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>I guess I’ve always looked at it as “once you publish your data publicly hoping for others to read it, it stops being ‘your data’ and becomes ‘content, made by

>I guess I’ve always looked at it as “once you publish your data publicly hoping for others to read it, it stops being ‘your data’ and becomes ‘content, made by you’ and you have less rights over it”. That's not how copyright or patent law works.

kuschku 4y ago
But that's how it should work. Which is why licenses like CC-BY-NC-SA and GPL are so popular: Everything is public, everyone can take and use everything, but everyone also has to make their own creations public.
- lionkor 4y ago
  GPL e.g. imposes significant restrictions, so not sure what your point is. GPL works because of copyright law, and how it actually works.
  - kuschku 4y ago
    My point is that the way GPL and CC-BY-SA work should be the default for everything. Yes, Copyleft uses the copyright system to enforce its rules, but there is also an alternative future where Copyleft is encoded in law and replaces copyright.
- rrwo 4y ago
  No, it isn't. If I publish something on the internet, I am only making it available for people to read. That does not give anyone the right to use it in other ways.
  - verdverm 4y ago
    There is a thing called "fair use" that lets people do more than just read your copyrighted works. https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html We make use of this exception on HN all the time, like this, from the link above: > How much of someone else's work can I use without getting permission? > Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work. Whether a particular use qualifies as fair use depends on all the circumstances.
    - waynesonfire 4y ago
      When the entire work is synthesized for the purpose of training a model it's not "limited portions" It makes sense there is no limit on the number of words that can be used under fair use, but it's certainly less than all of them.
      - verdverm 4y ago
        Context matters. You are taking one FAQ question and generalizing. It is permissible to reproduce or show complete works in education, depending on the context. It is also completely normal to read copyrighted work in private, learn something from it, and then answer questions about that work publicly. The questions around LLMs learning from copyrighted material are still open and need to be settled in court. I personally imagine finding infringement would impose more harm on society and progress than letting the models acquire knowledge from these copyrighted works.
        freejazz 4y ago
        > letting the models acquire knowledge from these copyrighted works I'm gagging at the nonsensical anthropomorphizing being done to end-run the fact that what the LLMs are doing is copying.
        verdverm 4y ago
        You make a lot of condescending or toxic remarks on HN. You might want to consider how that affects your ability to sway others with your comments. Please chill > the fact that what the LLMs are doing is copying. I disagree, the training process creates token representations and weighted connections between them. The models later produce probabilistic token sequences, not so unlike what our meat bodies do, though by very different mechanisms. The fact that certain sequences can be reproduced verbatim is likely a consequence of overfitting. They certainly cannot reproduce all training data verbatim. It would be interesting to know the features around what can and cannot be, and how.
  - k2enemy 4y ago
    But that's also not how copyright works. At least in the Unites States, the protections offered by copyright center around reproduction, performance, and derivative works[1]. If the AI models are reproducing copyrighted works, then that's a problem. And it does look like there are some examples where that might be happening beyond notions of fair use. But slupring up copyrighted content to train a model seems to fall under allowed use. [1] https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/ https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/
    - thfuran 4y ago
      Training a model maybe, but is it clear that the output of the model isn't a derivative work?
      - Filligree 4y ago
        To about the same degree as the output of a human. I just started writing a new novel. It's an interesting, in my opinion highly novel fantasy/SF(ish) story, for once not fanfiction of anything that's still in copyright -- most people wouldn't count stories based on ancient norse mythology as 'fanfiction' -- but that doesn't mean it isn't derivative. It means, instead of naming two or three things it's derivative of, I can name ten to fifteen. That's normal. All stories are derivative, and if you point me at an author who claims theirs aren't, you're pointing at a liar. The job of an author is to put the building blocks together in a new and interesting form, not to make them up from whole cloth. It's impossible to invent more than two or three truly novel ideas per day, even if you're incredibly imaginative, and most of those won't be any good. The difference between humans and AIs, nowadays, seem to be that the AIs use millions of sources instead of ten to fifteen. Or, alternately, that they use none -- and theirs is less derivative -- because certainly everything I've ever read goes into my writing, not just the things I recognise I'm using.
        freejazz 4y ago
        >To about the same degree as the output of a human. No. Full stop. Humans aren't stochastic parrots. Pointing to a lack of understanding about what exactly happens in the human mind is, FULL STOP, not evidence that LLMs are doing the same things humans do.
  - Terretta 4y ago
    For clarity, the term is about rights to make copies. It in no way blocks right to absorb, understand, or stand upon for the next idea.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  Would that work for photos and videos?
  - kuschku 4y ago
    Of course it would, that's what CC-BY-SA is for. Lots of material, e.g. on Wikipedia or material from public broadcasters in Germany is under that license.
- b3morales 4y ago
  That's how it should work, but it's not how it does work. I'm willing to give up my copyright on my stuff as soon as Microsoft, Google, MGM, Atlantic, etc. give up theirs. Until then, nope: I get the same rights and protections.
  - kuschku 4y ago
    That's a fair argument, and one I can fully support :)
suiiii 4y ago
But that is pretty much how the internet actually works..
concordDance 4y ago
How is the law relevant to his statement?
- thfuran 4y ago
  Because they only meaningful right is one that can be enforced and the law defines those and the mechanisms for enforcement.
fwlr 4y ago
I’m not too surprised to find that my intuition and copyright/patent law differ
- rjmunro 4y ago
  Try not to call it copyright/patent law. There is copyright law, and there is patent law, and what's true for one is almost never true for the other. Copyright is automatic. Patents are applied for and cost money. Copyright lasts 70 years from your death. Patent's last 25 years from invention. Copyrights don't prevent other people doing the same thing you did. Patents make it illegal to do the same thing, even if you separately invented it and didn't know about the first one etc.

