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US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

theregister.com

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Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#181

Post by palmotea »

jobigoud wrote: post #76
palmotea wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

We are talking about the rights of the humans training the models and the humans using the models to create new things. Copyright only comes into play on publication. It's only concerned about publication of the models and publication of works. The machine itself doesn't have agency to publish anything at this point.

>>> Despite that, Humans can read a book, get inspiration, and write a new book and not be litigated against.

>> The fatal flaw in your reasoning: machines aren't humans. You can't reason that a machine has rights from the fact a human has them. Otherwise it's murder to recycle a car.

> We are talking about the rights of the humans training the models and the humans using the models to create new things.

Then that's even easier, because that prevents appeals to things humans do, like learning, from muddying the waters.

If "training the models" entails loading up copyrighted works into your system (e.g. encoded them during training), you've just copied them into a retrieval system and violated copyright based on established precedent. And people have prompted verbatim copyrighted text out of well-known LLMs, which makes it even clearer.

And then to defend LLM training you're left with BS akin to claiming an ASCII encoded copy of a book not a copyright violation, because the book is paper and ASCII is numbers.

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#182

Post by Ekaros »

GuB-42 wrote: post #47
brador wrote: post #17

Lifetime for human copyright, 20 years for corporate copyright. That’s the golden zone.

The issue with lifetime (vs something like lifetime + X years) is that of inheritance. Assuming you agree with the idea of inheritance, which is another topic, then it is unfair to deny inheritance of intellectual property. For example if your father has built a house, it will be yours when he dies, it won't become a public house. So why would a book your father wrote just before he died become public domain the mome…

20 or 25 years from publication. Enough for anyone inhering it to exploit if they are children. No need to have more. It is not like house builder keeps getting paid after house has been build.

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#183

Post by oooyay »

jhaile wrote: post #159

One aspect that I feel is ignored by the comments here is the geo-political forces at work. If the US takes the position that LLMs can't use copyrighted work or has to compensate all copyright holders – other countries (e.g. China) will not follow suit. This will mean that US LLM companies will either fall behind or be too expensive. Which means China and other countries will probably surge ahead in AI, at least in t…

Well hell, by that logic average citizens should be able to launder corporate intellectual property because China will never follow suit in adhering to intellectual property law. I'm game if you are.

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#184

Post by bilbo0s »

pc86 wrote: post #178
therouwboat wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If AI is so important, maybe it should be owned by the government and free to use for all citizens.

Name two non-military things that the government owns and aren't complete dumpster fires that barely do the thing they're supposed to do. Even (especially?) the military is a dumpster fire but it's at least very good at doing what it exists to do.

That's a trick question.

I mean, name 2 things anyone owns that aren't dumpster fires?

Long time ago industrial engineers used to say, "Even Toyota has recalls."

Something being a dumpster fire is so common nowadays that you really need a better reason to argue in support of a given entity's ownership. (Or even non-ownership for that matter.)

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#185

Post by pergadad »

pc86 wrote: post #178
therouwboat wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If AI is so important, maybe it should be owned by the government and free to use for all citizens.

Name two non-military things that the government owns and aren't complete dumpster fires that barely do the thing they're supposed to do. Even (especially?) the military is a dumpster fire but it's at least very good at doing what it exists to do.

The government doesn't make tanks, it just shells out gigantic amounts to companies to make them.

That said, there are plenty of successful government actions across the world, where Europe or Japan probably have a good advantage with solid public services. Think streets, healthcare, energy infrastructure, water infrastructure, rail, ...

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#186

Post by Ekaros »

renewiltord wrote: post #79

I wonder when general internet sentiment moved from pro-piracy to IP maximalism. Fascinating shift.

Not having massively overfunded corporations exploit artists is not IP minimalism. Private persons stealing something is seen as tiny evil. But big corporation exploiting everyone else is entirely different thing.

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#187

Post by lappet »

pc86 wrote: post #178
therouwboat wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If AI is so important, maybe it should be owned by the government and free to use for all citizens.

Name two non-military things that the government owns and aren't complete dumpster fires that barely do the thing they're supposed to do. Even (especially?) the military is a dumpster fire but it's at least very good at doing what it exists to do.

Highways

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#188

Post by 93po »

otterley wrote: post #86
whamlastxmas wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the concept of owning an idea is really gross. Copyright means I can’t write about whatever I want in my own home even if I never distribute it or no one ever sees it. I’m breaking the law by privately writing Harry Potter fanfic in my journal or whatever. Copyright is supposed to be about encouraging intangibles, and the reality is that it only massively stifles it

Copyright doesn’t protect ideas. It protects expression of those ideas. Consider how many books exist on how to care for trees. Each one of them has similar ideas, but the way those ideas are expressed differ. Copyright protects the content of the book; it doesn’t protect the ideas of how to care for trees.

Disney has a copyright over Moana. I would argue Moana is an idea in the sense that most people think of as ideas. Moana isn't tangle, it's not a physical good. It's not a plate on my table. It only exists in our heads. If I made a Moana comic book, with an entirely original storyline and original art and it was all drawn in my own style and not using 3D assets similar to their movies, that is violating copyright. Moana is an idea and there are a million ways to express the established character Moana, and Moana itself is an idea built on a million things that Disney doesn't have any rights to - history, culture, tropes, etc.

I understand what you're saying but the way you're framing it isn't what I really have a problem with. I still don't agree with the idea that I can't make my own physical copies of Harry Potters books, identical word for word. I think people can choose to buy the physical books from the original publisher because they want to support them or like the idea that it's the "true" physical copy. And I'm going to push back on that a million times less than the concept of things like Moana comic books. But still, it's infringing copyright for me to make Moana comic books in my own home, in private, and never showing them to anyone. And that's ridiculous.

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#189

Post by Intralexical »

mdhb wrote: post #158
nadermx wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused, so you're saying its illegal? Because last I checked it's still in the process of going through the courts. And need we forget that copyright's purpose is to advance the arts and sciences. Fair use is codified into law, which states each case is seen on a use by use basis, hence the litigation to determine if it is in fact, legal.

It’s so fucking obviously illegal when you think about it rationally for more than a few seconds. We aren’t even talking about “fair use” we are talking about how it works in practice which was Meta torrenting pirated books, never paying anyone a cent and straight up stealing the content at scale.

A test to apply here: If you or I did this, would it be illegal? Would we even be having this conversation?

The law is supposed to be impartial. So if the answer is different, then it's not really a law problem we're talking about.

Re: US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

#190

Post by jowea »

oooyay wrote: post #183
jhaile wrote: post #159

One aspect that I feel is ignored by the comments here is the geo-political forces at work. If the US takes the position that LLMs can't use copyrighted work or has to compensate all copyright holders – other countries (e.g. China) will not follow suit. This will mean that US LLM companies will either fall behind or be too expensive. Which means China and other countries will probably surge ahead in AI, at least in t…

Well hell, by that logic average citizens should be able to launder corporate intellectual property because China will never follow suit in adhering to intellectual property law. I'm game if you are.

Isn't that sort of logic precisely why China doesn't adhere to IP law?
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