AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law • Hacker News Board

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#101

Post by lelanthran » Sun, Jan 22, 2023, 6:22 AM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #50

phoe-krk wrote: post #14

> But the latest and greatest software trend–generative AI–is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law. About time. > If the AI industry is to survive, we need a clear legal rule that neural networks, and the outputs they produce, are not presumed to be copies of the data used to train them. But they are compressed lossy copies of all that data! That's the whole point of noise/denoise functions that neural ne…

> But they are compressed lossy copies of all that data! Sounds similar to, for instance, songs written by people who have heard other songs. I wouldn’t expect legal cases concerning AI-generated works to be any simpler than legal cases concerning the difference between a songwriter violating the IP of another songwriter or simply being inspired by another song.

Sometimes a songwriter violates copyright on their own song, without realising it.

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#102

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 22, 2023, 6:25 AM UTC

Taywee wrote: post #56

CuriouslyC wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to legislate model training is impossible and stupid. At worst some copyright holders will sue a company because a model is biased and produces close-enough replicas of something under copyright. Model builders will respond by penalizing models that reproduce copyright images too closely, and better curating data sets to avoid bias, at which point the issue will be moot.

I don't want anybody to feed any of my work into a model at all without following all the terms of the licenses of my work. If my work is used to generate, via a computer program, a derived output, then you need to follow my licenses. People keep pretending that AI is the exact same thing as a human learning, but it's really a lot more like a fancy compiler with highly non-deterministic output. AI is not a human.

[deleted]

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#103

Post by coeneedell » Sun, Jan 22, 2023, 6:30 AM UTC

phoe-krk wrote: post #30

thewakalix wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you using the word “copy”? It doesn’t seem to match the standard meaning. For instance, most people would not consider a brief summary of a movie’s plot to be a “copy” of that movie, or protected under copyright.

If you have an image, then train a neural network on that image, then use the neural network to reconstruct that image in detail, then the NN by definition contains enough information used to reconstruct that image - hence, a copy. With NNs trained on thousands or millions of data entries, this concept becomes fuzzy in the same way as you described - a short summary likely wouldn't be considered a copy, just like a 6…

The thing is, the “good” models can’t reconstruct the image in detail. It’s considered a sign of “overfitting” if you reconstruct the input exactly. Even if you put the exact query that was associated with that image, you’ll get the weighted average (feature-wise) image associated with the query. This applies to all like machine learning models without loss of generality.

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#104

Post by echelon » Sun, Jan 22, 2023, 6:34 AM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #98

echelon wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or maybe, get this, how about people running AI only feed them information that they legally have the right to use? How is it a bad thing that somebody can't legally steal other peoples' work without their permission because of pesky copyright? On one extreme: "Unless you pay your annual Disney fee for having watched Disney films in early childhood, you will need to return your brain to us for processing. Disney wa…

Very curious that so many people adopted this position exactly when it became feasible for giant corporations to profit by mass producing laundered copyrighted works!

Those wanting AI to respect copyright are going to find that the big players will navigate copyright just fine. It's the small players that won't. They're advocating for institutional control over AI.

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#105

Post by jeroenhd » Sun, Jan 22, 2023, 6:34 AM UTC

There's no part of AI that is being swallowed up by copyright. AI companies can ask for permission if they want to train their models on other people's works. It's not that hard, various image hosting sites have already added an opt-in/opt-out toggle to their services. Sites might even get away with using this stuff as compensation for free hosting.

The fact of the matter is that the AI companies don't want to ask for permission, because people will say no. Or worse, ask for attribution or even payment. There is plenty of copyright free/public domain material out there, but what the customers of AI people want isn't available under those terms.

The code to train an AI is not enough to make a product and these people have nothing to add themselves, so they take what others made and use that to make a profit. They can make or pay for their own paintings, their own pictures, their own music, but that would require putting in too much work or paying too much money.

It's very possible that a judge will rule that AI models do not violate copyright. If that is the case, I hope new legislation will correct that oversight very quickly.

