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Does anyone know what the copyright status of LLM generated content is? That is, if I feed a NYT article into GPT4 and say, summarize this article, and then publish that summary, is there argument or precedent that says that is or is not copyright infringement? Asking for a friend.
The challenge for all these AI companies is that the only thing of value for building a defensible commercial product is having proprietary datasets for training. With the underlying techniques and algorithms all being rapidly commoditized the power lies in who holds and owns that data. Like all other ML “revolutions” it’s the training data that matters and if one doesn’t have access to training data others don’t hav…
NYT article with a lot more context https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-t...
> The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft over claims the companies built their AI models by “copying and using millions” of the publication’s articles and now “directly compete” with the outlet’s content. Millions? Damn, they can churn out some content. 13 million[0]!. [0] https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter... .
The NYT publishes about 200 pieces of journalism every day (according to their own website), and it was founded in 1851. That makes for a lot of articles.
Yep, so a few million ripped off articles is plausible.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
Blocking LLMs on the basis of copyright infringement does NOT promote progress in science and the useful arts. I don't think copyright is a useful basis to block LLMs.
They do need to be regulated, and quickly, but that regulatory regime should be something different. Not copyright. The concept of OpenAI before it became a frankenmonster for-profit was good. Private failed, and we now need public.
The arguments about being able to mimic New York Times “style” are weak, but the fact that they got it to emit verbatim NY Times content seems bad for OpenAI: > As outlined in the lawsuit, the Times alleges OpenAI and Microsoft’s large language models (LLMs), which power ChatGPT and Copilot, “can generate output that recites Times content verbatim
What are they arguing here? AFAIK reading copyrighted works is not copyright infringement. Copying and selling them is, as the name would suggest, but OpenAI absolutely did not do that. Are they trying to say that LLM training is a special type of reading that should be considered infringement? Seems like a weak case to me. edit: Would be very funny if OpenAI used an educational fair use defense
If you read the complaint, you will see that, among others, paragraphs and paragraphs of NYT articles are reproduced verbatim or almost verbatim.
The arguments about being able to mimic New York Times “style” are weak, but the fact that they got it to emit verbatim NY Times content seems bad for OpenAI: > As outlined in the lawsuit, the Times alleges OpenAI and Microsoft’s large language models (LLMs), which power ChatGPT and Copilot, “can generate output that recites Times content verbatim
The unfortunate thing about these LLMs is they siphon all public data regardless of license. I agree with data owners one can’t Willy nilly use data that’s accessible but not licensed properly.
Obviously Wikipedia, data from most public institutions, etc., should be available, but not data that does not offer unrestricted use.
What are they arguing here? AFAIK reading copyrighted works is not copyright infringement. Copying and selling them is, as the name would suggest, but OpenAI absolutely did not do that. Are they trying to say that LLM training is a special type of reading that should be considered infringement? Seems like a weak case to me. edit: Would be very funny if OpenAI used an educational fair use defense
The second paragraph of the article is > As outlined in the lawsuit, the Times alleges OpenAI and Microsoft’s large language models (LLMs), which power ChatGPT and Copilot, “can generate output that recites Times content verbatim, closely summarizes it, and mimics its expressive style.” This “undermine[s] and damage[s]” the Times’ relationship with readers, the outlet alleges, while also depriving it of “subscription…
Absolutely not copyright infringement
> mimics its expressive style
Absolutely not copyright infringement
> can generate output that recites Times content verbatim
This one seems the closest to infringement, but still doesn't seem like infringement. A printer has this capability too. If a user told ChatGPT to recite NYT content and then sold that content, that would be 100% infringement, but would probably be on the user, not the tool. e.g. if someone printed out NYT articles and sold them, nobody would come after the printer manufacturer.
> undermine[s] and damage[s]” the Times’ relationship with readers, the outlet alleges, while also depriving it of “subscription, licensing, advertising, and affiliate revenue.
This claim seems far fetched as the point of the NYT is to report the news. One thing that LLMs absolutely cannot do is report today's news. I can see no way that ChatGPT is a substitute for the NYT in a way that violates copyright.