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If this really counts as fair use it turns into a giant loophole to steal any IP you want. Just create a website with a github-like TOS, upload some disney copy

If this really counts as fair use it turns into a giant loophole to steal any IP you want. Just create a website with a github-like TOS, upload some disney copyrighted pictures to it, train a GAN super overfitted on the images, and then claim mickey mouse as your own.

tompazourek 5y ago
This is interesting. But I think you'd violate Disney's copyright by uploading their pictures to the website. To make it work, Disney would have to upload the pictures themselves and agree to the TOS.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Is GitHub making sure that license terms are being met when they train Copilot on hosted code? Because anyone can rehost code that they don't have the rights to, and it seems like GitHub will still train Copilot on it.
  - tompazourek 5y ago
    If someone is rehosting code that they don't have copyright to, it's like if someone would upload a pirated movie to YouTube. YouTube will still make money from it for some time (selling ads, luring customers in, ...), then the copyright holder asks YouTube to take it down, and then they take it down. The difference is that open source authors don't care that much about that. But maybe now they will when they see what GitHub is doing...
    - heavyset_go 5y ago
      > YouTube will still make money from it for some time (selling ads, luring customers in, ...), then the copyright holder asks YouTube to take it down, and then they take it down. YouTube isn't publishing derivative work from the videos it hosts, though, like Microsoft is doing with Copilot and GitHub. If Copilot was trained on material it doesn't have the license to, it can potentially output that unlicensed code it was trained on, like in this example[1]. Copilot could serve up copyrighted work in the same way YouTube does, but the analogy isn't complete, because YouTube itself isn't a derivative work in the same way the Copilot's model is a derivative of the data it was trained on. [1] https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309 https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309
invokestatic 5y ago
The legal system is generally pretty nuanced, considering things such as intent and purpose. In this particular case, it doesn’t really matter how the new work was generated or created. I don’t really think that would be very relevant. The most important factors would be how similar the new work was to the original work, the intent, and how the new work affects the value of the original. Your proposal is just so substantively different from Copilot that I don’t see how the arguments for Copilot would apply.
sobellian 5y ago
The lawyer's argument is that Copilot's query system is transformative. If you assemble Copilot's output to replicate a copyrighted work, then even if Copilot isn't infringing, you are by taking that work out of context. The burden is on the owner to ensure they don't infringe.
erhk 5y ago
You cant just upload copyrighted photos. You dont own them.
6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
You can't claim mickey mouse as your own, but you can exploit all the labor that went into creating all the work you're training on. Point a generative model at someone else's labor and now it'll do that for you. It seems like the person whose labor is being used should be somehow compensated, or at least have some say in its use.

tompazourek 5y ago

This is interesting. But I think you'd violate Disney's copyright by uploading their pictures to the website. To make it work, Disney would have to upload the pictures themselves and agree to the TOS.

heavyset_go 5y ago
Is GitHub making sure that license terms are being met when they train Copilot on hosted code? Because anyone can rehost code that they don't have the rights to, and it seems like GitHub will still train Copilot on it.
- tompazourek 5y ago
  If someone is rehosting code that they don't have copyright to, it's like if someone would upload a pirated movie to YouTube. YouTube will still make money from it for some time (selling ads, luring customers in, ...), then the copyright holder asks YouTube to take it down, and then they take it down. The difference is that open source authors don't care that much about that. But maybe now they will when they see what GitHub is doing...
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    > YouTube will still make money from it for some time (selling ads, luring customers in, ...), then the copyright holder asks YouTube to take it down, and then they take it down. YouTube isn't publishing derivative work from the videos it hosts, though, like Microsoft is doing with Copilot and GitHub. If Copilot was trained on material it doesn't have the license to, it can potentially output that unlicensed code it was trained on, like in this example[1]. Copilot could serve up copyrighted work in the same way YouTube does, but the analogy isn't complete, because YouTube itself isn't a derivative work in the same way the Copilot's model is a derivative of the data it was trained on. [1] https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309 https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309

invokestatic 5y ago

The legal system is generally pretty nuanced, considering things such as intent and purpose. In this particular case, it doesn’t really matter how the new work was generated or created. I don’t really think that would be very relevant. The most important factors would be how similar the new work was to the original work, the intent, and how the new work affects the value of the original. Your proposal is just so substantively different from Copilot that I don’t see how the arguments for Copilot would apply.

sobellian 5y ago

The lawyer's argument is that Copilot's query system is transformative. If you assemble Copilot's output to replicate a copyrighted work, then even if Copilot isn't infringing, you are by taking that work out of context. The burden is on the owner to ensure they don't infringe.

erhk 5y ago

You cant just upload copyrighted photos. You dont own them.

6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago

You can't claim mickey mouse as your own, but you can exploit all the labor that went into creating all the work you're training on. Point a generative model at someone else's labor and now it'll do that for you. It seems like the person whose labor is being used should be somehow compensated, or at least have some say in its use.