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Japan Goes All In: Copyright Doesn't Apply to AI Training

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Re: Japan Goes All In: Copyright Doesn't Apply to AI Training

#71
post #46

This is just an end to copyright. There is no definition of "AI", it has always been a marketing term for monetising csci research. There is no difference between a lossy jpg, taking its pixels as weights, and the weights of a NN. So if i just zip up copyrighted images using a NN, then, what? They're public domain? Regulators here are miles away from understanding the implications -- this is what happens when you let…

It'd be really interesting to open up a movie theater in Japan that just ingests blockbusters through a "do nothing" NN and then be able to screen them royalty free. This decision feels incredibly half baked.

How is screening a movie training an AI?

Re: Japan Goes All In: Copyright Doesn't Apply to AI Training

#72

So I can see the logic in treating the inputs to the AI training data sets the same way we treat humans learning something. A potential downside is that AI systems can 'mechanise' the creation of material that potentially infringes copyright (in the same way that human generated content can infringe) But a potential upside is that we can 'mechanise' the process by which we judge whether new content infringes the copy…

Generative AI tweaks the original material such that it's modified beyond recognition, and non verbatim. A bit like how artists tweak other artist's work, put their own spin on it, and then pass it off as 'original'.

Re: Japan Goes All In: Copyright Doesn't Apply to AI Training

#74

How would that effect, for example, maintaining a large corpus of pirated work for training AI on? Presume that you didn't break any other laws in the process of pirating the works? Could I license a large corpus of pirated work to people explicitly using it for AI training? Like if I downloaded all the books, and then sold access to that collection to someone for AI training, with them agreeing to a EULA preventing…

My understanding in general with piracy is that it goes after those that do the distribution. So you downloading all possible material from where ever as long as it is not illegal is likely rather low risk/penalty.

However system will absolutely destroy you if you try to sell or distribute copies of material you collected...

Re: Japan Goes All In: Copyright Doesn't Apply to AI Training

#75

I think it’s a weak argument anyway. A pencil can be used to recreate copyrighted works. Why should a LLM be different? The legal responsibility always has been and should continue to be on the person publishing or making available the work. And at any rate, a country banning this tech will be missing the revolution. Protecting the buggy whip manufacturers and all that.

What's the difference between picking a cherry tomato from your streetside garden and eating it, and driving a combine harvester over your lawn and taking everything?

I'm usually sympathetic to arguments where scale can change the fundamental nature of the thing but this doesn't really track. Because the argument is that LLMs are tools -- you can disagree with that but that's the parent's position, and those tools can be used to create copyrighted material. The quality, availability, and ease of use of those tools don't particularly matter.

The difference as far as copyright is concerned if one person has a scanner, camera, or blank cassette tape or everyone has them are the same.

Re: Japan Goes All In: Copyright Doesn't Apply to AI Training

#76
I think it's notable that when the copyright holder is a business there is rarely any questioning that the copyright holder is king. But when the copyright holder is an individual or an artist, then it practically becomes a challenge for the government and/or private sector to try and strip that copyright away from you.

Re: Japan Goes All In: Copyright Doesn't Apply to AI Training

#77
post #46

This is just an end to copyright. There is no definition of "AI", it has always been a marketing term for monetising csci research. There is no difference between a lossy jpg, taking its pixels as weights, and the weights of a NN. So if i just zip up copyrighted images using a NN, then, what? They're public domain? Regulators here are miles away from understanding the implications -- this is what happens when you let…

It'd be really interesting to open up a movie theater in Japan that just ingests blockbusters through a "do nothing" NN and then be able to screen them royalty free. This decision feels incredibly half baked.

This is explicitly for training, not for the distribution of copyrighted material. Courts aren't stupid.

Re: Japan Goes All In: Copyright Doesn't Apply to AI Training

#78

As much as I want to be on the AI industries side here. rumours of chatgpt producing verbatim copies of NYT articles kinda suggests its still going to apply to the output. Obviously, there is a difference between training AI and using AI. Its very hard to make a case that training AI breaches copyright in any way. But its copyright 101 that if what that AI spits out after isn't transformative the AI retailer is getti…

not rumors, in legal docs, I haven't read the docs yet but someone else wrote a post claiming they were primed with several paragraphs of the article (I'm not sure what to believe, but the screenshots were disturbing)

(n.b. this is a complex problem and the scenario isn't quite so simple, if I hire an artist that creates work with a copyrighted figure / use a site that gives me random images it created that I know to sometimes replicate copyrighted figures, its not the artist / site / even me having the image in my possession that's a problem)

Re: Japan Goes All In: Copyright Doesn't Apply to AI Training

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely crazy take. Your health records are not currently protected by copyright law. If someone magically snapped their fingers and eliminated copyright law, the protections on your health data, scant though they may be, would more or less be the same (IANAL)

So to be clear -- you're well aware that in the case of your private data that you have an interest in preventing it being used to train AI. Great. So d'you think you could outline a reason why you wouldnt have an interest in your creative works not being used also? Either the training data is, as big-ad-tech says, essentially equivalent to generic human experiences -- ie., weakly repoducible; OR it is extremely repo…

Equivocating health records to art style is a laughable proposition to build an argument on. I mean, c'mon.

Re: Japan Goes All In: Copyright Doesn't Apply to AI Training

#80
post #48

What's the counter to this argument? "If you put something on the web, it's in the public domain. Free game."

It isn’t an argument, it is just a statement of something which is factual or not depending on your jurisdiction, or more importantly the jurisdiction of people who see your work.
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