What’s really happening is that AI models have much better memory than humans and are more precise in their output. It would be stupid to try and “dumb down” AI models because they’re better at remembering some licensed content.
In spirit, it’s still fair use.
And yet, presumably we agree that a simple file server that serves up exact copies of copyrighted work does constitute copyright infringement. What's the difference? You could also say "what's really happening is that the file server has much better memory than humans." Duh!
It sounds like you're saying that, because an AI model is a very convoluted and sometimes inaccurate way to implement a computer system that sometimes serves up exact copies of copyrighted works, it's not copyright infringement when that computer system does serve up an exact copy of a copyrighted work. I'm not quite understanding the argument.
The courts are going to rule in favor of these authors if they have a basic understanding of what’s happening.
They actually are not that different from Photoshop. Regarding providing you copyrighted materials, if you instruct it to generate something someone else already copyrighted, perhaps by using a feature meant to reproduce existing art style, you will generate an infringing work.
As for "ingesting of other copyrighted works to work optimally", you don't know what goes into designing and building Photoshop - how many third-party datasets or copyrighted assets, which get embedded deep into the application in a form that the end-user cannot discover or consume. You don't know, and it doesn't matter, because Adobe using copyrighted materials in building Photoshop does not propagate copyright claims to you the user/renter of Photoshop. Same can be argued about LLMs - copyrighted inputs from training set get sufficiently blended when turned into weights that you, the end user, should be shielded from any IP claims related to the training data.
(Yes, the last point enables "copyright laundering", but I'm not convinced this is a problem - not compared to regulatory environment trying to prevent it.)
And why is it that I pay OpenAI to generate data based off books it stole for free when I had to pay money for the same book.
I know what I am actually paying for is the model obviously but it just feels extra wrong to be paying a company for a service it’s built using pirated content.
Or you just go to the local library. Or you borrow it from a friend. Or you stand in B&N and read it in the store.
You're arguments are not great.
Photoshop now has generative AI features that leverage language models as well as training on imagery, so this is literally false when discussing Photoshop as it currently exists.
If and when someone tries to profit off an AI work that would be copyright infringement if a human had made it, it should be copyright infringement of an AI does it also.
1) I’m generally copyleft and would argue that copyright as we know it is nonsensical in the digital era and needs to be entirely rebuilt to make any sense whatsoever. And that as is it harms the commons more than it protects creators. So yeah a fileserver has always been a game changer just like the printing press was and we’re far behind as a society, legally.
2) When a computer system does reproduce copyrighted content verbatim, it’s infringement the same as if a human did it from memory. That wasn’t my point. My point was that use of copyrighted content to train the model is fair use because it’s no different from a human consuming the content and committing it to memory.
OTOH are copyright abolitionists who are offended by the notion that their freedom to copy and modify code on their own harddisk could be restricted by a mere "license", to them the notion of intellectual property is poppycock. The Strong Copylefties consider GPL a necessary evil, a way to use their enemies' tools against them, to spread their ideals of free culture amidst a corporatist hellscape.
Or it could merely be someone taking the naïve reading of "anti-copyright"
The act of getting heaps of copyrighted media for commercial use without paying clearely breaks copyright
Point being: whether a work is used commercially is not relevant. It's common that we think it is, but it's not. I first read about an LRU cache in my operating systems textbook and later used the concept in a commercial work. I have not committed copyright infringement.
This LLMs are not trained on the radio, especially not exclusively.
Edit0: Did you get access to this book that inspired you legally, as in at a library, during a class, or having bought it yourself? Was it fair use?
Because none of those look like getting heaps of copyrighted stuff for free and claiming you didn't.
If instead you stole the book - then yes, this is similar. I don't care what you do with it - can't steal it and assume you are respecting copyright.
If OpenAI rented all humanity’s media from a library and used them to train an AI model then that seems 100% ethical to me.
Now if you ask the model to recite the script to Breaking Bad and it does so perfectly and I think that grants me copyright authority over it then we’re going to have problems. It’s just not the model or tool’s problem.
How about you?
This is the point
Similar, if all the books used to train a model are available in the library, so long as someone rents the books, then they can be used to train a model.
The question was directed at you. I don’t know why you’re repeating it back to me like I didn't know what I was asking…
"(new tech) does the same thing as humans, just better" has never been a valid defense. It's like saying a human could explain the plot of a movie and draw the scenes, therefore it's okay to bring a camera into a theatre and record a movie and distribute it. Or that a human can hear a conversation and remember what was said, so there's no distinction between that and recording the conversation using a phone.
