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Now is the time to give LLMs access to the ACM digital library

cacm.acm.org

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Re: Now is the time to give LLMs access to the ACM digital library

#51

Post by Cynddl »

maCDzP wrote: post #47
Cynddl wrote: post #32

As a researcher with many articles in the ACM library, I have to say this is a masterclass in hypocrisy. Obviously, lawyers can decipher the terms of ACM publishing contracts and Creative Commons licences to determine if this will be acceptable or not. But ACM is not a company, it's a non-profit founded in 1947 to represent scientists. I would be surprised if a majority of ACM members were to say yes should we ask th…

If it was a non profit that trained the model - would that change your mind?

The issue here is ACM focusing on licensing. A non profit would not be able to pay ACM for access. Hence why this policy is hypocritical: it gives more power to the larger players and undermines smaller actors in the field who have fewer resources.

Re: Now is the time to give LLMs access to the ACM digital library

#52

Post by bonoboTP »

Cynddl wrote: post #50
bonoboTP wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't hold a patent for the use of the knowledge you published publicly, you can't prevent others from using the knowledge. You enjoy the prestige attached to the idea that you're an academic who participates in giving away their knowledge but then you play this game when that knowledge would actually be useful as opposed to being read by 3 other people in your special area who sit on your various committees i…

This makes no sense whatsoever. How would a philosopher of science, or a social scientist who publish in the ACM apply for a patent? Or someone who builds software (software patent not so easy to get ;)). I have applied for patents before and I'm pretty sure my patent application has been fed to countless LLMs by now. The issue is not who owns knowledge, it's how it benefits humanity.

They can't apply for a patent in those categories, so they have no way of preventing others from reading their text (or using a program to process the text, and compute statistical properties), and using the ideas in other contexts (without re-expressing the same text).

If someone reads a philosophical essay, has a heureka moment from it, applies the principle to their work, and makes bank (commercial profit), they never have to pay a percentage to the author of the essay.

Re: Now is the time to give LLMs access to the ACM digital library

#53

Post by 20k »

bonoboTP wrote: post #48
loumf wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intellectual property law that governs ACM articles is copyright law, not patents. I don’t know who controls these (the ACM or the authors) or what rights might have been granted to the public. The entire point of copyright law is so that people can make their writing public and still be able to control the right to make copies (for example, into your dataset for training an LLM).

Copyright protects against reprinting or reproducing the wording and expression, not using the idea expressed in there in novel contexts.

AI reproduces copyrighted work exactly in many cases, so it clearly infringes copyright in this sense

The output of it is also a derivative work, and derivative works also infringe copyright. Its only not a problem if you ignore copyright entirely

Humans are the only entities that get to enjoy special idea-learning-exemptions, not AI

Re: Now is the time to give LLMs access to the ACM digital library

#54

Post by sharts »

bonoboTP wrote: post #34
Cynddl wrote: post #32

As a researcher with many articles in the ACM library, I have to say this is a masterclass in hypocrisy. Obviously, lawyers can decipher the terms of ACM publishing contracts and Creative Commons licences to determine if this will be acceptable or not. But ACM is not a company, it's a non-profit founded in 1947 to represent scientists. I would be surprised if a majority of ACM members were to say yes should we ask th…

If you don't hold a patent for the use of the knowledge you published publicly, you can't prevent others from using the knowledge. You enjoy the prestige attached to the idea that you're an academic who participates in giving away their knowledge but then you play this game when that knowledge would actually be useful as opposed to being read by 3 other people in your special area who sit on your various committees i…

Patents shouldn’t exist.

Re: Now is the time to give LLMs access to the ACM digital library

#55

Post by bonoboTP »

20k wrote: post #53
bonoboTP wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright protects against reprinting or reproducing the wording and expression, not using the idea expressed in there in novel contexts.

AI reproduces copyrighted work exactly in many cases, so it clearly infringes copyright in this sense The output of it is also a derivative work, and derivative works also infringe copyright. Its only not a problem if you ignore copyright entirely Humans are the only entities that get to enjoy special idea-learning-exemptions, not AI

The verbatim reproduction is clearly a red herring and not the main use case. Nobody reads novels (or science papers) by prompting ChatGPT to give the next paragraph.

Derivative work or transformative? It's not the same.

Re: Now is the time to give LLMs access to the ACM digital library

#57

Post by bonoboTP »

Cynddl wrote: post #51
maCDzP wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was a non profit that trained the model - would that change your mind?

The issue here is ACM focusing on licensing. A non profit would not be able to pay ACM for access. Hence why this policy is hypocritical: it gives more power to the larger players and undermines smaller actors in the field who have fewer resources.

Why did you sign off your copyright to ACM then? If you kept the copyright and prevented others from distributing your work, you could be the sole distributor and negotiate the price with the AI company yourself.

Re: Now is the time to give LLMs access to the ACM digital library

#58

Post by estebarb »

I'm really not sure how this would work. I don't know how the ACM works, but in IEEE you would have to give them your publishing rights. However, training a LLM is not publishing by itself, it is a derivative work? Any way, at this point authors should be entitled to monetary compensation, not the publisher. The deal is totally different.

Re: Now is the time to give LLMs access to the ACM digital library

#59

Post by hparadiz »

bonoboTP wrote: post #55
20k wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI reproduces copyrighted work exactly in many cases, so it clearly infringes copyright in this sense The output of it is also a derivative work, and derivative works also infringe copyright. Its only not a problem if you ignore copyright entirely Humans are the only entities that get to enjoy special idea-learning-exemptions, not AI

The verbatim reproduction is clearly a red herring and not the main use case. Nobody reads novels (or science papers) by prompting ChatGPT to give the next paragraph. Derivative work or transformative? It's not the same.

Suddenly it's "copyright infringement" to count the amount of times one word occurs after another word. I find this whole thing so amusing.
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