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NY Times copyright suit wants OpenAI to delete all GPT instances

arstechnica.com

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Re: NY Times copyright suit wants OpenAI to delete all GPT instances

#751

Post by eigenket »

Matticus_Rex wrote: post #521
eigenket wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it can and does reproduce a piece of text verbatim then the text is indisputably stored somehow in the model.

That's just not true. There's no search and retrieval involved. It just associates the words so strongly in that context because they were in the training data so often that next-token prediction can (sometimes, in some limited circumstances) reproduce chunks of it. It's like if a human had read pieces of an article so many times and knew NYT style so well that they could spit out chunks of an article verbatim, but u…

If it can reproduce the text then it is stored somehow.

It is stored in a somewhat hard to understand way, encoded in weights in a network but it must be stored otherwise it would not be possible to reproduce it.

You can ask "please provide me with the first paragraph of the carl zimmer article on the oldest DNA" and it produces it, verbatim. This is not possible unless the model contains, encoded within it, the NYT's copyrighted text.

Re: NY Times copyright suit wants OpenAI to delete all GPT instances

#752

Post by paulddraper »

dang wrote: post #737

Related. Others? NYT sues OpenAI, Microsoft over 'millions of articles' used to train ChatGPT - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38784194 - Dec 2023 (80 comments) The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38781941 - Dec 2023 (837 comments) The Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft Over A.I.’s Use of Copyrighted Work - https://news.ycombinator.com/…

New York Times Sues Microsoft and OpenAI for 'Billions' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38791368 - Dec 2023 (1 comment)

New York Times Sues Microsoft and OpenAI, Alleging Copyright Infringement - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38781718 - Dec 2023 (1 comment)

New York Times sues Microsoft and OpenAI over copyright infringement - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38781908 - Dec 2023 (2 comments)

New York Times sues OpenAI, Microsoft for using articles to train AI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38782510 - Dec 2023 (1 comment)

New York Times sues OpenAI, Microsoft for allegedly infringing copyrighted work - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38783699 - Dec 2023 (1 comment)

New York Times sues OpenAI, Microsoft over use of its stories to train chatbots - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38784914 - Dec 2023 (1 comment)

NY Times sues OpenAI, Microsoft for infringing copyrighted works - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38786330 - Dec 2023 (1 comment)

NYTimes sues OpenAI, Microsoft, for copyright infringement - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38790845 - Dec 2023 (1 comment)

Re: NY Times copyright suit wants OpenAI to delete all GPT instances

#753

Post by shkkmo »

thephyber wrote: post #730
semiquaver wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say that? Commercial vs noncommercial use is a primary factor in the “purpose” prong of the fair use balancing test and a significant one in the “market effects” prong. That a use is noncommercial is often a deciding factor in the success of a fair use defense. GP is overstating it though, since it’s still one of many factors.

Your parent is more right than you. Weird Al has made a fantastic living copying music while only changing lyrics. He makes very heavy use of the satire plank of Fair Use. The “commercial” test is only part of the decision criteria for Fair Use.

Weird Al makes a point of getting permission even though he views his satirical works as fair use.

The "commercial" test is only a part if the criteria and not necessary, but to say it has little impact is clearly false.

Re: NY Times copyright suit wants OpenAI to delete all GPT instances

#754

Post by rafabulsing »

amelius wrote: post #710
oivey wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a good question with a simple answer: no.

It depends. Google built a product out of scraping content (Google Search). But what I'm saying is that answering the question does not allow you to deduce anything about your rights; that's what I mean by "not a good question".

It can allow you to deduce something, depending on the answer.

If we want to establish whether scenario A is fair use or not, and we all agree that A is "worse" (regarding fair use status) than some other scenario B, then if we also agree that B is not fair use, A by definition isn't either. The opposite is not true, of course: B being fair use does not imply that A has to be as well.

I find that kind of upper/lower bound logic can be pretty useful and I think it's what the parent comment was trying to do.

On a related note, that same logic is why I think Godwin's law can be a bit misapplied now and then. Sometimes bringing up nazis/Hitler can be useful to establish some ground truth in a debate (instead of just a way to imply your opponent is actually a bad person, or, possibly, an actual nazi themselves). E.g. a conversation on the morality of violence is vastly different depending on whether you agree that violence against nazis is ok or not.

Re: NY Times copyright suit wants OpenAI to delete all GPT instances

#755

Post by Kim_Bruning »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #736

Huh, is this a big misunderstanding? The copilot screenshot they gave in the ars-technica article as well as many of the screenshots in the NYT article seems like it's actually displaying correct behavior for browsing the web. In these cases the system is more or less acting as a user agent (browser). AFAICT the NYT server actually gave that data to the user agent when it asked politely (200 OK, presumably). The user…

Hum, on page 33 of the same complaint they show that they can get GPT to quote parts of an article from memory. Giving people single paragraphs need not be not illegal per-se. Very specifically, if you ask it for more than a paragraph at a time:

> ' I'm unable to display the entire text of "Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek" by John Branch, as it is a copyrighted work. However, you can easily access the full story online. It was published by The New York Times and is available on their website. The story is notable for its engaging multimedia format, including text, images, and interactive elements.'

Specifically, they go out of their way to lead GPT on, asking for several paragraphs in a row.

It's pretty clear that GPT is an avid reader of the NYT, so in that particular case we're going to have to see if OpenAI's fair use defense for training holds.