Aside: and you can bring a camera to a theater and record a movie and use it in a transformative work. And a human could still liable for damages if their hand-drawn performance of Star Wars detracted from Disney’s revenue. I’m not saying I agree, just stating tue status quo.
Training a model uses the work only to calibrate weights that govern entirely independent output. The fact that it can recall exactly in some cases is a secondary effect of the technology.
Anyway my argument is that “ability to reproduce verbatim a copyrighted work is not a valid characteristic when determining whether something consumed the work fairly”.
I agree with this. I only disagree with the assertion that AI or $newtech "doing something humans already do but better" has any legal importance. There are many existing laws which apply only when using technology. It's legal to drink and run, but not drink and drive, even though they both get you from point A to point B and cars just do it faster.
Is that human earning money by reciting the lyrics? If so, that's already not allowed. It's called a performance.
Edit: I guess even if they are SCOTUS recently decided that even transformative works can infringe if they compete commercially. So the question is not: “did the reciter make money performing”, it’s “did the reciter’s performance detract financially for the original artist”.
https://attorneyatlawmagazine.com/public-articles/intellectu...
Suppose A creates an epic poem, B does a poetry reading aka a performance of A’s poem. C records it, then plays that recording back in public. D reinterprets the poem making a new public performance. B can successfully sue C but not necessarily D if it’s sufficiently distinct. A however can potentially sue D, C, and B if none of them got the rights. [Substitute A making a painting and B making some needlepoint copy or whatever and the same principle applies.]
This is why JK Rawling got paid by the people making Harry Potter movies, she could sue if they didn’t pay. Trademarks may also be involved, but even without that if you want to make an MMORPG based on The Dresden Files or whatever be prepared to fork over cash. Unless you follow the Disney approach and use public domain works.
If I pay a babysitter to look after my kid and they sing the child a song to get them to sleep, it’s not an infringing performance.
even if you are paying ChatGPT to answer your questions, if you ask it to tell you the lyrics of a song and it does so, that is not necessarily infringing.
If I am preparing a legal brief for a copyright case, and I pay a paralegal to transcribe the lyrics of a song, and they do so and send them to me in an email… is that copyright infringement? It seems very unlikely.
I just can’t come to any position on LLMs other than that the users of the LLM have to be held responsible for how they choose to use the output, not the LLM provider.
LLMs need to be aware of the content of copyrighted works in order for them to be able to fully and comprehensively communicate with humans who are immersed in and aware of the content of copyrighted works.
But what Xerox and Sony didn't do to build their machines is pirate everything they could get their hands on as a part of the manufacturing process.
When Google crawls websites to build a search index, we don’t expect Google to pay royalties… all these analogies at least demonstrate that copyright is impossible to apply consistently and our notions about what’s fair are wholly subjective.
This is a common copyright misconception. Whether or not you earn money from it doesn't determine whether or not it's a performance of the work.
Google image search produces copyrighted and restricted use images. On clicking an image it includes a little caveat warning “Images may be subject to copyright. Learn More” - but no specific attribution or copyright claim. It’s possible if you go to the source where Google found it you’ll find the attribution there but also very likely you won’t.
If an AI tool just says ‘this might be subject to copyright’, is it all good?
Words to that effect appear, for example, in the GitHub copilot terms and conditions.
Level one programmer naïveté is just ‘bits are bits, it doesn’t matter where they come from. Bitwise identical things are indistinguishable’.
Level 2 naïveté is when you accept that bits have color depending on how they came to be arranged thus, and that there are processes that get rid of the old color on some bits, and replace it with a new one. But then you figure - like a programmer - that if you compose that process with some other process you can get rid of the colors you don’t like.
Enlightenment is realizing that the law cares not one jot for the specific processes you apply to bits or their colors but criminalizes (or at least proscribes) particular actions and cares about things like intent.
You seem to be speaking as if this somehow would cleanse the copyright status of the work in question, but it wouldn't. If you memorize a book, or a friend does, and your or your friend recite it to someone who transcribes it, the result is still copyrighted by the original entity, and if you try to sell the result, you'll be on the hook for copyright violation. This would do nothing to the copyright status whatsoever, so whatever argument you're trying to imply doesn't hold.
Which is also why machines can't create copyrighted works either. The standard example is that making a machine to generate random images doesn't copyright them, but if an artist chooses some of them because they look good then he may copyright them.
Spirit crafted by people who couldn't even begin to imagine LLMs. The proper answer here is new laws clarifying the stance of copyright and LLMs/generative models in general, not trying to reason like a 19th century person about 21st century tech.
The EU's approach is much more sensible - there is this new thing with vast ramifications, let's sit down and see what legal framework is needed for it.