Extracting AI models from mobile apps • Hacker News Board

Re: Extracting AI models from mobile apps

#31

Post by roywiggins » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 4:53 PM UTC

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #26

rpdillon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment confused me, but I'm very interested in what you're getting at. > Circumventing a copy-prevention system without a valid exemption is a crime, even if you don't make unlawful copies. Yep, this is the DMCA section 1201. Late '90s law in the US. > Copyright covers the right to make copies, not the right to distribute This is where I got confused. Copyright covers four rights: copying, distribution, creatio…

Here is the relevant text in the law: > No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The inclusion of “work protected under this title” makes it clear in the law, though I doubt a judge would rule otherwise without that line. (Otherwise, I’d wonder if I could claim damages that Google et al. are violating the technological measures I’ve put…

It seems clear from this definition especially:

> (A) to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner

In this case there is no copyright owner.

Re: Extracting AI models from mobile apps

#32

Post by avg_dev » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 4:54 PM UTC

pretty cool; that frida tool seems really nice. https://frida.re/docs/home/

(and a bunch of people seem to be interested in the "IP" note, but I took as, just trying to not get run into legal trouble for advertising "here's how you can 'steal' models!")

Re: Extracting AI models from mobile apps

#33

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 4:57 PM UTC

roywiggins wrote: post #31

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the relevant text in the law: > No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The inclusion of “work protected under this title” makes it clear in the law, though I doubt a judge would rule otherwise without that line. (Otherwise, I’d wonder if I could claim damages that Google et al. are violating the technological measures I’ve put…

It seems clear from this definition especially: > (A) to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner In this case there is no copyright owner.

Right, that’s what I was getting at with my parenthetical. Obviously the work has to have an owned copyright in order to be protected by copyright law.

Re: Extracting AI models from mobile apps

#34

Post by ANewFormation » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 4:57 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #18

Lerc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even sure if event the first part is true. Has it been determined if AI models are intellectual property? Machine generated content may not be copyrightable. It isn't just the output of generative AI that falls under this, the models themselves are. Can you copyright a set of coefficients for a formula? In the sense of a JPEG it would be considered that the image being reproduced is the thing that has the cop…

> AI models are intellectual property If companies train on data they don't own and expect to own their model weights, that's hypocritical. Model weights shouldn't be copyrightable if the training data was pilfered. But this hasn't been tested because models are locked away in data centers as trade secrets. There's no opportunity to observe or copy them outside of using their outputs as synthetic data. On that subjec…

Now that you mention it, I'm quite surprised that none of the typical fanatical IP lawsuiters had sued arguing (reasonably I think) that the output of the LLMs is strongly suggestive that they have been trained on copyrighted materials. Get the lawsuit to discovery, and those data centers become fair game.

Perhaps 'strongly suggestive' isn't enough.

Re: Extracting AI models from mobile apps

#35

Post by roywiggins » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 4:58 PM UTC

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #33

roywiggins wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems clear from this definition especially: > (A) to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner In this case there is no copyright owner.

Right, that’s what I was getting at with my parenthetical. Obviously the work has to have an owned copyright in order to be protected by copyright law.

sorry, yes, reread your comment and dirty-edited mine

Re: Extracting AI models from mobile apps

#36

Post by bayindirh » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 5:02 PM UTC

slowmovintarget wrote: post #22

Lerc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even sure if event the first part is true. Has it been determined if AI models are intellectual property? Machine generated content may not be copyrightable. It isn't just the output of generative AI that falls under this, the models themselves are. Can you copyright a set of coefficients for a formula? In the sense of a JPEG it would be considered that the image being reproduced is the thing that has the cop…

Datasets want to be free.

Just ask the owner of the data for their consent before adding to a dataset which wants to be free.

Re: Extracting AI models from mobile apps

#37

Post by Onawa » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 5:05 PM UTC

ANewFormation wrote: post #34

echelon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI models are intellectual property If companies train on data they don't own and expect to own their model weights, that's hypocritical. Model weights shouldn't be copyrightable if the training data was pilfered. But this hasn't been tested because models are locked away in data centers as trade secrets. There's no opportunity to observe or copy them outside of using their outputs as synthetic data. On that subjec…

Now that you mention it, I'm quite surprised that none of the typical fanatical IP lawsuiters had sued arguing (reasonably I think) that the output of the LLMs is strongly suggestive that they have been trained on copyrighted materials. Get the lawsuit to discovery, and those data centers become fair game. Perhaps 'strongly suggestive' isn't enough.

Wasn't that the goal of both the New York Times lawsuit and other class action lawsuits from authors?

https://harvardlawreview.org/blog/2024/04/nyt-v-openai-the-t...

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/p...

Re: Extracting AI models from mobile apps

#38

Post by cess11 » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 5:06 PM UTC

jonpo wrote: post #16

Well done you seem to have liberated an open model trained on open data for blind and visually impaired people. Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2204.03738 Code: https://github.com/microsoft/banknote-net Training data: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/banknote-net/ref... model: https://github.com/microsoft/banknote-net/blob/main/models/b... Kinda easier to download it straight from github. Its licenced under M…

[flagged]

Re: Extracting AI models from mobile apps

#39

Post by Polizeiposaune » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 5:10 PM UTC

You wouldn't train a LLM on a corpus containing copyrighted works without ensuring you had the necessary rights to the works, would you?

Re: Extracting AI models from mobile apps

#40

Post by dragonwriter » Sun, Jan 05, 2025, 5:17 PM UTC

wat10000 wrote: post #4

“ Keep in mind that AI models, like most things, are considered intellectual property. Before using or modifying any extracted models, you need the explicit permission of their owner.” That’s not true, is it? It would be a copyright violation to distribute an extracted model, but you can do what you want with it yourself.

No, copyright violation occurs at the first unauthorized copying or creation of a derivative work or exercise of any of the other exclusive rights of the copyright holder (that does not fall into an exception like that for fair use.) That distribution is required for a copyright violation is a persistent myth. Distribution is a means by which a violation becomes more likely to be detected and also more likely to involve significant liability for damages.

(OTOH, whether models, as the output of a mechanical process, are subject to copyright is a matter of some debate. The firms training models tend to treat the models as if they were protected by copyright but also tend to treat the source works as if copying for the purpose of training AI were within a copyright exception; why each of those positions is in their interest is obvious, but neither is well-established.)