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> the lack of public comment on this GitHub's CEO posted this: > In general: (1) training ML systems on public data is fair use (2) the output belongs to the

by Vinnl 5y ago

> the lack of public comment on this GitHub's CEO posted this: > In general: (1) training ML systems on public data is fair use (2) the output belongs to the operator, just like with a compiler. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27678354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27678354

klelatti 5y ago
Indeed - I'd missed that (as did Drew DeVault - or chose not to comment on it). Not sure I understand what fair use means in this context though and I can't believe that it's an argument that works for every conceivable model.
fartcannon 5y ago
Fair use until it churns up some patented Microsoft code accidentally, and MS sues.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27724479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27724479
aliasEli 5y ago
But with this approach you can generate outputs that are identical or near identical to some of its inputs. It is clearly that copyright laws apply in this situation.
- kevinventullo 5y ago
  Taken to the extreme: My clipboard is an ML model that trains on exactly one sample at a time. Ctrl + C is a hotkey for doing a training run on currently highlighted data, and Ctrl + V is a hotkey for generating output from the previous run.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
drran 5y ago
GPL'ed code ≠ public data
- murgindrag 5y ago
  Wrong. What do you think the 'P' in GPL stands for? Regardless: 1) You don't need a license to look at things. Copyrights reserve very specific rights: Reproduction, creating derivative works, distribution (limited to first sale), performance, display, and in some cases, transmission 2) And data can't be copyrighted. US IP law is based on a clause in the US Constitution, and is fundamentally bounded in reach.
  - drran 5y ago
    Wrong. What do you think the 'L' in GPL stands for? GPL code ≠ public data
    - murgindrag 5y ago
      If you have a legal argument, please make it. If you're going to make random, incorrect, unsubstantiated statements, this might not be the best forum for it. I'm not going to engage in a flame war here. I clearly laid out references to relevant parts of the law: (1) What a license is and is not needed for under US copyright law (2) purpose of the GPL, and (3) distinction between copyright and data rights. If you have any sort of citation for this nonsense, please post it. Otherwise, I'm checking out here.
      - drran 5y ago
        A computer program cannot look at things in the same sense as a human can. Moreover, a computer program is not a "public", because, for example, your smartphone is not considered as a guest at a show. When you say that a computer program "looks" at my data, because my code is for public, it means that the owner of the computer program use my code to make derivative work without obeying of my license, which is explicitly forbidden by copyright law. For example, you cannot pretend that your smartphone is just looking at a copyrighted film in a cinema. Nobody will ever bother to ask your smartphone, what it's doing. Stop pretending that your smartphone can "look at data".
cycomanic 5y ago
So what does he mean by public? It seems to me that he is essentially saying because he can see it publicly I can use it to train anything without caring about the license? Based on his assertion, can I take a copy of windows (or github for that matter) and train an ML on it to replicate its behavior (assuming I have such a powerful AI)? It seems to me that is essentially what follows. In fact I'd argue that this is more akin to clean-room reverse engineering. It also seems to fly in the face of case law for using soundsnippets in songs. Isn't what the model is doing really just a sophisticated algorithmic rearrangement of samples?
CyberRabbi 5y ago
“Public data” is not a legal term w.r.t. copyright. If the work is not in the public domain you cannot just use it for whatever reason you want. You must get permission from the author. Second, code is not data, it is a copyright-protected creative work. It’s really hard not to see this as him erasing the rights of individual developers for his own benefit.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  > code is not data IANAL. I don't know if that distinction exists in law. But it doesn't make sense to me. How do you distinguish code from data? Isn't the whole point of code that it is treated (by the machine) as both code and data? Suppose I make a "copyright-protected creative work", for example a melody, and then encode that as a database table? Suppose I have a list of population statistics? Suppose those population statistics have been ingeniously contrived (e.g. by encoding, ordering or whatever), so that given the right interpreter or compiler, the logic of a copyright software work can be replicated exactly, using the list as code? It's hard to imagine a list of statistics that can be read by a human as easily as he can read code; but that doesn't matter. It's hard to read machine-code too; but copying machine-code without permission is infringing. It doesn't help that copyright law has drifted over the years, and that despite international conventions, the law varies from place to place. USA and EU see copyright differently. Commenters here are not declaring whose copyright law they are referring to.
  - CyberRabbi 5y ago
    > IANAL. I don't know if that distinction exists in law. It does. Data is not copyright-able but source code is. There is so much legal precedence around this it’s nearly impossible to contest. Calling code data is a way to minimize its status as a copyright protected creative work, so as to defend ignoring the protections it has under the law.
stefan_ 5y ago
That seems to be a deliberate misunderstanding on his part. Of course I can vacuum up whatever data I want and feed it as training data to my model. But the moment I redistribute (1) the model and that (2) model reproduces the original copyrighted training data that is an obvious violation.