kuschku 4y ago

But that's how it should work. Which is why licenses like CC-BY-NC-SA and GPL are so popular: Everything is public, everyone can take and use everything, but everyone also has to make their own creations public.

lionkor 4y ago
GPL e.g. imposes significant restrictions, so not sure what your point is. GPL works because of copyright law, and how it actually works.
- kuschku 4y ago
  My point is that the way GPL and CC-BY-SA work should be the default for everything. Yes, Copyleft uses the copyright system to enforce its rules, but there is also an alternative future where Copyleft is encoded in law and replaces copyright.
rrwo 4y ago
No, it isn't. If I publish something on the internet, I am only making it available for people to read. That does not give anyone the right to use it in other ways.
- verdverm 4y ago
  There is a thing called "fair use" that lets people do more than just read your copyrighted works. https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html We make use of this exception on HN all the time, like this, from the link above: > How much of someone else's work can I use without getting permission? > Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work. Whether a particular use qualifies as fair use depends on all the circumstances.
  - waynesonfire 4y ago
    When the entire work is synthesized for the purpose of training a model it's not "limited portions" It makes sense there is no limit on the number of words that can be used under fair use, but it's certainly less than all of them.
    - verdverm 4y ago
      Context matters. You are taking one FAQ question and generalizing. It is permissible to reproduce or show complete works in education, depending on the context. It is also completely normal to read copyrighted work in private, learn something from it, and then answer questions about that work publicly. The questions around LLMs learning from copyrighted material are still open and need to be settled in court. I personally imagine finding infringement would impose more harm on society and progress than letting the models acquire knowledge from these copyrighted works.
      - freejazz 4y ago
        > letting the models acquire knowledge from these copyrighted works I'm gagging at the nonsensical anthropomorphizing being done to end-run the fact that what the LLMs are doing is copying.
        verdverm 4y ago
        You make a lot of condescending or toxic remarks on HN. You might want to consider how that affects your ability to sway others with your comments. Please chill > the fact that what the LLMs are doing is copying. I disagree, the training process creates token representations and weighted connections between them. The models later produce probabilistic token sequences, not so unlike what our meat bodies do, though by very different mechanisms. The fact that certain sequences can be reproduced verbatim is likely a consequence of overfitting. They certainly cannot reproduce all training data verbatim. It would be interesting to know the features around what can and cannot be, and how.
- k2enemy 4y ago
  But that's also not how copyright works. At least in the Unites States, the protections offered by copyright center around reproduction, performance, and derivative works[1]. If the AI models are reproducing copyrighted works, then that's a problem. And it does look like there are some examples where that might be happening beyond notions of fair use. But slupring up copyrighted content to train a model seems to fall under allowed use. [1] https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/ https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/
  - thfuran 4y ago
    Training a model maybe, but is it clear that the output of the model isn't a derivative work?
    - Filligree 4y ago
      To about the same degree as the output of a human. I just started writing a new novel. It's an interesting, in my opinion highly novel fantasy/SF(ish) story, for once not fanfiction of anything that's still in copyright -- most people wouldn't count stories based on ancient norse mythology as 'fanfiction' -- but that doesn't mean it isn't derivative. It means, instead of naming two or three things it's derivative of, I can name ten to fifteen. That's normal. All stories are derivative, and if you point me at an author who claims theirs aren't, you're pointing at a liar. The job of an author is to put the building blocks together in a new and interesting form, not to make them up from whole cloth. It's impossible to invent more than two or three truly novel ideas per day, even if you're incredibly imaginative, and most of those won't be any good. The difference between humans and AIs, nowadays, seem to be that the AIs use millions of sources instead of ten to fifteen. Or, alternately, that they use none -- and theirs is less derivative -- because certainly everything I've ever read goes into my writing, not just the things I recognise I'm using.
      - freejazz 4y ago
        >To about the same degree as the output of a human. No. Full stop. Humans aren't stochastic parrots. Pointing to a lack of understanding about what exactly happens in the human mind is, FULL STOP, not evidence that LLMs are doing the same things humans do.
- Terretta 4y ago
  For clarity, the term is about rights to make copies. It in no way blocks right to absorb, understand, or stand upon for the next idea.
ipaddr 4y ago
Would that work for photos and videos?
- kuschku 4y ago
  Of course it would, that's what CC-BY-SA is for. Lots of material, e.g. on Wikipedia or material from public broadcasters in Germany is under that license.
b3morales 4y ago
That's how it should work, but it's not how it does work. I'm willing to give up my copyright on my stuff as soon as Microsoft, Google, MGM, Atlantic, etc. give up theirs. Until then, nope: I get the same rights and protections.
- kuschku 4y ago
  That's a fair argument, and one I can fully support :)

suiiii 4y ago

But that is pretty much how the internet actually works..

concordDance 4y ago

How is the law relevant to his statement?

thfuran 4y ago
Because they only meaningful right is one that can be enforced and the law defines those and the mechanisms for enforcement.

fwlr 4y ago

I’m not too surprised to find that my intuition and copyright/patent law differ

rjmunro 4y ago
Try not to call it copyright/patent law. There is copyright law, and there is patent law, and what's true for one is almost never true for the other. Copyright is automatic. Patents are applied for and cost money. Copyright lasts 70 years from your death. Patent's last 25 years from invention. Copyrights don't prevent other people doing the same thing you did. Patents make it illegal to do the same thing, even if you separately invented it and didn't know about the first one etc.