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Comment by roywiggins | Hacker News Reader

What if I train an AI model on exactly one copyrighted work and all it does it spit that work back out?

eg if I upload Marvels_Avengers.mkv.onnx and it reliably reproduces the original (after all, it's just a fact that the first byte of the original file is OxF0, etc)

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A work that is “substantially similar” to a copyrighted work infringes that work, under US law, no matter how it was produced. (Note: Some exceptions apply and you have to read a lot of cases to get an idea of what courts find “substantially similar” .)

> no matter how it was produced

IIRC, this is wrong. Independent creation is a valid (but almost impossible to prove) defense in US copyright law.

This example is not an independent creation, but your reasoning seems wrong.

I wrote "some exceptions apply" to try to avoid getting into the weeds, but yes, independent creation is an exception. Other exceptions include out-of-term works, public domain, Mise-en-scène (e.g., stock characters), fair use (a huge can of worms), etc.

If the sole purpose of your model is to copy a work, then that's copyright infringement.

Oh, in this case, the model can either reproduce the work exactly, or it can play tic-tac-toe depending on how you prompt it.

We can change "sole purpose" to "primary purpose", and I'd argue something that happens 50% of the time counts as a primary purpose.

If the sole purpose of your model is to copy a work, then there would be far easier, cheaper and more reliable techniques to achieve that.

Judge the output, not the system.

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