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

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

#31

Post by pclmulqdq »

iso1631 wrote: post #10
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.

If you don't like the license, then don't accept it. You are then restricted by copyright just like with any other creation. If I include the source code of Windows into my product, I can't simply choose to re-license it to say public domain and give it to someone else, the license that I have from Microsoft to allow me to use their code won't let me - it provides restrictions. It's just as "viral" as the GPL.

I like the GPL. I just don't know how much you can actually enforce it.

Also, "don't use my code" is not viral. If you break the MSFT license, you pay them, which is a very well-tested path in courts. The idea of forced public disclosure does not seem to be.

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

#32

Post by James_K »

phplovesong wrote: post #25

We need a new license that forbids all training. That is the only way to stop big corporations from doing this.

Would such a license fall under the definition of free software? Difficult to say. Counter-proposition: a license which permits training if the model is fully open.

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

#33

Post by myrmidon »

I honestly think that the most extreme take that "any output of an LLM falls under all the copyright of all its training data" is not really defensible, especially when contrasted with human learning, and would be curious to hear conflicting opinions.

My view is that copyright in general is a pretty abstract and artificial concept; thus corresponding regulation needs to justifiy itself by being useful, i.e. encouraging and rewarding content creation.

/sidenote: Copyright as-is barely holds up there; I would argue that nobody (not even old established companies) is significantly encouraged or incentivised by potential revenue more than 20 years in the future (much less current copyright durations). The system also leads to bad ressource allocation, with almost all the rewards ending up at a small handful of most successful producers-- this effectively externalizes large portions of the cost of "raising" artists.

I view AI overlap under the same lense-- if current copyright rules would lead to undesirable outcomes (by making all AI training or use illegal/infeasible) then law/interpretation simply has to be changed.

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

#34

Post by simgt »

euazOn wrote: post #9
simgt wrote: post #7

What triggers me is how insistant Claude Code is on adding "co-authored by Claude" in commits, in spite of my settings and an instruction in CLAUDE.md. I wish all these tech bros were as willing to credit the human shoulders on which their products are built. But they'd be much less successful in our current system if they were that kind of people.

Try changing the system prompt or switch to opencode [0] - they allegedly reverse engineered Claude Code, and so the performance you get with Claude models should be very similar to Claude Code. [0] https://github.com/sst/opencode

I've changed the settings and added the instruction to the prompt, hence my frustration :)

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

#35

Post by pessimizer »

I might be crazy, and I'd love to hear from somebody who knows about this, but I've been assuming that AI companies have been pulling GPL code out of the training material specifically to avoid this.

Corporations have always talked about the virality of GPL, sometimes but not always to the point of exaggeration, you'd think that after getting the proof of concept done the AI companies would be running away at full speed from setting a bomb like that in their goldmine.

Putting in tons of commonly read books and scientific papers is safer, they can just eventually cross-license with the massive conglomerates that own everything. But the GPL is by nature hostile, and has been openly and specifically hostile from the beginning. MIT and Apache, etc. you can just include a fistful of licenses to download, or even come up with architectures that track names to add for attribution-ware. But the GPL will obviously (and legitimately) claim to have relicensed the entire model and maybe all its output (unless they restricted it to LGPL.)

Wouldn't you just pull it out?

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

#36

Post by jcelerier »

blibble wrote: post #13
maxloh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

France and most of europe has fair use (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copie_priv%C3%A9e) but also has a mandatory tax on every sold medium that can do storage to recover the "lost fees" due to fair use

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

#37

Post by Orygin »

James_K wrote: post #32
phplovesong wrote: post #25

We need a new license that forbids all training. That is the only way to stop big corporations from doing this.

Would such a license fall under the definition of free software? Difficult to say. Counter-proposition: a license which permits training if the model is fully open.

My next project will be released under a GPL-like license with exactly this condition added. If you train a model on this code, the model must be open source & open weights

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

#38

Post by pessimizer »

maxloh wrote: post #27
ljlolel wrote: post #16

And then also to all code made from the GPL’d ai model?

A program's output is likely not owned by the program's authors. For example, if you create a document with Microsoft Word, you are the one who owns it, not Microsoft.

Unless the license says otherwise. The fact that Word doesn't (I wouldn't even be sure if that was true, honestly, especially for the online versions) doesn't mean anything.

They could start selling a version of Word tomorrow that gives them the right to train from everything you type on your entire computer into any program. Or that requires you to relinquish your rights to your writing and to license it back from Microsoft, and to only be able to dispute this through arbitration. They could add a morals clause.

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

#40

Post by exasperaited »

xgulfie wrote: post #4
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.

And the current norm that the trillion dollar companies have lobbied for is that you can train on copyrighted material all you want so that's the reality we are living in. Everything ever published is all theirs.

In practice it wouldn't matter a whit if they lobbied for it or not.

Lobbying is for people trying to stop them; externalities are for the little people.

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