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Legal or illegal, there's a big ethical debate to be had. Swallowing up the work of others and using that to generate derivative/new work that _a lot_ of people

Legal or illegal, there's a big ethical debate to be had. Swallowing up the work of others and using that to generate derivative/new work that _a lot_ of people (I've seen half a dozen stock photo AI sites this week alone) are then trying to use to replace the original creators doesn't feel right.

O__________O 4y ago
Art history is literally full of transformation of prior works, technology is clearly transformative (if you understand it), copyright law clearly allows for it, and indexing publicly available data is also legal — there’s no reasonable basis for debating the topic being illegal or unethical.
- tsbinz 4y ago
  And yet, every time GitHub Copilot comes up, people on HN are in arms about their code being used to train a model.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    Already responded to comparison to GitHub CoPilot in this thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33079278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33079278
- falcolas 4y ago
  Legal and ethical are two wholly different concepts. There's quite a few things which are legal and not at all ethical. Today in many states it's perfectly legal to shoot a native american if you're in a wagon circle. Is that ethical? Fair use is also a positive defense, which means that only the courts can really say if something is fair use or not.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    First line, from the post you replied to: >> “Art history is literally full of transformation of prior works” There’s no reasonable ethical basis to take issue with. You’re examples and counter points to me add substantive your claims. What am I missing?
    - falcolas 4y ago
      This isn't really transformation though. It's compositing pixel-accurate bits and pieces of multiple pieces of art to make a new piece (as proven by stock photo watermarks being replicated in some pieces). That difference is enough to assert that there is a wholly reasonable ethical basis. Especially when they're obviously not just training it on images with relaxed copyrights.
      - O__________O 4y ago
        A collage of prior works is protected as a transformative work, regardless of if you’re able to recognize the seams between the pieces. Even use of trademarks is not protected in works of art if there is no clearly defined trademark violation; for example, putting fries in a box that looks identical to McDonald fries box and offering them for sell would not be legally justifiable by just saying it is art. Ethically speaking, for the second time, you ignored that within art world, or real world for that matter, making derivative works is completely ethical if done within any related legal constraints; as such, to me, you’re not making a good faith effort, which is actually unethical if intentionally done, so I will not be replying any further.
  - dotancohen 4y ago
    > Today in many states it's perfectly legal to shoot a native american if you're in a wagon circle. Could you please clarify this?
    - O__________O 4y ago
      Those laws are illegal and anyone using them as a basis for murder would ultimately be found guilty of it: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/25222/is-it-legal-to-shoot-groups-of-native-americans-in-some-us-states https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/25222/is-it-leg...
simion314 4y ago
Someone else can skip training with copyrighted images, so this copyright argument would be unusable there. Competent creators will not be replaced, they will use the tools to do their job faster/better. I remember soem tiem ago artists having reservations on "digital art". Someone said it better, a person with a camera is not a photographer. the problems I have with Microsoft Copilot is that the fuckers did not used MS proprietary code train but only trained with other people GPL/MIT code, this was shitty and implies that their implementation is "dangerous" to use with proprietary code but their expensive lawyers can handle a bunch of open source small developers.
- O__________O 4y ago
  GitHub’s terms of service explicitly allow them to do what they did, if anyone is in violation of the licenses you’re referencing it’s the people that loaded the code into GitHub.
  - tsbinz 4y ago
    That is not how copyright law works. If someone uploads an image as public domain, or code as a BSD license, without having the right to do so, that doesn't give others the right to use those things.
    - O__________O 4y ago
      Unless I am missing something, nothing I said prior conflicts with your point, nor shows that GitHub is willfully violating the law. Are you aware of any copyrighted material that was illegally loaded to GitHub that has been proven to be used by CoPilot, it’s use was not transformative — AND - GitHub has not removed it from the model?
      - simion314 4y ago
        The code used in GitHub copilot is all copyrighted with GPL, MIT,BSD. Also lots of the code was not uploaded to GitHub by the authors so GitHub shity ToS won't apply so you can't claim that the authors agreed to some vague terms that we can now intepret as allows only GitHub to create copilot. You did 1 MS did not violate copyright since is open source code, andfor soem reason you think that only proprietary code should be removed from copilot 2 even if MS violated the license the guilty person is the dude that uploaded the code to GitHub and click I Agree not he ToS, implying that somehow the GitHub ToS has the ability to change open source license(but t proprietary ones, since you claim MS "removed" such code when it was revealed). As I mentioned above, MS are cowards, iof their thing is real creating new stuff then put their ass on the line and put their own code in too, put all proprietary code in GitHub in copilot too and then have their well paid lawyers defend their tech.

