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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

#81

Post by Orygin »

amszmidt wrote: post #51
James_K wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It isn't the difficult, a license that forbids how the program is used is a non-free software license. "The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0)."

Yet the GPL imposes requirements for me and we consider it free software.

You are still free to train on the licensed work, BUT you must meet the requirements (just like the GPL), which would include making the model open source/weight.

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

#82

Post by basilgohar »

michaelmrose wrote: post #68
justin_murray wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is at least murky, since a lot of pirated material is “publicly available”. Certainly some has ended up in the training data.

It isn't? You have to break the law to get it. It's publicly available like your TV is if I were to break into your house and avoid getting shot.

That isn't even remotely a sensible analogy. Equating copyright violation with stealing physical property is an extremely failed metaphor.

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

#83

Post by codedokode »

munchler wrote: post #62
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.

By that logic, humans would also be prevented from “training” on (i.e. learning from) such code. Hard to see how this could be a valid license.

Bad analogy, probably made up by capitalists to confuse people. ML models cannot and do not learn. "learning" is a name of a process, when model developer downloads pirated material and processes it with an algorithm (computes parameters from it).

Also, humans do not need to read million of pirated books to learn to talk. And a human artist doesn't need to steal million pictures to learn to draw.

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

#84

Post by pessimizer »

NiloCK wrote: post #47
pessimizer wrote: post #35

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 sp…

Not crazy - there's a rational self-interest in doing this. But I'm not certain that the relevant players have the same consequence-fearing mindset that you do, and to be honest they're probably right. The theft is too great to calculate the consequences, and by the time it's settled, what are you gonna do - turn off Forster's machine? I hope you're right in at least some cases!

> by the time it's settled

Why would the GPL settle? Even more, who is authorized to settle for every author who used the GPL? If the courts decided in favor of the GPL, which I think would be likely just because of the age and pervasiveness of the GPL, they'd actually have to lobby Congress to write an exception to copyright rules for AI.

A large part of the infrastructure of the world is built on the GPL, and the people who wrote it were clearly motivated by the protection that they thought that the GPL would give to what was often a charitable act, or even an act that would allow companies to share code without having to compete with themselves. I can't imagine too many judges just going "nope."

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

#85

Post by MangoToupe »

michaelmrose wrote: post #68
justin_murray wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is at least murky, since a lot of pirated material is “publicly available”. Certainly some has ended up in the training data.

It isn't? You have to break the law to get it. It's publicly available like your TV is if I were to break into your house and avoid getting shot.

Maybe you have some legalistic point that escapes comprehension, but I certainly consider my house to be much private and the internet public.

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

#86

Post by RobotToaster »

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

Most commonwealth countries have fair dealing, which is similar although slightly different https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_dealing

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

#87

Post by [deleted] »

gus_massa wrote: post #52
WithinReason wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be still legal to train on the data due to fair use?

I don't think it's fair use, but everyone on Earth disagree with me. So even with the standard default licence that prohibits absolutely everything, the humanity-1 consider it fair use.

[deleted]

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

#88

Post by mixedbit »

justin_murray wrote: post #72
gus_massa wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's fair use, but everyone on Earth disagree with me. So even with the standard default licence that prohibits absolutely everything, the humanity-1 consider it fair use.

Honest question: why don’t you think it is fair use? I can see how it pushes the boundary, but I can’t lay out logic that it’s not. The code has been publish for the public to see. I’m always allowed to read it, remember it, tell my friends about it. Certainly, this is what the author hoped I would do. Otherwise, wouldn’t they have kept it to themselves? These agents are just doing a more sophisticated, faster versio…

Before LLMs programmers had pretty good intuition what GPL license allowed for. It is of course clear that you cannot release a closed source program with GPL code integrated into it. I think it was also quite clear, that you cannot legally incorporate GPL code into such a program, by making changes here and there, renaming some stuff, and moving things around, but this is pretty much what LLMs are doing. When humans do it intentionally, it is violation of the license, when it is automated and done on a huge scale, is it really fair use?

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

#89

Post by basilgohar »

michaelmrose wrote: post #71
scotty79 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need a ruling that LLM generated code enters public domain automatically and can't be covered by any license.

Laws exist to protect those who make and have money. If trillions could be made harvesting your kids kidneys it would be legal.

It's done extrajudicially in warzones such as Palestine where hostages are returned from Israeli jails, with missing organs, dead or alive [0].

[0] https://factually.co/fact-checks/justice/evidence-investigat...

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

#90

Post by myrmidon »

dmezzetti wrote: post #64
myrmidon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a very similar view once, and have since understood that this is mainly a difference in perspective: It's easy as a developer to slip into a role where you want to build/package (maybe sell) some software product with minimal obligations. BSD-likes are obviously great there. But the GPL follows a different perspective: It tries to make sure that every user of any software product is always capable of tinkering…

I understand people want to control what happens once they build something. Too often do you see startups go with a permissive model only to go to a more restrictive model once something like that happens. Then it ends up upsetting a lot of people. I'm of the opinion that what I build, I'm willing to share it and let others use it as they see fit even if it's not to my advantage.

I think the GPL mainly suffers with startups because it makes monetization pretty difficult. Some "commercial" uses of it are also giving it somewhat of an undeserved bad taste (when companies use it to benefit from free contributions while preventing competitors from getting any use out of it).

My view is that every project and library where I can peruse the source is a gift/privilege. GPL restrictions I view as a small price to "pay it forward", and to keep that privilege for all wherever possible.

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