There seems to be a very strong argument that even if (big ‘if’) AI models infringe copyright it is a transformative fair use.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/fair-use-what-transf...
AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law
211–220 of 705 posts
Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law
#212I think the underlying question is one of "degrees of derivation". There's a famous Carl Sagan quote: “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe” which hints at the problem: Nothing is created in a vacuum. Let's compare what Stable Diffusion does with what Franz von Holzhausen, head of design at Tesla, does. Franz didn't come into existence out of nothing and knew how to design…
I can't help but feel like you're slightly anthropomorphising an algorithm. It's a really damn cool and powerful algorithm, don't get me wrong, but it's still not a person. At the end of the day, it's also not the algorithm "benefiting" from it, but the corporation using the algorithm.
It's also a bit hypocritical, because if you did the same thing to them as a human (in this example let's say be a Tesla copycat) you'd likely be sued into the ground because there's probably a patent somewhere in there.
Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law
#213> 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…
The EU has a copyright exemption for noncommercial model training, and at least the UK is changing that to even allow commercial model training, without even an opt-out required. So it appears they legally have the right to use anything.
Why should you want a model designed to know all human knowledge to know only public-domain knowledge?
Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law
#214There'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…
It’s strange to me that there’s a lot of overlap between people who think AI training should require explicit consent for every piece of training data, and people who think copyright and patents are insanely restrictive in the music/movies/literature/software world. It’s also worrying that requiring consent to train an AI model will inevitably lead to requiring consent to make handmade art that’s a little too similar…
I'm anti intellectual property, but as long as people have to abide by it, I think AI has to, too. Being anti intellectual property doesn't mean I'm in favor of corporations stealing open source code, it means I want the law changed.
Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law
#215maybe 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…
It's surprising that so many people on this site side with the Luddites. The back pressure ML is generating is at this point too strong for anything to make any difference. Anyone who attempts to stop it will just be practicing self-sabotage.
It's surprising that so many people on this site side with the Luddites
This is too reductive.
The back pressure ML is generating is at this point too strong for anything to make any difference.
This is wrong, regulation can make a difference.
Anyone who attempts to stop it will just be practicing self-sabotage.
This is a prospect worth evaluating organically. Learning the potential is much different from accepting self-fulfilling prophecies.
Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law
#216There'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…
AI companies can ask for permission if they want to train their models on other people's works Do you ask for permission when you train your mind on copyrighted books? Or observe paintings? Or listen to music? Do you ask for permission when you get new ideas from HN that aren't your own? Humans are constantly ingesting gobs of "copyrighted" insights that they eventually remix into their own creations without necessar…
thanks for sending your strawman in to do battle with his strawman.
you don't need permission to train on books, but you do need to buy the books or take them from the library one at a time.
"training" these machines so far is not like human learning as becomes apparent when they spit out source code that mirrors individual repositories. And you know that humans are required to both remix their own creations and follow copyright law at thbowe same time, and also adhere to the social and institutional stigmas against extensive uncreative cut and paste paraphrasals.
when training AIs on copyright law trains them in obeying copyright law, they'll be ready for the Turing test, or even to be called AIs.
Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
thats not the case. almost all human works ever was not even attributed to the author. Nobody considered copyright when they recited Homer or published reprinted manuals until 1700 the concept is very new
> Nobody considered copyright when they recited Homer Really? Curious that we know the author's name then… seems like… attribution?
Correct, many literary works had famous authors but attribution has nothing to do with copy-rights. None of the authors of written texts, from greek tragedies, roman poets up to reprinted books had exclusive commercial rights to their writings, until the 16th cen.
Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law
#218There'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…
AI companies can ask for permission if they want to train their models on other people's works Do you ask for permission when you train your mind on copyrighted books? Or observe paintings? Or listen to music? Do you ask for permission when you get new ideas from HN that aren't your own? Humans are constantly ingesting gobs of "copyrighted" insights that they eventually remix into their own creations without necessar…
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Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law
#219One important point for the discussion is: one cannot (at least not currently) directly compare these AI models with the human mind. A human learns, can reason about the learned things and can use that ability to create completely new pieces of work. There is some clear intelligence and reasoning and personal creativity involved.
Now looking at the current state of AI models, they have shown to reproduce the training material in large verbatim pieces. On the other side, they lack any ability to reason about what they produce. Which for me is a big indicator, that they are clearly reproducing not producing on their own. Which creates the potential copyright issues. At minimum, the legality needs to be clearly specified, be it by court rulings or law changes.
Ironically, to some extend this has been a long time problem with human creations too. There are plenty of lawsuits about music pieces "borrowing" too much from older creations, and recently there is a growing cases uncovered, where expecial thesis papers contain too much unattributed content. Probably no new thing, just so much more easily discoverable thanks to modern text search tools.
So as a tl/dr: I don't think current AI models are comparable to human learning and the copyright questions around that need to be decided. If that means generally expanding fair use, having shorter copyright periods, I am all for it. But "AI" shouldn't be a tool for large tech companies to systematically evade license terms.
Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law
#220> 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…
> how about people running AI only feed them information that they legally have the right to use?
Well, this is the crux of the matter, isn't it? Do you, a human, have the right to look at copyrighted works and learn from them? Do you have the right to use AI to do the same?