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New York Times considers legal action against OpenAI as copyright tensions swirl

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Re: New York Times considers legal action against OpenAI as copyright tensions swirl

#11

Post by dragonwriter »

twoodfin wrote: post #9
brrrrrm wrote: post #3

What’s going to be the name used for the laws that attempt to tackle machine paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing is not the issue. The issue is that OpenAI copied the Times ’ creative works into a GPU to train a model. That copy was likely neither licensed nor fair use.

Personally, I think the Times has a far better case for presenting mechanical copies (including with mechanical alteration) than it does with model training.

The tool building of model training is more likely to be fair use than the use of the tool to provide mechanical copies of copyirght-protected material that competes directly with the original in the market.

Re: New York Times considers legal action against OpenAI as copyright tensions swirl

#12

Post by asdfman123 »

twoodfin wrote: post #9
brrrrrm wrote: post #3

What’s going to be the name used for the laws that attempt to tackle machine paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing is not the issue. The issue is that OpenAI copied the Times ’ creative works into a GPU to train a model. That copy was likely neither licensed nor fair use.

The question though is if we want to stifle innovation by requiring LLMs get permission from every single relevant party on the internet.

And I usually lean anti-corporate too, but banning people in the US from using data for LLMs might just mean they start being trained somewhere else that doesn't care as much about US law.

Re: New York Times considers legal action against OpenAI as copyright tensions swirl

#13

Post by jvanderbot »

jondwillis wrote: post #6
brrrrrm wrote: post #3

What’s going to be the name used for the laws that attempt to tackle machine paraphrasing?

"Protecting Against Rephrasing: Respecting Original Texts Act" or the "P.A.R.R.O.T Act" or "Battling Unlawful Language: Limit Scraping and Harness Initial Texts Act" or the "B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T Act".

This is good. Have you considered working for NASA or a major government defense contractor?

Re: New York Times considers legal action against OpenAI as copyright tensions swirl

#14

Post by twoodfin »

dragonwriter wrote: post #11
twoodfin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paraphrasing is not the issue. The issue is that OpenAI copied the Times ’ creative works into a GPU to train a model. That copy was likely neither licensed nor fair use.

Personally, I think the Times has a far better case for presenting mechanical copies (including with mechanical alteration) than it does with model training. The tool building of model training is more likely to be fair use than the use of the tool to provide mechanical copies of copyirght-protected material that competes directly with the original in the market.

What makes you think that? The most relevant case is probably MAI Systems, where even a copy of a licensed program into RAM for an unlicensed use (diagnosis and repair by a third party) was deemed a violation.

Congress took the ruling seriously enough to carve out a fair use exception for that use. I don’t think there’s any comparable exception here, especially when the ultimate purpose is to build a commercial product capable of producing works (news reports) in precisely the same market as the original works.

Re: New York Times considers legal action against OpenAI as copyright tensions swirl

#15

Post by twoodfin »

asdfman123 wrote: post #12
twoodfin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paraphrasing is not the issue. The issue is that OpenAI copied the Times ’ creative works into a GPU to train a model. That copy was likely neither licensed nor fair use.

The question though is if we want to stifle innovation by requiring LLMs get permission from every single relevant party on the internet. And I usually lean anti-corporate too, but banning people in the US from using data for LLMs might just mean they start being trained somewhere else that doesn't care as much about US law.

Right, and Congress can address this concern at any time. (I actually expect this will happen sooner rather than later.)

Re: New York Times considers legal action against OpenAI as copyright tensions swirl

#16

Post by swalling »

dragonwriter wrote: post #11
twoodfin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paraphrasing is not the issue. The issue is that OpenAI copied the Times ’ creative works into a GPU to train a model. That copy was likely neither licensed nor fair use.

Personally, I think the Times has a far better case for presenting mechanical copies (including with mechanical alteration) than it does with model training. The tool building of model training is more likely to be fair use than the use of the tool to provide mechanical copies of copyirght-protected material that competes directly with the original in the market.

Fair use only covers very limited circumstances which probably does not include selling a subscription (ChatGPT+). If you’re selling a repackaged reproduction of someone else’s copyrighted works, that’s never protected by fair use.

Re: New York Times considers legal action against OpenAI as copyright tensions swirl

#17

Post by FrustratedMonky »

nullindividual wrote: post #10
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #7

If a human reads something, it goes into their brain, and it becomes an influence on future works they produce. This doesn't mean that 'copywrite' extends into my brain. A company can't copywrite what I'm thinking about. And what if I do try to paraphrase something from memory, from a few sources, and happen to spit out a very similar sentence from memory. Am I breaking the law? To go further. Since all knowledge is…

> Am I breaking the law? The intent of [US] copyright law is to promote new works of art (which can be derivative). So copyright did exactly what it is supposed to do in your analogy. Plus, you're human, which gives you special rights that software doesn't posses.

But. I am allowed to at least read the copywritten material, from which it goes into my brain to become mixed up with everything else, and spit out to produce something 'new' or 'newish'.

Some of these lawsuits are trying to prevent the AI from even 'reading' the material. It can't even be used as an influence.

Wouldn't it be better to treat the products of the AI with the same laws as humans. If the new 'product' is 'too close' to something existing, then they get sued. Just like a musician that has a song with a few notes that sound a little too close to someone's song from 30 years ago gets sued. The songwriter was allowed to listen to the music, it went into their brain and became an influence. If that influence becomes too great, then it can be sued.

Re: New York Times considers legal action against OpenAI as copyright tensions swirl

#18

Post by Tao3300 »

twoodfin wrote: post #9
brrrrrm wrote: post #3

What’s going to be the name used for the laws that attempt to tackle machine paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing is not the issue. The issue is that OpenAI copied the Times ’ creative works into a GPU to train a model. That copy was likely neither licensed nor fair use.

If I read it and memorize it, my brain has made a copy.

Re: New York Times considers legal action against OpenAI as copyright tensions swirl

#20

Post by staticman2 »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #7

If a human reads something, it goes into their brain, and it becomes an influence on future works they produce. This doesn't mean that 'copywrite' extends into my brain. A company can't copywrite what I'm thinking about. And what if I do try to paraphrase something from memory, from a few sources, and happen to spit out a very similar sentence from memory. Am I breaking the law? To go further. Since all knowledge is…

"If a human reads something, it goes into their brain"

Humans aren't property. LLM models are. So the comparison is irrelevant and I'll stop you right there.

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