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

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

#231

Post by gruez »

palmotea wrote: post #62
mattxxx wrote: post #51

Well, firing someone for this is super weird. It seems like an attempt to censor an interpretation of the law that: 1. Criticizes a highly useful technology 2. Matches a potentially-outdated, strict interpretation of copyright law My opinion: I think using copyrighted data to train models for sure seems classically illegal. Despite that, Humans can read a book, get inspiration, and write a new book and not be litigat…

[flagged]

>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.

That might be true but I don't see how it's relevant. There's no provision in copyright law that gives a free pass to humans vs machines, or makes a distinction between them.

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

#232

Post by flyingcircus3 »

93po wrote: post #216
flyingcircus3 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very fact that you can bring this tired retort to any argument regardless of context reveals it for what it is: an off ramp to any conversation you have no better argument against.

People see actions and make assumptions on intentions behind those actions. They also make assumptions on who actually called for those actions, or the percent to which people contributed to those decisions. If you don't have a tape recorder showing Trump saying "Fire Shira, I don't like what she did and she needs to get out" then you are making assumptions both for his reasons and his involvement. No one has that ta…

Now apply this reasoning to Trump standing in Air Force One and saying that he would bring someone back of the Supreme Court said to. It's on video.

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

#233

Post by Zambyte »

93po wrote: post #203
flats wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe this is true? I’m pretty sure that you’re prohibited from making money from that fan fiction, not from writing it at all. So I don’t understand the claim that copyright “massively stifles” creativity. There are of course examples of people not being able to make money on specific “ideas” because of copyright laws, but that doesn’t seem to me to be “massively stifling” creativity itself, especially giv…

Copyright isn't about distribution, it's about creation. In reality the chances of getting in trouble is basically zero if you don't distribute it - who would know? But technically any creation, even in private, is violating copyright. Doesn't matter if you make money or put it on the internet. There is fair use, but fair is an affirmative defense to infringing copyright. By claiming fair use you are simultaneously a…

> Copyright isn't about distribution, it's about creation

This is exactly wrong. You can copy all of Harry Potter into your journal as many times as you want legally (creating copies) so long as you do not distribute it.

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

#234

Post by empath75 »

gruez wrote: post #174
empath75 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's start with I think a case that everyone agrees with. If I were to take an image, and compress it or encrypt it, and then show you data file, you would not be able to see the original copyrighted material anywhere in the data. But if you had the right computer program, you could use it to regenerate the original image flawlessly. I think most people would easily agree that distributing the encrypted file without…

>Okay, so now we have AI. We can ignore the algorithm entirely and how it works, because it's not relevant. There is a large amount of data that it operates on, the weights of the model and so on. You _can_ with the correct prompts, sometimes generate a copy of a copyrighted work, to some degree of fidelity or another. Suppose we accept all of the above. What does that hold for human learning?

If a human were to reproduce, from memory, a copyrighted work, that would be illegal as well, and multiple people have been sued over it, even doing it unintentionally.

I'm not talking about learning. I'm talking about the complete reproduction of a copyrighted work. It doesn't matter how it happens.

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

#235

Post by gruez »

oooyay wrote: post #204
jowea wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes, I was being a bit facetious. It was snark intended to point out that corporations don't get to have their cake and eat it too. Either everything is free and there are no boundaries or we live by our own principles.

>It was snark intended to point out that corporations don't get to have their cake and eat it too.

"have their cake and eat it too" allegations only work if you're talking about the same entity. The copyright maximalist corporations (ie. publishers) aren't the same as the permissive ones (ie. AI companies). Making such characterizations make as much sense as saying "citizens don't get to eat their cake and eat it too", when referring to the fact that citizens are anti-AI, but freely pirate movies.

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

#236

Post by gruez »

r053bud wrote: post #223
oooyay wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I was being a bit facetious. It was snark intended to point out that corporations don't get to have their cake and eat it too. Either everything is free and there are no boundaries or we live by our own principles.

It’s barely facetious though. What is stopping me from “starting an AI company” (LLC, sure), torrenting all ebooks (which Facebook did), and as long as I don’t seed, I’m golden?

>What is stopping me from “starting an AI company” (LLC, sure), torrenting all ebooks (which Facebook did), and as long as I don’t seed, I’m golden?

Nothing. You don't even need the LLC. I don't think anyone got prosecuted for only downloading. All prosecutions were for distribution. Note that if you're torrenting, even if you stop the moment it's finished (and thus never goes to "seeding"), you're still uploading, and would count as distribution for the purposes of copyright law.

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

#237

Post by jofla_net »

gruez wrote: post #227
wnevets wrote: post #218

> Minnesota woman to pay $220,000 fine for 24 illegally downloaded songs [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/sep/11/minnesota... [1]

How is this relevant? >The RIAA accused her of downloading and distributing more than 1,700 music files on file-sharing site KaZaA Emphasis mine. I think most people would agree that whatever AI companies are doing with training AI models is different than sending verbatim copies to random people on the internet.

Who knew alls she needed was to change the tempo, pitch, timbre, add/remove lyrics, add/subtract a few notes, rearrange harmony, put it behind a web portal with a fancy name, claim it had an inspirational muse or assume all mortal beings as being without one in the first place so it doesn't matter, and proceed to make millions off of said process methodically rather than giving it away for free, and she'd be right as rain.

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

#238

Post by _aavaa_ »

gruez wrote: post #235
oooyay wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I was being a bit facetious. It was snark intended to point out that corporations don't get to have their cake and eat it too. Either everything is free and there are no boundaries or we live by our own principles.

>It was snark intended to point out that corporations don't get to have their cake and eat it too. "have their cake and eat it too" allegations only work if you're talking about the same entity. The copyright maximalist corporations (ie. publishers) aren't the same as the permissive ones (ie. AI companies). Making such characterizations make as much sense as saying "citizens don't get to eat their cake and eat it too…

Yes they are. Look at what happened when deepseek came out. Altman started crying and alleging that deepseek was trained on OpenAI model outputs without an inkling of irony

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

#239

Post by gruez »

bgwalter wrote: post #170
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…

The same president that is putting 145% tariffs on China could put 1000% tariffs on Internet chat bots located in China. Or order the Internet cables to be cut as a last resort (citing a national emergency as is the new practice). I'm not sure at all what China will do. I find it likely that they'll forbid AI at least for minors so that they do not become less intelligent. Military applications are another matter tha…

>Or order the Internet cables to be cut as a last resort (citing a national emergency as is the new practice).

what if they route through third countries?

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

#240

Post by Teever »

Bjorkbat wrote: post #207
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…

I broadly agree in that sure, unfettered access to copyrighted material will AI more capable, but more capable of what exactly? For national security reasons I'm perfectly fine with giving LLMs unfettered access to various academic publications, scientific and technical information, that sort of thing. I'm a little more on the fence about proprietary code, but I have a hard time believing there isn't enough code out…

If common culture is an effective substrate to communicate ideas as in we can use shared pop culture references to make metaphors to explain complex ideas then the common culture that large companies have ensnared in excessively long copyrights and trademarks to generate massive profits is a useful thing for an LLM that is designed to convey ideas to have embedded in it.

If I'm learning about kinematics maybe it would be more effective to have comparisons to Superman flying faster than a speeding bullet and no amount of dry textbooks and academic papers will make up for the lack of such a comparison.

This is especially relevant when we're talking about science-fiction which has served as the inspiration for many of the leading edge technologies that we use including stuff like LLMs and AI.

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