5 ms·

I know it's not cool to say "I told you so", but... This was entirely predictable, and is one prong of the primary arguments that these ML models, trained on d

I know it's not cool to say "I told you so", but... This was entirely predictable, and is one prong of the primary arguments that these ML models, trained on datasets including copyrighted images taken without permission, infringe on the copyright of those images' creators. Train the damn things on public domain images and images you have explicit permission for, and you'll be fine. Stop acting like you have a right to just vacuum up every image ever created because it's "AI".

astrange 4y ago
They literally have such a right because there is literally such a right written into German law. And UK law is adding that right even for commercial models.
- omnicognate 4y ago
  Which laws are you referring to? It's the first I've heard of countries adding explicit rights for training models.
  - astrange 4y ago
    https://www.clarin.eu/content/clic-copyright-exceptions-germany https://www.clarin.eu/content/clic-copyright-exceptions-germ... https://www.linklaters.com/en/insights/blogs/digilinks/2022/july/uk-government-announces-new-copyright-exception-for-commercial-text-and-data-mining https://www.linklaters.com/en/insights/blogs/digilinks/2022/... (Note, it's looking less likely the UK one will actually get extended that way now.)
    - omnicognate 4y ago
      "... for non-commercial purposes only ..." seems an important limitation in the first link.
- danaris 4y ago
  So as long as you can find (or bribe) one country that will let you skate by, you think it's fair game to just declare that your model's country of residence, then take all the images you want and put out your trained model to the whole world? Somehow, I don't think that one's likely to fly.
  - astrange 4y ago
    Yeah. That's how countries work, they're sovereign except as bound by treaties. This is a general EU right as well, not just Germany.
nine_k 4y ago
It's an interesting legal question. If a human cannot publicly use a copyrighted image without a license, why / how a non-human can? If some image are free to use with attribution, how can an ML model track and provide such attribution?
- madeofpalk 4y ago
  > If some image are free to use with attribution, how can an ML model track and provide such attribution? Easy - if they cannot provide attribution, they cannot use the image to train an ML model.
- anileated 4y ago
  It’s not interesting or complicated in any way: because a non-human has no free will and is operated by a human, the human (or in this case OpenAI/Microsoft/etc.) is ultimately infringing. If and when the non-human is granted human rights, this can be revisited.
- Glyptodon 4y ago
  Humans use copyrighted images without licenses all the time. Even trivial things like sharing a photo of a book cover can qualify.
  - snickerbockers 4y ago
    Yes but do you pass it off as your own original artwork that you created all by yourself, or do you present the book cover in a way that makes it obvious that you are taking a photo of somebody else's book?
    - Glyptodon 4y ago
      So it's what you do with the output and not the output itself that matters, right?
      - snickerbockers 4y ago
titaniumtown 4y ago
If Google Books if public domain and considered fair use (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild,_Inc._v._Google,....) these ML models definitely are.
- BaseballPhysics 4y ago
  Nope. Totally different case based on a totally different set of circumstances and outcomes. This is a great example of coming to a conclusion about copyright based on how you think the system should work vs how it actually works. Google was able to convince the court their actions constituted fair use. My guess is training a generative AI will also be fair use. The question is, what about the output of the resulting model? And that is a question it'll take a court to answer.
  - haswell 4y ago
    > My guess is training a generative AI will also be fair use. The question is, what about the output of the resulting model? And that is a question it'll take a court to answer. I suspect that you are right, and that it will place legal responsibility on the individual operating the software for any infringement. I think this will force the companies building these models to behave as if training the model was also infringement, because I cannot imagine a scenario where the average end-user has enough understanding/awareness of the implications of their prompts to avoid generating infringing work, and end-users getting sued would create an instant chilling effect on the use of such software.
    - jhbadger 4y ago
      The thing is most models for Stable Diffusion aren't created by companies but rather by end-users. There are literally hundreds of models for stable diffusion that you can download, from landscapes, to animals, to (of course) porn. A few of them were created by Stability or Huggingface, but most are trained by end-users. It isn't hard at all to train a model with existing tools -- you don't have to be an AI expert to do it.
Glyptodon 4y ago
My problem with this line of thinking is that it implies that humans remembering or using copyrighted things like normal humans do is wrong. E.g. can you remember a scene from a recent movie? Copyright infringement. Did you quote a recent book in conversation or a presentation? Absolutely not authorized!
- haswell 4y ago
  > it implies that humans remembering or using copyrighted things like normal humans do is wrong I don't agree that this is the resulting implication. I'd argue this is only implied if you believe that the software is so similar to humans that making judgements about the software is equivalent to making judgements about humans. Put another way, when a human does those things it is not infringement, because we have already determined that it's not, and the laws are based on humans interacting with the content. A computer doing those things is arguably a new thing entirely, and requires new rules. This does not imply that the old rules would or should stop applying to humans the way they do now.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  The difference between humans and computer algorithms is that humans don't run on software. Computers are tools and neural networks only resemble human brains on a surface level. The human learning process is a lot more involved than just interconnections and weights, there is an entire array of biological concepts that neural networks don't even try to simulate in their approach. The comparison between neural networks and the human brain is the same as the comparison between a hard drive and the human brain: the recollection may be automatic and similar, but the concepts behind it and the legal implications aren't.
  - Glyptodon 4y ago
    I don't think these algorithms are too much like brains, more so the issue I have is that I view infringement as a "what you do with output" issue, not a "what output can be produced" issue, so demonizing ML models as a whole over people who are irresponsible with them seems sketchy to me. Like blaming human brains for dreaming of Disney and Loony Tunes characters at the same time, instead of blaming someone stupid enough to put the two together outside of parody and attempting to trademark it.

