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Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

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Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#91

Post by Spivak »

jtbayly wrote: post #80
yummypaint wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should not be different than a human artist producing something after looking at other media. The purpose of copyright is supposed to be to allow people to profit from their works by prohibiting their distribution by others. It seems to me the question of whether one work is a copy of another would be made on the basis of the works themselves, and should be independent of who the artists were. There is also a right t…

In the eyes of the law it might not be different, but in the practical upshot it is. Running the program may well produce a copyright-violating image, and you'd never know. An artist would have a much harder time doing that without knowing he was doing it. So then somebody sues you for using their copyrighted work and shows you their original, and you're left scratching your head, pointing at the computer.

If you put copyrighted works into the NN training data then only copyrighted works will come out. The NN itself would be a derivative work and a copyright violation as well without the appropriate licenses.

If you don't put copyrighted works into the NN but then feed a copyrighted work to it as an input the result is still copyrighted.

I really don't find this that complicated. NN's having a license that is a composite of the software license and the licenses of the training data feels super natural.

See: What color are your bits? https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#92

Post by jtbayly »

Spivak wrote: post #91
jtbayly wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the eyes of the law it might not be different, but in the practical upshot it is. Running the program may well produce a copyright-violating image, and you'd never know. An artist would have a much harder time doing that without knowing he was doing it. So then somebody sues you for using their copyrighted work and shows you their original, and you're left scratching your head, pointing at the computer.

If you put copyrighted works into the NN training data then only copyrighted works will come out. The NN itself would be a derivative work and a copyright violation as well without the appropriate licenses. If you don't put copyrighted works into the NN but then feed a copyrighted work to it as an input the result is still copyrighted. I really don't find this that complicated. NN's having a license that is a composi…

> The NN itself would be a derivative work and a copyright violation as well without the appropriate licenses.

This seems reasonable at first, but not the more I think about it. Copyright is not like an AGPL software license that claims/poisons everything it touches.

The NN is not an artistic work and probably should not be considered a derivative work any more than your brain or memory of a copyrighted work should be considered a derivative work. Likewise, the outputted work of a NN is not automatically a derivative work any more than the work of an artist that has been inspired by other artists' copyrighted content is. That's just not how copyright works.

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#93

Post by dwohnitmok »

jihadjihad wrote: post #82
Mizza wrote: post #29

I once got a DMCA takedown request (well, Wikipedia did because of my edit) from Texas Instruments for the following numbers: p = B709D3A0CD2FEC08EAFCCF540D8A100BB38E5E091D646ADB7B14D021096FFCD q = B7207BD184E0B5A0B89832AA68849B29EDFB03FBA2E8917B176504F08A96246CB d = 4D0534BA8BB2BFA0740BFB6562E843C7EC7A58AE351CE11D43438CA239DD9927 6CD125FEBAEE5D2696579FA3A3958FF4FC54C685EAA91723BC8888F292947BA1 which can be used to s…

Wow, that's crazy! It is a wild concept that certain numbers could be deemed "illegal" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number

Any piece of data can be represented as a single number. In the limit your entire computer is a single number (all those 0s and 1s can either be interpreted as separate numbers or as one gigantic number).

If any data is ever illegal then by association certain numbers are also illegal.

EDIT: The Wikipedia article points this out.

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#94

Post by ryukafalz »

cushychicken wrote: post #74
ryukafalz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand hardware vendors not actively working with you on designs unless you're buying in volume. That's fine, they're a business, they have to make money and not lose money. What I don't understand about the hardware industry is the extent to which they actively restrict access to information on how their product works unless you're buying in volume. Why is it necessary to have layers of NDAs on a product d…

Why is it necessary to have layers of NDAs on a product datasheet? Many of the people who might write software to integrate with some hardware are not the people manufacturing high-volume products based on it! Because obscuring the use case and the customer of a cutting edge chip is a semiconductor company's most reasonable moat these days. If you telegraph what big customers are buying by freely sharing your most cu…

>Software is a commodity that TI distributes as a compliment to the thing that actually makes them money, which is selling chips. ... For processors and peripherals that require drivers, it's a cost of doing business for them - not an enabling feature.

It's a cost of doing business that would be ameliorated by telling people how to use the product, because then they're not the only ones able to do the work. I'll use Linux drivers again as an example: I can only imagine the money it must cost for these SoC manufacturers to keep their kernel forks with binary blob drivers up to date with mainline Linux, and the security vulnerabilities that go unpatched in their products when they don't. That's money that Intel and AMD just don't have to spend; they contribute to the kernel, yes, but they're far from the only ones doing the work.