(ps. in the current GPT-4, it's actually somewhat tricky to even get to the point above at all. They have probably been improving AI instructions)

Re: NY Times copyright suit wants OpenAI to delete all GPT instances

#756

Post by glerk »

truculent wrote: post #467
a_wild_dandan wrote: post #371

The NYT is preparing for a tsunami by building a sandcastle. Big picture, this suit won’t matter, for so many reasons. To enumerate a few: 1. Next gen LLMs will be trained exclusively on “synthetic”/public data. GPT-4V can easily whitewash its entire copyrighted training corpus to be unrecognizably distinct (say reworded by 40%, authors/sources stripped, etc). Ergo there will be no copyright material for GPT-5 to reg…

Are media really rent-seeking? They create new content and analysis, for which they want to be compensated. It seems quite different to hoarding natural resources or land, for example.

> It seems quite different to hoarding natural resources or land

Indeed, it is quite different, because those things are scarce physical things in the real world. Intellectual property is a scam, and killing it once and for all will be one of the best things to come out of the current AI hype cycle. Nobody will "own" ideas, pieces of information, or strings of bytes.

Re: NY Times copyright suit wants OpenAI to delete all GPT instances

#757

Post by amelius »

Yizahi wrote: post #698
4RealFreedom wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with the OP but how are refunds a free for all libertarian dystopia?

"Information can be copied and they should accept it" <- I was referring to this line. This basically means that OP thinks that any intellectual property should be free for everyone. This means that probably half of humanity (who are currently creating anything with IP) will have to be libertarians, and that can't happen unless all humanity are libertarians. And libertarian society is a dystopia. :)

> This basically means that OP thinks that any intellectual property should be free for everyone.

Incorrect. Many intellectual property has a certain merit that can be demonstrated before it is consumed. E.g. "This piece of software allows you to create 3d models". On the other hand, an article with headline "Will new batteries allow 10x more energy storage?" does not tell me anything.

Re: NY Times copyright suit wants OpenAI to delete all GPT instances

#758

Post by bugglebeetle »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #616
ciabattabread wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rent seeking media companies Rent seeking? Media companies that actually create content are rent seeking? Versus the garbage hallucinations AI creates?

Rent seeking is an awful term that was from the beginning intended to describe anyone pursing a political or legal goal that deviates from a pure free market economy. As Econlib writes: > ”Rent seeking” is one of the most important insights in the last fifty years of economics and, unfortunately, one of the most inappropriately labeled. Gordon Tullock originated the idea in 1967, and Anne Krueger introduced the label…

No, it dates back to Adam Smith’s conception of rents derived from land-ownership as a parasitic drag on economies (about which he was entirely correct). This concept was later extended to a whole host of other forms of monopolization, some state-granted and some market-derived. In the case of U.S. copyright, we can look at its original terms (quite limited) and see that its current incarnation is more harmful than beneficial to most people.

Re: NY Times copyright suit wants OpenAI to delete all GPT instances

#759

Post by caconym_ »

8note wrote: post #750
caconym_ wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You took that quote out of context and missed the broader point in the process. The snippets provided in regular search results cannot generally replace the substance of the full articles they link to, while that's the whole point of GP's hypothetical website—it simply doesn't reproduce large chunks of text verbatim, presumably to avoid copyright infringement claims in the hypothetical's frame, and in GP's rhetorical…

A search engine takes an input string, a corpus of text, and returns a series of text that best comes next after the input string. An LLM takes an input string a corpus of text, and returns a series of text that best comes after the next input string. To get a paragraph of output, you run the search over and over again Both the search and LLM reshuffle the inputs to the outputs. If I'm describing the purpose of the L…

An 18 wheeler travels on wheels. A shopping cart travels on wheels. A shopping cart does not require a license to operate, therefore an 18 wheeler does not require a license to operate. A shopping cart can be operated inside a grocery store, therefore an 18 wheeler can be operated inside a grocery store. A child can operate a shopping cart, therefore a child can operate an 18 wheeler.

If I'm describing the purpose of an 18 wheeler, it's got a wide number of usages. "Carry my chicken" or "carry my lettuce" or "carry my Cheetos". Or, simply, "carry my groceries".

Re: NY Times copyright suit wants OpenAI to delete all GPT instances

#760

Post by LogicalRisk »

thephyber wrote: post #730
semiquaver wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say that? Commercial vs noncommercial use is a primary factor in the “purpose” prong of the fair use balancing test and a significant one in the “market effects” prong. That a use is noncommercial is often a deciding factor in the success of a fair use defense. GP is overstating it though, since it’s still one of many factors.

Your parent is more right than you. Weird Al has made a fantastic living copying music while only changing lyrics. He makes very heavy use of the satire plank of Fair Use. The “commercial” test is only part of the decision criteria for Fair Use.

He doesn't actually make very heavy use of the satire plank of fair use. He credits the original artists. From his own website

"Does Al get permission to do his parodies?

Al does get permission from the original writers of the songs that he parodies. While the law supports his ability to parody without permission, he feels it’s important to maintain the relationships that he’s built with artists and writers over the years. Plus, Al wants to make sure that he gets his songwriter credit (as writer of new lyrics) as well as his rightful share of the royalties."

The fact that he could rely on fair use is separate from whether he as an artist does rely on fair use.

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