by Vinnl 5y ago

klelatti 5y ago

Indeed - I'd missed that (as did Drew DeVault - or chose not to comment on it). Not sure I understand what fair use means in this context though and I can't believe that it's an argument that works for every conceivable model.

fartcannon 5y ago

Fair use until it churns up some patented Microsoft code accidentally, and MS sues.

dmitriid 5y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27724479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27724479

aliasEli 5y ago

But with this approach you can generate outputs that are identical or near identical to some of its inputs. It is clearly that copyright laws apply in this situation.

kevinventullo 5y ago
Taken to the extreme: My clipboard is an ML model that trains on exactly one sample at a time. Ctrl + C is a hotkey for doing a training run on currently highlighted data, and Ctrl + V is a hotkey for generating output from the previous run.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

drran 5y ago

GPL'ed code ≠ public data

murgindrag 5y ago
Wrong. What do you think the 'P' in GPL stands for? Regardless: 1) You don't need a license to look at things. Copyrights reserve very specific rights: Reproduction, creating derivative works, distribution (limited to first sale), performance, display, and in some cases, transmission 2) And data can't be copyrighted. US IP law is based on a clause in the US Constitution, and is fundamentally bounded in reach.
- drran 5y ago
  Wrong. What do you think the 'L' in GPL stands for? GPL code ≠ public data
  - murgindrag 5y ago
    If you have a legal argument, please make it. If you're going to make random, incorrect, unsubstantiated statements, this might not be the best forum for it. I'm not going to engage in a flame war here. I clearly laid out references to relevant parts of the law: (1) What a license is and is not needed for under US copyright law (2) purpose of the GPL, and (3) distinction between copyright and data rights. If you have any sort of citation for this nonsense, please post it. Otherwise, I'm checking out here.
    - drran 5y ago
      A computer program cannot look at things in the same sense as a human can. Moreover, a computer program is not a "public", because, for example, your smartphone is not considered as a guest at a show. When you say that a computer program "looks" at my data, because my code is for public, it means that the owner of the computer program use my code to make derivative work without obeying of my license, which is explicitly forbidden by copyright law. For example, you cannot pretend that your smartphone is just looking at a copyrighted film in a cinema. Nobody will ever bother to ask your smartphone, what it's doing. Stop pretending that your smartphone can "look at data".

cycomanic 5y ago

So what does he mean by public? It seems to me that he is essentially saying because he can see it publicly I can use it to train anything without caring about the license? Based on his assertion, can I take a copy of windows (or github for that matter) and train an ML on it to replicate its behavior (assuming I have such a powerful AI)? It seems to me that is essentially what follows. In fact I'd argue that this is more akin to clean-room reverse engineering. It also seems to fly in the face of case law for using soundsnippets in songs. Isn't what the model is doing really just a sophisticated algorithmic rearrangement of samples?

CyberRabbi 5y ago

“Public data” is not a legal term w.r.t. copyright. If the work is not in the public domain you cannot just use it for whatever reason you want. You must get permission from the author. Second, code is not data, it is a copyright-protected creative work. It’s really hard not to see this as him erasing the rights of individual developers for his own benefit.

denton-scratch 5y ago
> code is not data IANAL. I don't know if that distinction exists in law. But it doesn't make sense to me. How do you distinguish code from data? Isn't the whole point of code that it is treated (by the machine) as both code and data? Suppose I make a "copyright-protected creative work", for example a melody, and then encode that as a database table? Suppose I have a list of population statistics? Suppose those population statistics have been ingeniously contrived (e.g. by encoding, ordering or whatever), so that given the right interpreter or compiler, the logic of a copyright software work can be replicated exactly, using the list as code? It's hard to imagine a list of statistics that can be read by a human as easily as he can read code; but that doesn't matter. It's hard to read machine-code too; but copying machine-code without permission is infringing. It doesn't help that copyright law has drifted over the years, and that despite international conventions, the law varies from place to place. USA and EU see copyright differently. Commenters here are not declaring whose copyright law they are referring to.
- CyberRabbi 5y ago
  > IANAL. I don't know if that distinction exists in law. It does. Data is not copyright-able but source code is. There is so much legal precedence around this it’s nearly impossible to contest. Calling code data is a way to minimize its status as a copyright protected creative work, so as to defend ignoring the protections it has under the law.

stefan_ 5y ago

That seems to be a deliberate misunderstanding on his part. Of course I can vacuum up whatever data I want and feed it as training data to my model. But the moment I redistribute (1) the model and that (2) model reproduces the original copyrighted training data that is an obvious violation.