the records I've made:

https://williamcotton.bandcamp.com/album/melencolia-i

https://willieandallie.bandcamp.com/album/between-a-rock-and...

Again absolute originality isn’t the metric any more than we expect people to write using the English alphabet but not reusing any existing words.

However, your actual defense is a lack of serious earnings. If you habitually copy significant portions of your work don’t assume it’s actually legal rather than simply not worth suing over.

If you’re concerned about actual credentials my connection to this stuff is through major motion pictures which means serious paranoia around IP. They are actually concerned about being sued and take actual precautions.

I don’t think you understand anything about writing or recording music. Everyone copies and imitates. This Robin Thicke lawsuit spooked so many working musicians because they all work like that. Pharrell Williams isn’t some hack. He’s a genius hit machine. His “reverse engineering” of the drum track Gaye’s drum track is part and parcel of the creative process. It is absolutely absurd that they were found liable. It certainly gave the Gaye family the gall to sue Ed Sheeran for using the same chord progression…

Have a listen to my albums and you can judge for yourself how much copyright infringement I’m guilt of…

It's an interesting thought experiment but if the goal is to decide whether we should allow these types of AIs to be used for commercial purposes I think it's more helpful to ask a different question.

If we had these LLMs 30 years ago would J.K Rowling's books ever have existed?

Do you have a definitive answer to that question? Can you point to anyone who does?

All your question does is give people an excuse to make up alternate history in order to argue whichever side of the argument they already believe. It serves little purpose in the dialogue of defining AI and human creativity.

You'd probably have 100+ equivalent works, 10 better works, and 100,000 inferior works.

While technologically unavailable (and maybe intractable) I've an impulse to say that in theory we could do something a little like Differential Privacy, where we look at the likelihood you got your output with the model you have vs the version of your model trained with (say) Rowling's work excluded.

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