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OpenAI may not use lyrics without license, German court rules

reuters.com

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Re: OpenAI may not use lyrics without license, German court rules

#211

Post by cycomanic »

briandear wrote: post #164
EnPissant wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a tough one for the HN crowd. It's like that man not sure which button to push meme. 1) RIAA is evil for enforcing copyrights on lyrics? 2) OpenAI is evil for training on lyrics?

Very true. Just the other day, another “copyright is bad” post on the front page. Today its copyright is good because otherwise people might get some use of material in LLMs. Considering this is hacker news, it seems to be such an odd dichotomy. Sometimes it feels like anti-hacker news. The halcyon days of 2010 after long gone. Now we need to apparently be angry at all tech. LLMs are amazing and I wish they could tra…

> Very true. Just the other day, another “copyright is bad” post on the front page. Today its copyright is good because otherwise people might get some use of material in LLMs. > > Considering this is hacker news, it seems to be such an odd dichotomy. Sometimes it feels like anti-hacker news. The halcyon days of 2010 after long gone. Now we need to apparently be angry at all tech. > > LLMs are amazing and I wish they could train on anything and everything. LLMs are the smartphone to the fax machines of Google search.

Sorry this such a (purposefully?) naive take. In reality the thoughts are much more nuanced. For one open source/free software doesn't exist without copyright. Then there is the whole issue that these companies use vast amount of copyrighted material to train their models, arguing that all this is fair use. But on the other hand they lock their models behind walls, disallow training on them, keep the training methods and data selection secret...

This tends to be what people disagree with. It feels very much different rules for thee and me. Just imagine how outraged Sam Altman would act if someone leaked the code for Gpt5 and all the training scripts.

If we agree that copyright does not apply to llms, then it should also not apply to llms and they should be required to release all their models and the way of training them.

Re: OpenAI may not use lyrics without license, German court rules

#212

Post by dahart »

terminalshort wrote: post #207
dahart wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is US precedent for training being deemed not fair use. https://www.dglaw.com/court-rules-ai-training-on-copyrighted... Why wouldn’t training be illegal? It’s illegal for me to acquire and watch movies or listen to songs without paying for them*. If consuming copyrighted material isn’t fair use, then it doesn’t make sense that AI training would be fair use. * I hope it’s obvious but I feel compelled to qualify…

That interpretation is not correct. The owner explicitly denied license to the data and then the company went to a third party to gain access to the data that they were denied license to. > When building its tool, Ross sought to license Westlaw’s content as training data for its AI search engine. As the two are competitors, Thomson Reuters refused. Instead, Ross hired a third party, LegalEase, to provide training dat…

You’re contradicting the conclusion / interpretation written on dglaw.com? What is incorrect, exactly? It doesn’t seem like your summary challenges either my comment or the article I linked to, it’s not clear what you’re arguing. The court did find in this case that the use of the unlicensed data used for AI training was not fair use.

Re: OpenAI may not use lyrics without license, German court rules

#213

Post by cycomanic »

rpdillon wrote: post #161
Q6T46nT668w6i3m wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t follow. You’re punishing the publishing industry by punishing authors?

I'm saying that LLMs are worthwhile useful tools, and that I'm glad that we built them, and that the publishing industry, which holds the copyright on the material that we would use to train the LLMs, have had no hand in developing them, have done no research, and have actively tried to fight the process at every turn. I have no sympathy for them. The authors have been abused by the publishing industry for many decad…

So the argument is because LLMs are useful and the publishing industry was not involved in their creation we should disregard the property rights of the publishing industry and allow using their work without a license? By that same argument (if something useful is being build, we ignore existing rights) shouldn't not also just take the code/models from OpenAI etc. and just publish them somewhere? Why not also their datacenters?

Re: OpenAI may not use lyrics without license, German court rules

#214

Post by cycomanic »

llbbdd wrote: post #158
mathieu4v wrote: post #16

I found this bit very revealing: > Since the output would only be generated as a result of user inputs known as prompts, it was not the defendants, but the respective user who would be liable for it, OpenAI had argued. Another glimpse into the "mind" of a tech corporation allowing itself full freedom to profit from the vast body of human work available online, while explicitly declining any societal responsibility at…

This is largely how it works for nearly all coprightable work. I can draw Mickey Mouse but legally I'm not doing anything wrong until I try to sell it. It certainly doesn't put Crayola or Adobe at legal risk for me to do so.