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#106

Post by scheeseman486 » Sun, Jan 22, 2023, 6:35 AM UTC

jeroenhd wrote: post #105

There's no part of AI that is being swallowed up by copyright. AI companies can ask for permission if they want to train their models on other people's works. It's not that hard, various image hosting sites have already added an opt-in/opt-out toggle to their services. Sites might even get away with using this stuff as compensation for free hosting. The fact of the matter is that the AI companies don't want to ask fo…

The outcome you want will inevitably lead to entrenched intellectual property holders having an effective monopoly on the best AI tools.

You know that Stable Diffusion lawsuit? Go check who the lawyers behind that work for; Disney wants that same outcome.

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#107

Post by greysphere » Sun, Jan 22, 2023, 6:36 AM UTC

Krasnol wrote: post #65

phoe-krk wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have an image, then train a neural network on that image, then use the neural network to reconstruct that image in detail, then the NN by definition contains enough information used to reconstruct that image - hence, a copy. With NNs trained on thousands or millions of data entries, this concept becomes fuzzy in the same way as you described - a short summary likely wouldn't be considered a copy, just like a 6…

> If you have an image, then train a neural network on that image, then use the neural network to reconstruct that image in detail I haven't seen that happening since the discussion started. Most of the complains I saw aimed at things like "it stole my style" not "it reproduced my art". Do you have any examples?

It's more, 'this product is profiting from my labor without my consent (ie paying me).'

In music you aren't allowed to use the same notes, even if you played them on a trumpet with a swing beat, while the source was on the piano very staccato.

While we don't have the same vocabulary for art, it's not unreasonable to expect similar protections.

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#108

Post by jimbo9991 » Sun, Jan 22, 2023, 6:37 AM UTC

kragen wrote: post #12

maybe one country or another will outlaw generative ai or ai art or media synthesis or whatever it ends up being called, but presumably they'll be left behind by rapid cultural and technical development in whatever countries don't the cat is out of the bag, the worms are out of the can, the feathers have blown away in the wind these developments seem very likely to be central to programming, all other kinds of engine…

I'm still troubled by some of the implications of the technology and think it would be a good idea to have some countries take a hard Luddite stance against AI, but that doesn't mean I think you are wrong. I have trouble with the assumption that what is good for efficiency and reducing human labor is necessarily good for us, but it does imply those that don't go along with the efficiency increases will be destroyed by those that do.

With generative AI I'm mostly concerned with what it will do to the next generation of artists. I don't think I would have ever had the motivation to pursue music if it had been possible to replicate perfectly with AI. I'm immensely thankful I got that opportunity and so I want the next generation to get it as well.

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#109

Post by threeseed » Sun, Jan 22, 2023, 6:37 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #79

Taywee wrote: post #49

> If the AI industry is to survive, we need a clear legal rule that neural networks, and the outputs they produce, are not presumed to be copies of the data used to train them. Otherwise, the entire industry will be plagued with lawsuits that will stifle innovation and only enrich plaintiff’s lawyers Or maybe, get this, how about people running AI only feed them information that they legally have the right to use? Ho…

As an extension of this, only allow children to look at works they purchased publication rights to, lest their creative output becomes influenced by a different person's style.

I have no idea what your point is here.

These AI companies are making serious amounts of money (OpenAI is valued in tens of billions) on the back of artists who never gave permission for their work to be used in this way.

If a child took an artist's work, copied it and made significant amounts of money from selling it then yes they should be within the purview of copyright law.

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#110

Post by sdenton4 » Sun, Jan 22, 2023, 6:38 AM UTC

Groxx wrote: post #93

scarmig wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you copied a famous piece of art from memory... That'd be a copyright violation.

Yeah, I think this is the crux of the issue that people keep glossing over when claiming it's not a true reproduction. Drawing Coca Cola's logo from memory by hand and slapping it on your product is still copyright infringement, even if it isn't an image Coca Cola has ever produced. In that sense it doesn't matter at all if it's AI or human - the production and subsequent distribution for profit of a copyrighted thin…

well, you get five demerits as the coca cola logo is a trademark, covered by a whole other branch of IP law...