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The current state of the theory that GPL propagates to AI models

shujisado.org

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Re: The current state of the theory that GPL propagates to AI models

#11

Post by maxloh »

graemep wrote: post #2

The article repeatedly treats license and contract as though they are the same, even though the sidebar links to a post that discusses the difference. A lot of it boils down to whether training an LLM is a breach of copyright of the training materials which is not specific to GPL or open source.

To my understanding, if the material is publicly available or obtained legally (i.e., not pirated), then training a model with it falls under fair use.

Once training is established as fair use, it doesn't really matter if the license is MIT, GPL, or a proprietary one.

Re: The current state of the theory that GPL propagates to AI models

#12

Post by zamadatix »

omnicognate wrote: post #8
pclmulqdq wrote: post #5

I thought the whole concept of a viral license was legally questionable to begin with. There haven't been cases about this, as far as I know, and GPL virality enforcement has just been done by the community.

The GPL was tested in court as early as 2006 [1] and plenty of times since. There are no serious doubts about its enforceability. [1] https://www.fsf.org/news/wallace-vs-fsf

I know it's not popular on HN to have anything but supportive statements around GPL, and I'm a big GPL supporter myself, but there is nuance in what is being said here.

That case was important, but it's not abojt the virality. There have been no concluded court cases involving the virality portion causing the rest of the code to also be GPL'd, but there are plenty involving enforcement of GPL on the GPL code itself.

The distinction is important because the article is about the virality causing the whole LLM model to be GPL'd, not just about the GPL'd code itself.

I'd like to think it wouldn't be a problem to enforce, but I've also never seen a court ruling truly about the virality portion to back that up either - which is all GP is saying.

Re: The current state of the theory that GPL propagates to AI models

#13

Post by blibble »

maxloh wrote: post #11
graemep wrote: post #2

The article repeatedly treats license and contract as though they are the same, even though the sidebar links to a post that discusses the difference. A lot of it boils down to whether training an LLM is a breach of copyright of the training materials which is not specific to GPL or open source.

To my understanding, if the material is publicly available or obtained legally (i.e., not pirated), then training a model with it falls under fair use. Once training is established as fair use, it doesn't really matter if the license is MIT, GPL, or a proprietary one.

fair use only applies in the united states (and Poland, and a very limited set of others)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#/media/File:Fair_use_...

and it is certainly not part of the Berne Convention

in almost every country in the world even timeshifting using your VCR and ripping your own CDs is copyright infringement

Re: The current state of the theory that GPL propagates to AI models

#14

Post by CamouflagedKiwi »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #5

I thought the whole concept of a viral license was legally questionable to begin with. There haven't been cases about this, as far as I know, and GPL virality enforcement has just been done by the community.

There have been a number of of cases, which are linked from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Leg...) - most recently Entr’Ouvert v. Orange had a strong judgement (under French law) in favour of the GPL.

Conversely, to my knowledge there has been no court decision that indicates that the GPL is _not_ enforceable. I think you might want to be more familiar with the area before you decide if it's legally questionable or not.

Re: The current state of the theory that GPL propagates to AI models

#15

Post by OneDeuxTriSeiGo »

graemep wrote: post #2

The article repeatedly treats license and contract as though they are the same, even though the sidebar links to a post that discusses the difference. A lot of it boils down to whether training an LLM is a breach of copyright of the training materials which is not specific to GPL or open source.

It's not specific to open source but it's most clearly enforceable with open source as there will be many contributors from many jurisdictions with the one unifying factor being they all made their copyright available under the same license terms.

With proprietary or more importantly single-owner code, it's far easier for this to end up in a settlement rather than being drug out into an actual ruling, enforcement action, and establishment of precedence.

That's the key detail. It's not specific to GPL or open source but if you want to see these orgs held to account and some precedence established, focusing on GPL and FOSS licensed code is the clearest path to that.

Re: The current state of the theory that GPL propagates to AI models

#17

Post by throwaway198846 »

rvnx wrote: post #3

GPL and copyright in general don't apply to billionaires, so pretty much a non-topic. It's just a side cost of doing business, because asking for forgiveness is cheaper and faster than asking for permission.

"Information wants to be free"? Many individuals pirated movies and games and got away with it. Of course two wrongs don't make a right and all that. Nonetheless one should be compensated for creating material that ai trained on for the same reasons copyright is compensated - to incentives people to produce it.

Re: The current state of the theory that GPL propagates to AI models

#19

Post by kronicum2025 »

graemep wrote: post #2

The article repeatedly treats license and contract as though they are the same, even though the sidebar links to a post that discusses the difference. A lot of it boils down to whether training an LLM is a breach of copyright of the training materials which is not specific to GPL or open source.

A GPL license is a contract in most other countries. Just not US probably.

Re: The current state of the theory that GPL propagates to AI models

#20

Post by mongol »

maxloh wrote: post #11
graemep wrote: post #2

The article repeatedly treats license and contract as though they are the same, even though the sidebar links to a post that discusses the difference. A lot of it boils down to whether training an LLM is a breach of copyright of the training materials which is not specific to GPL or open source.

To my understanding, if the material is publicly available or obtained legally (i.e., not pirated), then training a model with it falls under fair use. Once training is established as fair use, it doesn't really matter if the license is MIT, GPL, or a proprietary one.

> To my understanding, if the material is publicly available or obtained legally (i.e., not pirated), then training a model with it falls under fair use.

Is this legally settled?

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