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Is legal the same as legitimate: AI reimplementation and the erosion of copyleft

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Re: Is legal the same as legitimate: AI reimplementation and the erosion of copyleft

#291

Post by [deleted] »

SatvikBeri wrote: post #268
paxys wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a legal distinction between training, post-training, fine tuning and filling up a context window? In all of these cases an AI model is taking a copyrighted source, reading it, jumbling the bytes and storing it in its memory as vectors. Later a query reads these vectors and outputs them in a form which may or may not be similar to the original.

Judges have previously ruled that training counts as sufficiently transformative to qualify for fair use: https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/two-california-distr... I don't know of any rulings on the context window, but it's certainly possible judges would rule that would not qualify as transformative.

[deleted]

Re: Is legal the same as legitimate: AI reimplementation and the erosion of copyleft

#293

Post by alpaca128 »

NewsaHackO wrote: post #225
Gigachad wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI models have already looked at the source of GPL software and contain it in their dataset. Adding the minecraft source to the mix wouldn't seem much different. Of course art assets and trade marks would have to be replaced. But an AI "clean room" implementation has yet to be legally tested.

That's why he is saying it's not equivalent. For it to be the same, the LLM would have to train on/transform Minecraft's source code into its weights, then you prompt the LLM to make a game using the specifications of Minecraft solely through prompts. Of course it's copyright infringement if you just give a tool Minecraft's source code and tell it to copy it, just like it would be copyright infringement if you used a…

What if Copilot was already trained with Minecraft code in the dataset? Should be possible to test by telling the model to continue a snippet from the leaked code, the same way a news website proved their articles were used for training.

Re: Is legal the same as legitimate: AI reimplementation and the erosion of copyleft

#294

Post by RobRivera »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #279

> If source code can now be generated from a specification, the specification is where the essential intellectual content of a GPL project resides. Our foreparents fought for the right to implement works-a-like to corporate software packages, even if the so-called owners did not like it. We're ready to throw it all away, and let intellectual property owners get so much more control. The implications will not end up b…

Sounds very similar to that whole API lawsuit with oracle.

Re: Is legal the same as legitimate: AI reimplementation and the erosion of copyleft

#295

Post by stagger87 »

I'm probably spitting in the wind, but stuff like this is why I removed all my hosted open source projects. I manage several niche projects that I have now converted to binary only releases (to almost no push back). It's niche enough that it's not very hard to get LLMs to output chunks of code that it managed to scrape before I took it offline. I don't see many people talking about this angle, but LLMs ripping off my work killed my open source efforts.

Re: Is legal the same as legitimate: AI reimplementation and the erosion of copyleft

#296

Post by crazygringo »

munk-a wrote: post #275
crazygringo wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We do not have to grant machines the same. No we don't have to, but so far we do, because that's the most legally consistent. If you want to change that, you're going to need to pass new laws that may wind up radically redefining intellectual property. > Has the model really performed an extreme transformation if it is able to produce the training data near-verbatim? Of course it has, if the transformation is extre…

I want to briefly pick at this: > you're going to need to pass new laws that may wind up radically redefining intellectual property You're correct that this is one route to resolving the situation, but I think it's reasonable to lean more strongly into the original intent of intellectual property laws to defend creative works as a manner to sustain yourself that would draw a pretty clear distinction between human cre…

> into the original intent of intellectual property laws to defend creative works as a manner to sustain yourself

But you're missing the other half of copyright law, which is the original intent to promote the public good.

That's why fair use exists, for the public good. And that's why the main legal argument behind LLM training is fair use -- that the resulting product doesn't compete directly with the originals, and is in the public good.

In other words, if you write an autobiography, you're not losing significant sales because people are asking an LLM about your life.

Re: Is legal the same as legitimate: AI reimplementation and the erosion of copyleft

#297

Post by munk-a »

crazygringo wrote: post #287
munk-a wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely prohibited to copy and redistribute for commercial purposes materials that you're unlicensed to do so with. This isn't an issue when it comes to the copy-left scenario (though it may potentially enforce transitive licensing requirements on the copier that LLM runners don't want to follow) but it is a huge issue that has come up with LLM training. LLM training involves ingesting works (in a potentially…

> It's absolutely prohibited to copy and redistribute for commercial purposes materials that you're unlicensed to do so with. Sure, but that's not what LLM's generally do, and it's certainly not what they're intended to do. The LLM companies, and many other people, argue that training falls under fair use . One element of fair use is whether the purpose/character is sufficiently transformative , and transforming text…

Yea, at the end of the day a big part of this question comes down to whether that copying is fair use and that is an open question with the transformative nature being the primary point in favor of the LLM. But it is copying from some works to another - if it doesn't have some fair use exception it is absolutely violating the licensing of most of the training data. It's a bit different from previous settled case law because it's copying so little from so many billions of different things. I think blocking reproduction is wise by LLM companies for PR purposes but it doesn't guarantee that training is a license exempted activity.

Re: Is legal the same as legitimate: AI reimplementation and the erosion of copyleft

#298

Post by paxys »

munk-a wrote: post #166

I think the missing thing here is that the license violation already happened. Most of the big models trained on data in a manner that violated terms of service. We'll need a court case but I think it's extremely reasonable to consider any model trained on GPL code to be infected with open licensing requirements.

The act of training by itself has been ruled to be fair use over and over again, including for LLMs, and there isn't much debate left there.

The test for infringement is if the output is transformative enough, and that is what NYT vs OpenAI etc. are arguing.

Re: Is legal the same as legitimate: AI reimplementation and the erosion of copyleft

#299

Post by crazygringo »

munk-a wrote: post #297
crazygringo wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's absolutely prohibited to copy and redistribute for commercial purposes materials that you're unlicensed to do so with. Sure, but that's not what LLM's generally do, and it's certainly not what they're intended to do. The LLM companies, and many other people, argue that training falls under fair use . One element of fair use is whether the purpose/character is sufficiently transformative , and transforming text…

Yea, at the end of the day a big part of this question comes down to whether that copying is fair use and that is an open question with the transformative nature being the primary point in favor of the LLM. But it is copying from some works to another - if it doesn't have some fair use exception it is absolutely violating the licensing of most of the training data. It's a bit different from previous settled case law…

Yup. Of course it's copying. But all expectations are that courts will rule that fair use allows such copying, because of the nature of the transformation.

Re: Is legal the same as legitimate: AI reimplementation and the erosion of copyleft

#300

Post by halJordan »

RobRivera wrote: post #294
jrochkind1 wrote: post #279

> If source code can now be generated from a specification, the specification is where the essential intellectual content of a GPL project resides. Our foreparents fought for the right to implement works-a-like to corporate software packages, even if the so-called owners did not like it. We're ready to throw it all away, and let intellectual property owners get so much more control. The implications will not end up b…

Sounds very similar to that whole API lawsuit with oracle.

And the whole Adobe pdf thing and the whole Microsoft word thing. And the whole ibm pc thing. Imagine if we were forced to keep using ibm from when they lost their way until now simply because anti-ai luddites were able to scare monger
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