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Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

tuananh.net

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Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#381

Post by CrazyStat »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #379
throwup238 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but I was under the impression that Supreme Court ruling was very specific to the AI itself copyrighting its own produced code. Once a human is involved, it gets a lot more complicated and rests on whether the human's contribution was substantial enough to make it copyrightable under their person.

A fun exercise: When Supreme Court has not ruled on an open legal question of interest, let's ask AI what would be a likely ruling by Supreme Court. I think SCOTUS might in fact use AI to get a set of possible interpretations of the law, before they come up with their decision. AI might give them good reasons for pros and cons.

> AI might give them good reasons for pros and cons.

This is what lawyers do, in their briefs and oral arguments before the court.

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#383

Post by aeon_ai »

calny wrote: post #311
aeon_ai wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've likely paid attention to the litigation here. Regardless of what remains to be litigated, the training in and of itself has already been deemed fair use (and transformative) by Alsup. Further, you know that ideas are not protected by copyright. The code comparison in this demonstrates a relatively strong case that the expression of the idea is significantly different from that of the original code. If it were…

You're right, I've followed the litigation closely. I've advocated for years that "training is fair use" and I'm generally an anti-IP hawk who DEFENDS copyright/trademark cases. Only recently have I started to concede the issue might have more nuance than "all training is fair use, hard stop." And I still think Judge Alsup got it right. That said, even if model training is fair use, model output can still be infringi…

I think “strong case” is probably reliant on a few points on the output side, and would have to be more than just author/artists style.

Style itself would be very hard to deem infringement, for obvious reasons (idea) - I think it’s much more likely an issue when a character has derivative elements (e.g., iron man, spider man esque features), and where the users prompt had explicit references to those characters (intent)

All that said, even then, on the artistic side I think it would come down to the same analysis that would apply to traditional media - AI is just a vehicle that introduces some novel risks.

Music might be more risky given the litigious nature of the industry.

Code? It’s going to be hard to claim infringement with dramatically different implementations, barring patent coverage.

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#384

Post by wlonkly »

popalchemist wrote: post #351
calny wrote: post #260

The maintainer's response: https://github.com/chardet/chardet/issues/327#issuecomment-4... The second part here is problematic, but fascinating: "I then started in an empty repository with no access to the old source tree, and explicitly instructed Claude not to base anything on LGPL/GPL-licensed code." Problem - Claude almost certainly was trained on the LGPL/GPL original code. It knows that is how to solve the prob…

Copyright does not cover ideas. Only specific executions of ideas. So unless it's a line-by-line copy (unlikely) there is no recourse for someone to sue for a re-execution/reimplementation of an idea.

Where do derivative works fit into your model of copyright?

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#385

Post by listeria »

Apparently there was some talk a few years ago about adding the project to the python standard library[1] and the maintainer seems really[2] interested[3] in that.

But I don't think the standard library maintainers would want to incorporate it considering the way in which the relicensing took place, the controversy, and the implications on software licences in general. So his motivations for the license change seem moot. I certainly wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole.

[1]: https://github.com/chardet/chardet/issues/36#issuecomment-76... [2]: https://github.com/chardet/chardet/issues/327#issuecomment-4... [3]: https://github.com/chardet/chardet/issues/327#issuecomment-4...

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#386

Post by antonvs »

cxr wrote: post #181
samrus wrote: post #31

> The ownership void: If the code is truly a “new” work created by a machine, it might technically be in the public domain the moment it’s generated, rendering the MIT license moot. Im struggling to see where this conclusion came from. To me it sounds like the AI-written work can not be coppywritten, and so its kind of like a copy pasting the original code. Copy pasting the original code doesnt make it public domain.…

FYI: the concept is "copyright" not "copywrite". It doesn't turn into "copywritten" as an adjective. The adjective is "copyrighted".

Freedom of expression implies equal writes for all!

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#387

Post by popalchemist »

wlonkly wrote: post #384
popalchemist wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright does not cover ideas. Only specific executions of ideas. So unless it's a line-by-line copy (unlikely) there is no recourse for someone to sue for a re-execution/reimplementation of an idea.

Where do derivative works fit into your model of copyright?

It's not "my model." If someone paraphrases a poem, and publishes that paraphrase, the original author will not be able to sue. (Or rather, they can sue, but will almost certainly lose.) There is a body of legal precedent for each category of work you can imagine, and each has come to have its own criteria for what the threshold is for being derivative vs a unique re-expression; but I am confident from how that has played out and from the fact that it is well accepted that code tends to be comprised of only so many patterns, that a codebase that is reverse engineered based on prompting alone will not be considered a derivative work.

It's obviously an opinion. But I'm confident enough in it, as are, say, Lovable and such companies, that I/they are willing to concretely operate on the hunch that that is how it will play out in court if ever the hand was forced.

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#388

Post by unixpickle »

I think we are missing the bigger point here. Licensing only matters on things that take real effort or money to produce. Who will care about licenses on software when software is free and infinite? It would be like licensing each ounce of water on Earth.

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#389

Post by galaxyLogic »

CrazyStat wrote: post #381
galaxyLogic wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fun exercise: When Supreme Court has not ruled on an open legal question of interest, let's ask AI what would be a likely ruling by Supreme Court. I think SCOTUS might in fact use AI to get a set of possible interpretations of the law, before they come up with their decision. AI might give them good reasons for pros and cons.

> AI might give them good reasons for pros and cons. This is what lawyers do, in their briefs and oral arguments before the court.

True. But if I was a judge I might want to consult AI to get a "neutral" opinion.

Re: Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite

#390

Post by rswail »

carlob wrote: post #187
rswail wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the authors of the original content deserve recompense for their work. That's what the whole copyright and patent regimes are designed to achieve. It's to encourage the creation of knowledge. US Constitution, Article I, section 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Right, it says exclusive rights, which does not translate to "we siphon everything and you get a tiny percentage of our profits", it means I can choose to say no to all of this. To me the matter of compensation and that of authorship rights are mostly orthogonal.

Agreed, but the right to compensation is derived from the right of licensing something you author.

The courts have ruled that something machine generated does not have a human author, so therefore it is not subject to copyright, in the US.

So if enough authors agreed and sued the AI companies to remove their copyrighted elements from the AI training, then that would be a reasonable solution as well.

However, any lawsuit is highly likely to result in some sort of compensation paid if decided in favor of the authors.

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