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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

#41

Post by hugh-avherald »

pavlov wrote: post #25
flanked-evergl wrote: post #8

Of course the models are not human, but if you consider this situation as if they are persons, then the question becomes: May a person read lyrics and tell it to someone when asked, and the court's ruling basically says no, this may not happen, which makes little sense. I guess the main difference between the situation with language models and humans is one of scale. I think the question should be viewed like this, i…

> "May a person read lyrics and tell it to someone when asked" If you sell tickets to an event where you read the lyrics aloud, it's commercial performance and you need to pay the author. (Usually a cover artist would be singing, but that's not a requirement.) So it's not like a human can recite the lyrics anywhere freely either.

You don't even have to sell tickets: if it's a free concert, copyright is likely infringed. This is likely true in all jurisdictions.

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

#42

Post by skeptrune »

pjc50 wrote: post #33
skeptrune wrote: post #23

*edit. Will this actually change OpenAI's behaviour to any meaningful extent?

It does in Germany? And quite likely in the rest of the EU?

I guess. But I doubt openai will change its behaviour due to this.

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

#44

Post by mrweasel »

skeptrune wrote: post #23

*edit. Will this actually change OpenAI's behaviour to any meaningful extent?

Other countries are currently going through the same. KODA is running a similar lawsuit on behalf of the Danish musicians, they can now point to Germany as an example, making it much easier for them to win.

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

#45

Post by riazrizvi »

portaouflop wrote: post #3

It would be so hilarious if GEMA was actually useful for once and not a detriment to society and artists in general. However of course OpenAI will ignore this and at worst nothing will change and at best they get a slap on the wrist and a fine and continue scraping. You can’t take that stuff out of the models at this point anyway.

Nah. It’s so easy for OpenAI to modify their output. I’m already seeing them restrict news article re-generation by newspaper name. They do it to reduce liability. There’s also a big copyright infringement case coming up in the USA this year, and being able to point to responsiveness to complaints will be a key part of their legal defense I bet.

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

#46

Post by pjc50 »

petesergeant wrote: post #11

I am curious what happens if they call their bluff on this and cut off ChatGPT in Germany. Not that I think OpenAI is doing the right thing, just, I don’t think a country’s government can justify no commercial LLMs to its populace.

Conversely, last week we had Spain being willing to cut off Cloudflare (!) to protect football match royalties.

> I don’t think a country’s government can justify no commercial LLMs to its populace.

Counter-argument: can any country's government justify allowing its population and businesses to become completely dependent on an overseas company which does not comply with its laws? (For Americans, think "China" in this case)

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

#47

Post by HeinzStuckeIt »

riazrizvi wrote: post #37
JCM9 wrote: post #9

With AI slop showing up everywhere, there’s a real danger that folks will just no longer be motivated to produce real original content. With all major models not basically trained on nearly all available data, beyond the financial AI bubble about to burst there’s also a big content bubble that’s about exhausted as folks are just pumping out slop vs producing original creative human output. That may be the ultimate lo…

AI slop is like 90’s websites and desktop publishing - there’s a novelty for AI-newbie-creators driving them to churn out lazy crap, while being oblivious to how it lands with strangers. Tastes will mature, society will more vocally mock this crap, and we’ll stop seeing the sloppier stuff come out of reputable locations.

You assume that the public recognizes AI slop for what it is. Across platforms now, people are readily engaging with blatant AI text posts and generated images as if they are bona-fide. In fact, if you point out that the poster is a bot, you may well well get some flack from the community.

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

#48

Post by pjc50 »

skeptrune wrote: post #42
pjc50 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does in Germany? And quite likely in the rest of the EU?

I guess. But I doubt openai will change its behaviour due to this.

Do you think that the German courts will just shrug and accept noncompliance with a court order?

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

#49

Post by flanked-evergl »

Steve16384 wrote: post #10
flanked-evergl wrote: post #8

Of course the models are not human, but if you consider this situation as if they are persons, then the question becomes: May a person read lyrics and tell it to someone when asked, and the court's ruling basically says no, this may not happen, which makes little sense. I guess the main difference between the situation with language models and humans is one of scale. I think the question should be viewed like this, i…

> May a person read lyrics and tell it to someone when asked, and the court's ruling basically says no, this may not happen, which makes little sense. I think the difference here is that your example is what a search engine might do, whereas AI is taking the lyrics, using them to create new lyrics, and then passing them off as its own.

> whereas AI is taking the lyrics, using them to create new lyrics, and then passing them off as its own.

Is this not something every single creative person ever has done? Is this not what creating is? We take in the world, and then create something based on that.

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

#50

Post by flanked-evergl »

pavlov wrote: post #25
flanked-evergl wrote: post #8

Of course the models are not human, but if you consider this situation as if they are persons, then the question becomes: May a person read lyrics and tell it to someone when asked, and the court's ruling basically says no, this may not happen, which makes little sense. I guess the main difference between the situation with language models and humans is one of scale. I think the question should be viewed like this, i…

> "May a person read lyrics and tell it to someone when asked" If you sell tickets to an event where you read the lyrics aloud, it's commercial performance and you need to pay the author. (Usually a cover artist would be singing, but that's not a requirement.) So it's not like a human can recite the lyrics anywhere freely either.

If someone hires me as a secretary, and they ask me what is the lyrics of a song, there is no law that prohibits me from telling them if I know and I don't have to license the lyrics in order to do so.

If they hire me primarily to recite lyrics, then sure, that would probably be some manner of infringement if I don't license them. But I feel like the case with a language model is much more the former than the latter.

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