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Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement

theverge.com

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Re: Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement

#381

Post by elzbardico »

adrianmonk wrote: post #196
elzbardico wrote: post #122

I am baffled by the fact that no enterprising lawyer so far have figured out the potential for a class action here. Note: I am not telling whether I agree or not with such a class action, just pointing that it seems at least feasible and it could be potentially very lucrative for the lawyers involved. Of course, IANAL and all other disclaimers you can think of.

These lawsuits are class action suits, aren't they? Looking at the two PDFs embedded at the bottom of the The Verge article, they both say "class action" on the first page, and they say the three plaintiffs are suing "on behalf of themselves and all other similarly situated".

Guilty as charged. I hereby confess I didn't read the article. Thanks for pointing that.

Re: Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement

#382

Post by dragonwriter »

phoehne wrote: post #275

I think this will be a bigger issue than some people think. Maybe there's a market for 'clean' training data that doesn't include potential copyright claims. Just public domain works. We'll know it's an AI because it talks like a late 18th century/early 19th century writer?

> I think this will be a bigger issue than some people think. Maybe there's a market for 'clean' training data that doesn't include potential copyright claims.

Until this issue is resolved, that will have some value as risk mitigation.

Once it is resolved, it will either be a complete non-issue or an issue related to a much more knowable cost/benefit tradeoff.

> We'll know it's an AI because it talks like a late 18th century/early 19th century writer?

A mix of that and US government publications (which are categorically not subject to copyright).

Re: Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement

#383

Post by hedora »

listenallyall wrote: post #317
DennisP wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe we could figure out a new economic model, instead of blindly sticking with one based on the limitations of the pre-digital age.

How about you go figure out this new economic model, and come back when it's ready. Until then, the existing model will persist, thank you

Mandatory licensing seems fine.

The government charges a tax on everyone. Revenue is handed to authors based on how many times the work is used.

There are some questions around how to weigh things like societal importance of the work.

(“Not melting down nuclear reactors for dummies” seems like it should get more money per view than “poodles in outer space vol XXXII”, despite likely having lower readership)

Re: Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement

#384

Post by erehweb »

dragonwriter wrote: post #335
erehweb wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second-order effects are real - removing copyright would hurt authors. (See cstross comments in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35761641 e.g.)

> Second-order effects are real - removing copyright would hurt authors. Aiding authors is an instrumental, not fundamental, purpose of copyright in the US; the fundamental purpose to which any instrumental purposes are subordinate is “to promote the progress of science and useful arts”. That is, while copyrights are a form of property, they are not something that is seen as natural property, but instead property exp…

To make this more explicit, the argument is that removing copyright hurts authors, meaning that fewer people become authors in the future, meaning that the progress of the useful arts is hurt.

Re: Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement

#385

Post by beej71 »

bryans wrote: post #357
magoghm wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that copyright law typically regulates the unauthorized reproduction, distribution, public display, or creation of derivative works of copyrighted materials. Possession of copyrighted material in itself is not illegal. It's how you use that material that could potentially violate copyright laws.

> Possession of copyrighted material in itself is not illegal. The means of procurement matters. If they are in possession of copyrighted material because someone without the proper rights gave it to them illegally, then the possession itself is also illegal. It's illegal to own knowingly stolen property in all 50 US states and most countries, and while we could argue to the end of days about whether copying a file t…

Is possession of a pirated work the same as possession of stolen property, legally?

Re: Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement

#386

Post by 23B1 »

gaganyaan wrote: post #279
23B1 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

The same way Disney borrowed heavily from the public domain only to shut the door after themselves and lock it up for decades. We as a people benefit from not having gatekeepers lock up our cultural heritage in the name of fetishing money. We are nearing a point where copyright will be ignored and the gatekeepers left fuming and unable to extract rent anymore.

Trying to see the deleterious social effects of not having free access to Disney IP. Not Gish-galloping you, I just don't think of Disney IP as having high social utility in the grand scheme of things.

I assume you'd have a better case with IP on medicines for example, but I can also see the benefits of, say, Pharma companies being able to turn some profit in order to develop other socially useful therapies...

Re: Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement

#387

Post by 23B1 »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #273
23B1 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

Intellectual property monopolies limit access and utilization of ideas and tools to broader society in exchange for privileging a small group worshipped as "the creators".

That sounds like a good argument, but I'm not seeing how protecting a comedian's IP translates to limiting access to ideas and tools... that benefit broader society.

Re: Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement

#388

Post by SantalBlush »

cgriswald wrote: post #336
djaouen wrote: post #320

AI is transformative. Period.

That's a very strong claim that for which you should probably provide some evidence. I just asked ChatGPT to produce a script of a scene from a movie by asking it first to change a single line (which wouldn't be transformative) and then asking it to restore the line to the original. It obliged. Sure, it's probably not the same exact script, but it's not transformative at all. In any case, the issue here isn't whether…

>That's a very strong claim that for which you should probably provide some evidence.

They said, "Period." That is worth more than evidence.

Re: Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement

#389

Post by dragonwriter »

bryans wrote: post #357
magoghm wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that copyright law typically regulates the unauthorized reproduction, distribution, public display, or creation of derivative works of copyrighted materials. Possession of copyrighted material in itself is not illegal. It's how you use that material that could potentially violate copyright laws.

> Possession of copyrighted material in itself is not illegal. The means of procurement matters. If they are in possession of copyrighted material because someone without the proper rights gave it to them illegally, then the possession itself is also illegal. It's illegal to own knowingly stolen property in all 50 US states and most countries, and while we could argue to the end of days about whether copying a file t…

> If they are in possession of copyrighted material because someone without the proper rights gave it to them illegally, then the possession itself is also illegal.

No, they aren’t.

> It's illegal to own knowingly stolen property in all 50 US states

While copyright violation is often metaphorically (or hyperbolicly) referred to as stealing, copyright violation isn't theft and a copy created in violation of copyright is not stolen property. The essencd of theft lies in deprivation of the owner of the use of the good, not mere trespass to their right to exclude others.

Re: Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement

#390

Post by bryans »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #255
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downloading is illegal. That people do not normally get sued or prosecuted for downloading does not mean that they cannot get sued or prosecuted.

Is illegal where? Certainly not over here in Finland.

You say that very confidently, but you are very wrong. If you download music from a source that does not have a license to distribute that music, then they are violating the copyright and you are now in possession of stolen property. Finland uses different terminology for Fair Use, but the citations amount to the same as US policy and only apply if you obtained the work by legal means.

Chapter 28: Theft https://www.finlex.fi/en/laki/kaannokset/1889/en18890039_199...

Chapter 2, Section 12: Reproduction https://www.finlex.fi/en/laki/kaannokset/1961/en19610404.pdf

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