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AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

heathermeeker.com

471–480 of 705 posts

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#471

There's no part of AI that is being swallowed up by copyright. AI companies can ask for permission if they want to train their models on other people's works. It's not that hard, various image hosting sites have already added an opt-in/opt-out toggle to their services. Sites might even get away with using this stuff as compensation for free hosting. The fact of the matter is that the AI companies don't want to ask fo…

Regardless of whether one agrees or not with paying creators of the training data, I think the deeper issue here is about societal wealth distribution and who gets paid for X now that X is being done very well by AIs. A less equitable world has Google or billionaires getting paid. A more equitable world has the artists. But I want to argue here that for purposes of this latter question, your proposal of copyright enf…

> Even if you get the system to work, what about future artists and writers? Are we just creating an entrenched historical group of creatives getting royalties forever?

The flip side of this is that if we undermine paid creators until there's no incentive for them to create, then the AIs abilities stagnate on old data and we as a society drop or at least diminish the skillsets that could create new media.

AI can generate stuff humans care to look at only because of the availability of data that humans created for eachother to enjoy. As tastes, fashions, zeitgeists and pop culture change amongst humans the AI models will always be behind and unable to follow trends completely. I think.

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#473
post #12

maybe one country or another will outlaw generative ai or ai art or media synthesis or whatever it ends up being called, but presumably they'll be left behind by rapid cultural and technical development in whatever countries don't the cat is out of the bag, the worms are out of the can, the feathers have blown away in the wind these developments seem very likely to be central to programming, all other kinds of engine…

If it really turns out to be a problem then copyright holders are simply going to add in a not-licensed-for-training clause in all their licenses[1]. Sure, existing works already licensed can still be used, but at least both parties (copyright holders and AI trainers) won't have anything to argue about. [1] Anyone from CC reading this? Make it the default.

that isn't how law works

copyright is not a get-into-jail-free card that allows private parties to invent their own legal system and nonconsensually impose it on other private parties

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is like adding a clause in the license that you are not allowed to read the license. The moment you share your creation/work to someone/the world, you are training their nn. You can not share something publicly and then demand "xyz" can not view it. Viewing is training. You are free to keep your creation under lock & key and only share with nn (of people and/or AI) of your choice.

> You can not share something publicly and then demand "xyz" can not view it. That's nonsense. Licenses have clauses on how the content may be used. Clauses along the lines of "The content may not be used for ..." are common. I dunno where you heard that once you release something the license clauses no longer apply, but it's wrong.

many of these clauses are legally unenforceable because you can violate them without infringing on any of the rights that copyright law grants exclusively to the copyright holder (who can license them)

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#475
post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes, that’s exactly what happens when you buy a book, or pay for a music subscription. The work is in the public domain, then global permission to observe and copy the work is already granted. When you buy a book, you’re not paying a licensing fee. You’re exchanging for goods. You’re granted very few rights to own a copy of the work. But they’re almost all to do with distribution. None of those rights is the right t…

When you buy a book or some other artwork, it is implicitly assumed you will put it in your brain, or your meat neural net. And that your brain could produce something related to this content. It's not just assumed, it's celebrated when a work of art gathers fans who produce their own, inspired content. Not sure why it needs to be over-complicated or different for silicone neural nets. But I think it will get very ov…

Trademark and copyright already restrict what humans can do with others work. If too similar then it could prompt legal action.

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So has the EU as part of the digital single market changes in 2019 (The so-called Text and Data mining exceptions)

Not really. Well they allow mining the data but nothing is said about the copyright of the collage output.

your novel theory of how diffusion models work will no doubt be of great interest to deep learning researchers

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#477
post #12

maybe one country or another will outlaw generative ai or ai art or media synthesis or whatever it ends up being called, but presumably they'll be left behind by rapid cultural and technical development in whatever countries don't the cat is out of the bag, the worms are out of the can, the feathers have blown away in the wind these developments seem very likely to be central to programming, all other kinds of engine…

