3 ms·

Where is learning a right specified by the copyright laws? See https://copyrightalliance.org/education/copyright-law-explained/copyright-owners-rights/copyright

by chii 4y ago

Where is learning a right specified by the copyright laws? See https://copyrightalliance.org/education/copyright-law-explained/copyright-owners-rights/copyright-exclusive-rights/ https://copyrightalliance.org/education/copyright-law-explai... * 1. Right to control the reproduction of the work * 2. Right to control the making of derivative works * 3. Right to control the distribution of the work * 4. Right to control the public performance of the work * 5. Right to control the public display of the work * 6. Right to perform a sound recording publicly by means of digital audio transmission The closest is the right to make derivative works - is the ML model a derivative work of the training data? I guess this would need to be tested out in court.

throwaway290 4y ago
The fact that there is no legal concept that limits using a work as machine training data has no relation to the fact that there is a word "learning" in ML though. I would suggest stopping referring to "learning" in this context.
- chii 4y ago
  Yes, i think this is the fundamental question (or disagreement). Is the right to using the work as training data something that needs to be granted by the copyright holder, or is implicit when granting the right to view the work? My argument is that it is implicit - a human viewing the training data is allowed to learn from it. There's no reason to differentiate a human brain from a machine "brain" in this context.
  - throwaway290 4y ago
    You insist on using the word "learning" to refer to completely different concepts as if you don't read anything I write. On the off chance you do: it's not about some a "need" to differentiate or not. They are just completely different, unrelated in all ways concepts. Are you familiar with cases where a single word is used for unrelated things as a metaphor? A machine does not learn in human sense because it lacks and will always lack consciousness. If you want human rights to apply to machines you first have to prove they have consciousness. If you do that (let's pretend), the subject of this thread stops being an issue, because once a machine has human rights no one is able to use it to make unlimited copyright-violating works without paying equivalent human wage, making the entire point of ML acting as copyright laundering tool moot.
    - chii 4y ago
      > You insist on using the word "learning" to refer to completely different concepts as if you don't read anything I write. i read it, and i disagree that they are completely different concepts. I am describing the action of "extracting information, structure, ideas and form" from a literary work. I used the word "learn" as a shortcut. A consciousness is not required to perform the action above. Human rights also does not apply to a machine - we aren't talking about sentient ai being given rights that would normally be reserved for humans. The right to "learn" from literary works is not an exclusive right granted by the copyright law to the holder. A tool would only launder copyright if the tool was used to reproduce the literary work, or a derivative of said work. But if the tool is producing new works, but expresses similar ideas (which is what a lot of the ML models allow you to do), then those expressions should not violate copyright. As for the model itself, i also argue that it does not constitute a derivative work of the training dataset. I am comparing it to a human brain, which itself is not a derivative work of the training that went into producing it (e.g., the authors of all of the books said human brain read does not have a claim on the brain itself). Of course, society could opt to change this - specifically add a clause to the copyright law to grant an extra right to the holder regarding ML consumption of their literary work. This has not happened yet, and i sincerely wish it does not. It merely stifles progress.
      - throwaway290 4y ago
        The law does not limit what you can do with my work within your human mind, but that's it. I don't think there needs to be a separate license simply because basic "all rights reserved" copyright by its spirit already precludes use as training data. The letter may need to be clarified to avoid people drawing these parallels between human mind and silicon thinking it grants some extra rights, but we'll see what the courts say.
IYasha 4y ago
But still, ML needs, in my opinion, a distinct category. I wonder if CC-NOML will pop up any soon (Creative Commons).
- throwaway290 4y ago
  I think it's more likely media giants will reinforce copyright. Once companies like WB etc catch on that we can nearly generate unlimited art in their style, stuff that they charge us for normally, they'd put an end to this And if OpenAI training data excludes their artwork from training data then the answer is obviously that copyright matters and they only exploit small artists unlikely to sue (which would make openai legally liable)
cudgy 4y ago
Note that number 6 is a special case that clarifies based on a technology. What’s stopping the creation of another clarification based on this technology like “The right to control the use of the work for generating artificial generators.”

by chii 4y ago

throwaway290 4y ago

The fact that there is no legal concept that limits using a work as machine training data has no relation to the fact that there is a word "learning" in ML though. I would suggest stopping referring to "learning" in this context.

chii 4y ago
Yes, i think this is the fundamental question (or disagreement). Is the right to using the work as training data something that needs to be granted by the copyright holder, or is implicit when granting the right to view the work? My argument is that it is implicit - a human viewing the training data is allowed to learn from it. There's no reason to differentiate a human brain from a machine "brain" in this context.
- throwaway290 4y ago
  You insist on using the word "learning" to refer to completely different concepts as if you don't read anything I write. On the off chance you do: it's not about some a "need" to differentiate or not. They are just completely different, unrelated in all ways concepts. Are you familiar with cases where a single word is used for unrelated things as a metaphor? A machine does not learn in human sense because it lacks and will always lack consciousness. If you want human rights to apply to machines you first have to prove they have consciousness. If you do that (let's pretend), the subject of this thread stops being an issue, because once a machine has human rights no one is able to use it to make unlimited copyright-violating works without paying equivalent human wage, making the entire point of ML acting as copyright laundering tool moot.
  - chii 4y ago
    > You insist on using the word "learning" to refer to completely different concepts as if you don't read anything I write. i read it, and i disagree that they are completely different concepts. I am describing the action of "extracting information, structure, ideas and form" from a literary work. I used the word "learn" as a shortcut. A consciousness is not required to perform the action above. Human rights also does not apply to a machine - we aren't talking about sentient ai being given rights that would normally be reserved for humans. The right to "learn" from literary works is not an exclusive right granted by the copyright law to the holder. A tool would only launder copyright if the tool was used to reproduce the literary work, or a derivative of said work. But if the tool is producing new works, but expresses similar ideas (which is what a lot of the ML models allow you to do), then those expressions should not violate copyright. As for the model itself, i also argue that it does not constitute a derivative work of the training dataset. I am comparing it to a human brain, which itself is not a derivative work of the training that went into producing it (e.g., the authors of all of the books said human brain read does not have a claim on the brain itself). Of course, society could opt to change this - specifically add a clause to the copyright law to grant an extra right to the holder regarding ML consumption of their literary work. This has not happened yet, and i sincerely wish it does not. It merely stifles progress.
    - throwaway290 4y ago
      The law does not limit what you can do with my work within your human mind, but that's it. I don't think there needs to be a separate license simply because basic "all rights reserved" copyright by its spirit already precludes use as training data. The letter may need to be clarified to avoid people drawing these parallels between human mind and silicon thinking it grants some extra rights, but we'll see what the courts say.

IYasha 4y ago

But still, ML needs, in my opinion, a distinct category. I wonder if CC-NOML will pop up any soon (Creative Commons).

throwaway290 4y ago
I think it's more likely media giants will reinforce copyright. Once companies like WB etc catch on that we can nearly generate unlimited art in their style, stuff that they charge us for normally, they'd put an end to this And if OpenAI training data excludes their artwork from training data then the answer is obviously that copyright matters and they only exploit small artists unlikely to sue (which would make openai legally liable)

cudgy 4y ago

Note that number 6 is a special case that clarifies based on a technology. What’s stopping the creation of another clarification based on this technology like “The right to control the use of the work for generating artificial generators.”