astrange 4y ago

They literally have such a right because there is literally such a right written into German law. And UK law is adding that right even for commercial models.

omnicognate 4y ago
Which laws are you referring to? It's the first I've heard of countries adding explicit rights for training models.
- astrange 4y ago
  https://www.clarin.eu/content/clic-copyright-exceptions-germany https://www.clarin.eu/content/clic-copyright-exceptions-germ... https://www.linklaters.com/en/insights/blogs/digilinks/2022/july/uk-government-announces-new-copyright-exception-for-commercial-text-and-data-mining https://www.linklaters.com/en/insights/blogs/digilinks/2022/... (Note, it's looking less likely the UK one will actually get extended that way now.)
  - omnicognate 4y ago
    "... for non-commercial purposes only ..." seems an important limitation in the first link.
danaris 4y ago
So as long as you can find (or bribe) one country that will let you skate by, you think it's fair game to just declare that your model's country of residence, then take all the images you want and put out your trained model to the whole world? Somehow, I don't think that one's likely to fly.
- astrange 4y ago
  Yeah. That's how countries work, they're sovereign except as bound by treaties. This is a general EU right as well, not just Germany.

nine_k 4y ago

It's an interesting legal question. If a human cannot publicly use a copyrighted image without a license, why / how a non-human can? If some image are free to use with attribution, how can an ML model track and provide such attribution?

madeofpalk 4y ago
> If some image are free to use with attribution, how can an ML model track and provide such attribution? Easy - if they cannot provide attribution, they cannot use the image to train an ML model.
anileated 4y ago
It’s not interesting or complicated in any way: because a non-human has no free will and is operated by a human, the human (or in this case OpenAI/Microsoft/etc.) is ultimately infringing. If and when the non-human is granted human rights, this can be revisited.
Glyptodon 4y ago
Humans use copyrighted images without licenses all the time. Even trivial things like sharing a photo of a book cover can qualify.
- snickerbockers 4y ago
  Yes but do you pass it off as your own original artwork that you created all by yourself, or do you present the book cover in a way that makes it obvious that you are taking a photo of somebody else's book?
  - Glyptodon 4y ago
    So it's what you do with the output and not the output itself that matters, right?
    - snickerbockers 4y ago

titaniumtown 4y ago

If Google Books if public domain and considered fair use (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild,_Inc._v._Google,....) these ML models definitely are.

BaseballPhysics 4y ago
Nope. Totally different case based on a totally different set of circumstances and outcomes. This is a great example of coming to a conclusion about copyright based on how you think the system should work vs how it actually works. Google was able to convince the court their actions constituted fair use. My guess is training a generative AI will also be fair use. The question is, what about the output of the resulting model? And that is a question it'll take a court to answer.
- haswell 4y ago
  > My guess is training a generative AI will also be fair use. The question is, what about the output of the resulting model? And that is a question it'll take a court to answer. I suspect that you are right, and that it will place legal responsibility on the individual operating the software for any infringement. I think this will force the companies building these models to behave as if training the model was also infringement, because I cannot imagine a scenario where the average end-user has enough understanding/awareness of the implications of their prompts to avoid generating infringing work, and end-users getting sued would create an instant chilling effect on the use of such software.
  - jhbadger 4y ago
    The thing is most models for Stable Diffusion aren't created by companies but rather by end-users. There are literally hundreds of models for stable diffusion that you can download, from landscapes, to animals, to (of course) porn. A few of them were created by Stability or Huggingface, but most are trained by end-users. It isn't hard at all to train a model with existing tools -- you don't have to be an AI expert to do it.

Glyptodon 4y ago

My problem with this line of thinking is that it implies that humans remembering or using copyrighted things like normal humans do is wrong. E.g. can you remember a scene from a recent movie? Copyright infringement. Did you quote a recent book in conversation or a presentation? Absolutely not authorized!

haswell 4y ago
> it implies that humans remembering or using copyrighted things like normal humans do is wrong I don't agree that this is the resulting implication. I'd argue this is only implied if you believe that the software is so similar to humans that making judgements about the software is equivalent to making judgements about humans. Put another way, when a human does those things it is not infringement, because we have already determined that it's not, and the laws are based on humans interacting with the content. A computer doing those things is arguably a new thing entirely, and requires new rules. This does not imply that the old rules would or should stop applying to humans the way they do now.
jeroenhd 4y ago
The difference between humans and computer algorithms is that humans don't run on software. Computers are tools and neural networks only resemble human brains on a surface level. The human learning process is a lot more involved than just interconnections and weights, there is an entire array of biological concepts that neural networks don't even try to simulate in their approach. The comparison between neural networks and the human brain is the same as the comparison between a hard drive and the human brain: the recollection may be automatic and similar, but the concepts behind it and the legal implications aren't.
- Glyptodon 4y ago
  I don't think these algorithms are too much like brains, more so the issue I have is that I view infringement as a "what you do with output" issue, not a "what output can be produced" issue, so demonizing ML models as a whole over people who are irresponsible with them seems sketchy to me. Like blaming human brains for dreaming of Disney and Loony Tunes characters at the same time, instead of blaming someone stupid enough to put the two together outside of parody and attempting to trademark it.