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#95

Post by dbuder »

welterde wrote: post #83
cushychicken wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it necessary to have layers of NDAs on a product datasheet? Many of the people who might write software to integrate with some hardware are not the people manufacturing high-volume products based on it! Because obscuring the use case and the customer of a cutting edge chip is a semiconductor company's most reasonable moat these days. If you telegraph what big customers are buying by freely sharing your most cu…

Don't you loose out on potential customers though? Since they will also be unaware it exists.

The big customers are the only ones who matter. They are all like this. The DMCA would have been the pearl clutching lawyers. I used to think it was short sighted but I'm not so sure anymore, I think they could all be better to their customers and their firmware examples etc could be multiple orders of magnitude better and it wouldn't hurt the bottom line.

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#96

Post by dragonwriter »

jtbayly wrote: post #92
Spivak wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you put copyrighted works into the NN training data then only copyrighted works will come out. The NN itself would be a derivative work and a copyright violation as well without the appropriate licenses. If you don't put copyrighted works into the NN but then feed a copyrighted work to it as an input the result is still copyrighted. I really don't find this that complicated. NN's having a license that is a composi…

> The NN itself would be a derivative work and a copyright violation as well without the appropriate licenses. This seems reasonable at first, but not the more I think about it. Copyright is not like an AGPL software license that claims/poisons everything it touches. The NN is not an artistic work and probably should not be considered a derivative work any more than your brain or memory of a copyrighted work should b…

> Copyright is not like an AGPL software license that claims/poisons everything it touches.

Obviously, it is, since the only mechanism copyleft licenses have to claim/poison things the licensed material “touches” is the copyright doctrine of derivative works, and the licensable exclusive rights the original work’s copyright owner has to create derivative works.

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#97

Post by jtbayly »

dragonwriter wrote: post #96
jtbayly wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The NN itself would be a derivative work and a copyright violation as well without the appropriate licenses. This seems reasonable at first, but not the more I think about it. Copyright is not like an AGPL software license that claims/poisons everything it touches. The NN is not an artistic work and probably should not be considered a derivative work any more than your brain or memory of a copyrighted work should b…

> Copyright is not like an AGPL software license that claims/poisons everything it touches. Obviously, it is, since the only mechanism copyleft licenses have to claim/poison things the licensed material “touches” is the copyright doctrine of derivative works, and the licensable exclusive rights the original work’s copyright owner has to create derivative works.

I don't think that's quite right. They can prohibit your use of the program unless you agree to and follow the rules they establish. They are able to do that prohibition using copyright, but isn't it proof that copyright doesn't necessarily do that the fact that there are other very different licenses?

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#98

Post by minimuffins »

ballenf wrote: post #40
b1ackb0x wrote: post #7

I don’t understand why chipmakers seem to always restrict access to documentation on chips. Their competitors will get it anyway. This only creates more problems for small developers.

Stabbing a bit in the dark, but maybe TI wants to prevent a competitor from being to say "we didn't steal anything from you, we got all this info from sites that you were perfectly happy to let continue to operate freely". The legal departments within companies have very, very different measures of success than that of just about anyone else. If you have weak company leadership, legal will start to drive policy more…

> If you have weak company leadership, legal will start to drive policy more than it should.

That's a really interesting dynamic I have never experienced or heard of. Explains a lot! Do you know other examples?

(ed. clarify which part I wanted examples for)

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#99

Post by h_anna_h »

jihadjihad wrote: post #82
Mizza wrote: post #29

I once got a DMCA takedown request (well, Wikipedia did because of my edit) from Texas Instruments for the following numbers: p = B709D3A0CD2FEC08EAFCCF540D8A100BB38E5E091D646ADB7B14D021096FFCD q = B7207BD184E0B5A0B89832AA68849B29EDFB03FBA2E8917B176504F08A96246CB d = 4D0534BA8BB2BFA0740BFB6562E843C7EC7A58AE351CE11D43438CA239DD9927 6CD125FEBAEE5D2696579FA3A3958FF4FC54C685EAA91723BC8888F292947BA1 which can be used to s…

Wow, that's crazy! It is a wild concept that certain numbers could be deemed "illegal" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number

child porn images are numbers

Re: Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets

#100

Post by minimuffins »

yarcob wrote: post #41

I'm trying to come up with an explanation why TI would do that. The only explanation I can come up with is that TI wants a closer relationship with their customers. They don't want to be a commodity chip producer. When distributors host the datasheets, then customers would probably never visit TIs website, and just compare chips from multiple vendors on the distributors website. Customers are just going to pick the c…

> I'm trying to come up with an explanation why TI would do that.

When I hear these kind of stories I always wonder this too. Like, who was allowed to turn this into a company policy and why on earth did they think it worth their time? Usually something that would seem to harm the public image and goodwill of the firm.

This speculation in this comment seems pretty convincing imo:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25683856

(mainly the part about legal getting into the driver seat in a semi-fossilized sort of company like TI).

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