It's surprising that so many people on this site side with the Luddites. The back pressure ML is generating is at this point too strong for anything to make any difference. Anyone who attempts to stop it will just be practicing self-sabotage.

generally luddites are found among those with the deepest understanding of a new invention

but i agree that in this case it's probably futile

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#478

There's no part of AI that is being swallowed up by copyright. AI companies can ask for permission if they want to train their models on other people's works. It's not that hard, various image hosting sites have already added an opt-in/opt-out toggle to their services. Sites might even get away with using this stuff as compensation for free hosting. The fact of the matter is that the AI companies don't want to ask fo…

Regardless of whether one agrees or not with paying creators of the training data, I think the deeper issue here is about societal wealth distribution and who gets paid for X now that X is being done very well by AIs. A less equitable world has Google or billionaires getting paid. A more equitable world has the artists. But I want to argue here that for purposes of this latter question, your proposal of copyright enf…

> Even if you get the system to work, what about future artists and writers? Are we just creating an entrenched historical group of creatives getting royalties forever?

Copyright expires, and new artists will create new (copyrightable) art in the future. Unless your assertion is that generative AI is so good no one will make art without it ever again?

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#479
post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You publish in public, you automatically grate licenses for the public to consume and transform it. No you don’t. That would fall under the category of “derivative work” which is still the intellectual property of the original author under most jurisdiction copyright laws. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work

Unless the resulting "derivative work" is sufficiently transformative. Which, i would argue, training an AI/ML is. Therefore, using a training dataset does not constitute copyright violation. If the AI outputted an exact copy (or a close enough copy, that the laymen would agree it's a copy), then that particular instance of the AI's output is in violation of copyright. The AI model itself violate any copyright.

> Which, i would argue, training an AI/ML is.

> Therefore, using a training dataset does not constitute copyright violation.

It's not for you to decide that. Different jurisdictions will have their own process for deciding that and none of them are based on the opinions of random commentators on internet message boards.

Also please bare in mind my comment was reply to a specific statement (repeated below) and not talking about AI in general:

> You publish in public, you automatically grate licenses for the public to consume and transform it.

^ this statement is not correct for the reasons I posted. AI discussions might add colour to the debate but it doesn't alter the incorrectness of the above statement.

> If the AI outputted an exact copy (or a close enough copy, that the laymen would agree it's a copy), then that particular instance of the AI's output is in violation of copyright. The AI model itself violate any copyright.

That assumption needs testing in courts.

As I've posted elsewhere, there have been plenty of cases where copyright holders have successfully sued other creators based on new works that have bared a resemblance to existing works. It happens all the time. I remember reading a story about how a newly successful author was being handed ideas from fans during a book signing only for one of her representatives to intercept them each time. When they later asked why the representative took them, the representative said "it's because if any of your future books follow a similar idea, that fan could sue. But if we can prove you haven't read the idea then the fan has no claim". (to paraphrase)

Experts don't all agree on where the line is with similar works created by humans, let alone the implications of copyrighted content being used as training data for computers. And this is true for every jurisdiction I've researched. So to have random people on HN talk as confidently as they do about this being all perfectly legal is rather preposterous. You don't even fully grasp the intricacies of copyright law in your own jurisdiction, let alone the wider world. In fact this is such a blurred line that I wouldn't be surprised if the some cases would have different rulings in different courts within that same jurisdiction. It's definitely not as clear cut as you allude to.

Re: AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you planning on proving a particular licensed work was used in a sufficiently large model? One of the commonly mentioned issues with current ML is the inability to reverse the output to figure out 'how it got there'.

> How are you planning on proving a particular licensed work was used in a sufficiently large model? One of the commonly mentioned issues with current ML is the inability to reverse the output to figure out 'how it got there'. That's a different problem. Let's not get into the argument of "Just because the victim cannot prove something, we should remove the relevant laws." The current laws are sufficient; all that it…

laws that cannot be enforced in practice are bad laws; they work out to be a 007-style license to kill, but for businesses rather than people

granting many such licenses is a recipe for social collapse

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