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US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

theregister.com

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Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#61

Post by ActionHank »

mattxxx wrote: post #51

Well, firing someone for this is super weird. It seems like an attempt to censor an interpretation of the law that: 1. Criticizes a highly useful technology 2. Matches a potentially-outdated, strict interpretation of copyright law My opinion: I think using copyrighted data to train models for sure seems classically illegal. Despite that, Humans can read a book, get inspiration, and write a new book and not be litigat…

Assuming this means copyright is dead, companies will be vary upset and patents will likely follow.

The hold US companies have on the world will be dead too.

I also suspect that media piracy will be labelled as the only reason we need copyright, an existing agency will be bolstered to address this concern and then twisted into a censorship bureau.

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#62

Post by palmotea »

mattxxx wrote: post #51

Well, firing someone for this is super weird. It seems like an attempt to censor an interpretation of the law that: 1. Criticizes a highly useful technology 2. Matches a potentially-outdated, strict interpretation of copyright law My opinion: I think using copyrighted data to train models for sure seems classically illegal. Despite that, Humans can read a book, get inspiration, and write a new book and not be litigat…

[flagged]

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#63

Post by timdiggerm »

mattxxx wrote: post #51

Well, firing someone for this is super weird. It seems like an attempt to censor an interpretation of the law that: 1. Criticizes a highly useful technology 2. Matches a potentially-outdated, strict interpretation of copyright law My opinion: I think using copyrighted data to train models for sure seems classically illegal. Despite that, Humans can read a book, get inspiration, and write a new book and not be litigat…

Or we could acknowledge that something could be a bad idea, despite its utility

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#64

Post by mr_toad »

bgwalter wrote: post #13
prvc wrote: post #6

The released draft report seems merely to be a litany of copyright holder complaints repeated verbatim, with little depth of reasoning to support the conclusions it makes.

The required reasoning is not very deep though: If an AI reads 100 scientific papers and churns out a new one, it is plagiarism. If a savant has perfect recall, remembers text perfectly and rearranges that text to create a marginally new text, he'd be sued for breach of copyright. Only large corporations get away with it.

> If a savant has perfect recall

AI don’t have perfect recall.

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#65

Post by stevenAthompson »

mattxxx wrote: post #51

Well, firing someone for this is super weird. It seems like an attempt to censor an interpretation of the law that: 1. Criticizes a highly useful technology 2. Matches a potentially-outdated, strict interpretation of copyright law My opinion: I think using copyrighted data to train models for sure seems classically illegal. Despite that, Humans can read a book, get inspiration, and write a new book and not be litigat…

Doing a cover song requires permission, and doing it without that permission can be illegal. Being inspired by a song to write your own is very legal.

AI is fine as long as the work it generates is substantially new and transformative. If it breaks and starts spitting out other peoples work verbatim (or nearly verbatim) there is a problem.

Yes, I'm aware that machines aren't people and can't be "inspired", but if the functional results are the same the law should be the same. Vaguely defined ideas like your soul or "inspiration" aren't real. The output is real, measurable, and quantifiable and that's how it should be judged.

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#66

Post by palmotea »

scraptor wrote: post #24
bgwalter wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The required reasoning is not very deep though: If an AI reads 100 scientific papers and churns out a new one, it is plagiarism. If a savant has perfect recall, remembers text perfectly and rearranges that text to create a marginally new text, he'd be sued for breach of copyright. Only large corporations get away with it.

Plagiarism is not an issue of copyright law, it's an entirely separate system of rules maintained by academia. The US Copyright Office has no business having opinions about it. If a AI^W human reads 100 papers and then churns out a new one this is usually called research.

> Plagiarism is not an issue of copyright law, it's an entirely separate system of rules maintained by academia. The US Copyright Office has no business having opinions about it. If a AI^W human reads 100 papers and then churns out a new one this is usually called research.

If you draw a Venn Diagram of plagiarism and copyright violations, there's a big intersection. For example: if I take your paper, scratch off your name, make some minor tweaks, and submit it; I'm guilty of both plagiarism and copyright violation.

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#67

Post by jeroenhd »

mattxxx wrote: post #51

Well, firing someone for this is super weird. It seems like an attempt to censor an interpretation of the law that: 1. Criticizes a highly useful technology 2. Matches a potentially-outdated, strict interpretation of copyright law My opinion: I think using copyrighted data to train models for sure seems classically illegal. Despite that, Humans can read a book, get inspiration, and write a new book and not be litigat…

Pirating movies is also useful, because I can watch movies without paying on devices that apps and accounts don't work on.

That doesn't make piracy legal, even though I get a lot of use out of it.

Also, a person isn't a computer so the "but I can read a book and get inspired" argument is complete nonsense.

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#68

Post by mr_toad »

nadermx wrote: post #32
prvc wrote: post #6

The released draft report seems merely to be a litany of copyright holder complaints repeated verbatim, with little depth of reasoning to support the conclusions it makes.

Not only does it read like a litany[0]. It seems like the copyright holders are not happy with how the meta case is working through court and are trying to sidestep fair use entirely. https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intell...

Copywriter holders have always hated fair use, and often like to pretend it doesn’t exist.

The average copywrite holder would like you to think that the law only allows use of their works in ways that they specifically permit, i.e. that which is not explicitly permitted is forbidden.

But the law is largely the reverse; it only denies use of copyright works in certain ways. That which is not specifically forbidden is permitted.

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#69

Post by flats »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #48
School-Cotton wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Because the concept of owning an idea is really gross. Copyright means I can’t write about whatever I want in my own home even if I never distribute it or no one ever sees it. I’m breaking the law by privately writing Harry Potter fanfic in my journal or whatever. Copyright is supposed to be about encouraging intangibles, and the reality is that it only massively stifles it

I don’t believe this is true? I’m pretty sure that you’re prohibited from making money from that fan fiction, not from writing it at all. So I don’t understand the claim that copyright “massively stifles” creativity. There are of course examples of people not being able to make money on specific “ideas” because of copyright laws, but that doesn’t seem to me to be “massively stifling” creativity itself, especially given that it also protects and supports many people generating these ideas. And if we got rid of copyright law, wouldn’t we be in that exact place, where people wouldn’t be allowed to make money off of creative endeavors?

I mean, owning an idea is kinda gross, I agree. I also personally think that owning land is kinda gross. But we live in a capitalist society right now. If we allow AI companies to train LLMs on copyrighted works without paying for that access, we are choosing to reward these companies instead of the humans who created the data upon which these companies are utterly reliant for said LLMs. Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and all the other tech CEOs will benefit in place of all of the artists I love and admire.

That, to me, sucks.

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#70

Post by kmeisthax »

tempeler wrote: post #18

I think, A new chapter is about to begin. It seems that in the future, many IPs will become democratized — in other words, they will become public assets.

They aren't going to legalize, say, publishing Mario fangames or whatever. They're just going to make copyright allow AI training, because AI is what the owner class wants. That's not democratizing IP, that's just prejudicial (dis)enforcement against the creative class.
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