Not really, if I ask an artist to draw me a Mickey Mouse (for money) who is committing copyright infringement?

It's an interesting observation that the big AI corps very much argue that learning "is the same that humans do", so fair use. But then when it comes to using that learning they argue the other way, i.e. "this is just a machine, it's the person asking who is doing the infringement".

Re: OpenAI may not use lyrics without license, German court rules

#215

Post by cycomanic »

knollimar wrote: post #117
dathinab wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But creating a derivative work based on the song? 1. it wouldn't matter as derivative work still needs the original license 2. expect if it's not derivative but just inspired, and the court case was about it being pretty much _the same work_ OpenAIs defense also wasn't that it's derived or inspired but, to quote > Since the output would only be generated as a result of user inputs known as prompts, it was not the d…

That seems like a really broad interpretation of "technically memorization" that could have unintended side effects (like say banning equations that could be used to generate specific lyrics), but I suppose some countries consider loading into RAM a copy already. I guess we're already at absurdity

> but I suppose some countries consider loading into RAM a copy already. I guess we're already at absurdity

FYI most do. Have a look at many software licenses. In particular Microsoft (who as we know invested lots into OpenAI), will argue it is so.

I would also say it makes sense. If it wasn't the case we can just load a program into lots of computers using only a single license/installation medium.

Re: OpenAI may not use lyrics without license, German court rules

#216

Post by ghssds »

EnPissant wrote: post #180
tharne wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know nuance takes the fun out of most online discussions, but there's a qualitative difference between a bunch of college kids downloading mp3's on a torrent site and a $500 billion company who's goal among other things is to become the primary access point to all things digital.

Should young adults be allowed to violate copyright and no one else? The damages caused seem far worse than an LLM being able to reproduce song lyrics. Is it simply "we like college kids" and "we hate OpenAI"? that dictates this? I'm ready, hit me with the nuance.

Maybe individuals and corporations are differents enough copyright should not work the same way.

Re: OpenAI may not use lyrics without license, German court rules

#217

Post by knollimar »

cycomanic wrote: post #215
knollimar wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a really broad interpretation of "technically memorization" that could have unintended side effects (like say banning equations that could be used to generate specific lyrics), but I suppose some countries consider loading into RAM a copy already. I guess we're already at absurdity

> but I suppose some countries consider loading into RAM a copy already. I guess we're already at absurdity FYI most do. Have a look at many software licenses. In particular Microsoft (who as we know invested lots into OpenAI), will argue it is so. I would also say it makes sense. If it wasn't the case we can just load a program into lots of computers using only a single license/installation medium.

I think it's absurd. In my opinion the copy is for copying the usable part (e.g. installation).

Is running a program making a copy? If I run it on some distributed system is it then making more copies than allowed? This gets insane quickly.

I think it's just a bandaid for fixing removable drive installations. These should have had their own laws/rules/etc.

It has knock-on effects like being able to enforce other IP law to someone you just licensed your software to.

Similarly I think this is more an "interpret words to get the desired outcome instead of the likely spirit or meaning of the words".

Re: OpenAI may not use lyrics without license, German court rules

#218

Post by mleroy »

A key takeaway from this ruling is that "the systems contain copies of the original works." Does this mean that offering any open-weight model capable of reproducing copyrighted text snippets or lyrics will be prohibited? That would be a big setback for AI development in the EU.

Re: OpenAI may not use lyrics without license, German court rules

#219

Post by EnPissant »

ghssds wrote: post #216
EnPissant wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should young adults be allowed to violate copyright and no one else? The damages caused seem far worse than an LLM being able to reproduce song lyrics. Is it simply "we like college kids" and "we hate OpenAI"? that dictates this? I'm ready, hit me with the nuance.

Maybe individuals and corporations are differents enough copyright should not work the same way.

[flagged]

Re: OpenAI may not use lyrics without license, German court rules

#220

Post by EnPissant »

shakna wrote: post #198
EnPissant wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should young adults be allowed to violate copyright and no one else? The damages caused seem far worse than an LLM being able to reproduce song lyrics. Is it simply "we like college kids" and "we hate OpenAI"? that dictates this? I'm ready, hit me with the nuance.

A young adult who pirates, is also more likely to make purchases in that industry, and has an impact that is limited. A corporation who pirates, is more likely to pirate en masse everything that they can get their hands on, in an ongoing manner, and throw everything they can at contesting their right to do so in court.

This is neither true nor relevant.
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