O__________O 4y ago

Art history is literally full of transformation of prior works, technology is clearly transformative (if you understand it), copyright law clearly allows for it, and indexing publicly available data is also legal — there’s no reasonable basis for debating the topic being illegal or unethical.

tsbinz 4y ago
And yet, every time GitHub Copilot comes up, people on HN are in arms about their code being used to train a model.
- O__________O 4y ago
  Already responded to comparison to GitHub CoPilot in this thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33079278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33079278
falcolas 4y ago
Legal and ethical are two wholly different concepts. There's quite a few things which are legal and not at all ethical. Today in many states it's perfectly legal to shoot a native american if you're in a wagon circle. Is that ethical? Fair use is also a positive defense, which means that only the courts can really say if something is fair use or not.
- O__________O 4y ago
  First line, from the post you replied to: >> “Art history is literally full of transformation of prior works” There’s no reasonable ethical basis to take issue with. You’re examples and counter points to me add substantive your claims. What am I missing?
  - falcolas 4y ago
    This isn't really transformation though. It's compositing pixel-accurate bits and pieces of multiple pieces of art to make a new piece (as proven by stock photo watermarks being replicated in some pieces). That difference is enough to assert that there is a wholly reasonable ethical basis. Especially when they're obviously not just training it on images with relaxed copyrights.
    - O__________O 4y ago
      A collage of prior works is protected as a transformative work, regardless of if you’re able to recognize the seams between the pieces. Even use of trademarks is not protected in works of art if there is no clearly defined trademark violation; for example, putting fries in a box that looks identical to McDonald fries box and offering them for sell would not be legally justifiable by just saying it is art. Ethically speaking, for the second time, you ignored that within art world, or real world for that matter, making derivative works is completely ethical if done within any related legal constraints; as such, to me, you’re not making a good faith effort, which is actually unethical if intentionally done, so I will not be replying any further.
- dotancohen 4y ago
  > Today in many states it's perfectly legal to shoot a native american if you're in a wagon circle. Could you please clarify this?
  - O__________O 4y ago
    Those laws are illegal and anyone using them as a basis for murder would ultimately be found guilty of it: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/25222/is-it-legal-to-shoot-groups-of-native-americans-in-some-us-states https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/25222/is-it-leg...

simion314 4y ago

Someone else can skip training with copyrighted images, so this copyright argument would be unusable there. Competent creators will not be replaced, they will use the tools to do their job faster/better. I remember soem tiem ago artists having reservations on "digital art". Someone said it better, a person with a camera is not a photographer. the problems I have with Microsoft Copilot is that the fuckers did not used MS proprietary code train but only trained with other people GPL/MIT code, this was shitty and implies that their implementation is "dangerous" to use with proprietary code but their expensive lawyers can handle a bunch of open source small developers.

O__________O 4y ago
GitHub’s terms of service explicitly allow them to do what they did, if anyone is in violation of the licenses you’re referencing it’s the people that loaded the code into GitHub.
- tsbinz 4y ago
  That is not how copyright law works. If someone uploads an image as public domain, or code as a BSD license, without having the right to do so, that doesn't give others the right to use those things.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    Unless I am missing something, nothing I said prior conflicts with your point, nor shows that GitHub is willfully violating the law. Are you aware of any copyrighted material that was illegally loaded to GitHub that has been proven to be used by CoPilot, it’s use was not transformative — AND - GitHub has not removed it from the model?
    - simion314 4y ago
      The code used in GitHub copilot is all copyrighted with GPL, MIT,BSD. Also lots of the code was not uploaded to GitHub by the authors so GitHub shity ToS won't apply so you can't claim that the authors agreed to some vague terms that we can now intepret as allows only GitHub to create copilot. You did 1 MS did not violate copyright since is open source code, andfor soem reason you think that only proprietary code should be removed from copilot 2 even if MS violated the license the guilty person is the dude that uploaded the code to GitHub and click I Agree not he ToS, implying that somehow the GitHub ToS has the ability to change open source license(but t proprietary ones, since you claim MS "removed" such code when it was revealed). As I mentioned above, MS are cowards, iof their thing is real creating new stuff then put their ass on the line and put their own code in too, put all proprietary code in GitHub in copilot too and then have their well paid lawyers defend their tech.