3 ms·

a) Does this, legally speaking, count as a copyright protection measure? b) The DMCA is a US legislation, what about training done in other countries?

kamray23 4y ago
To a): 17 USC § 1201(a)(3) А technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work. Maybe? It certainly prevents reusing the work in that specific manner without authorisation. It doesn't prevent just seeing the work though, so it's a bit up to interpretation. To b), US-like copyright law effectively applies in any WTO-conforming country. Anything that implements WIPO functiouns roughly the same way. Fun DMCA fact, there is no fair use provision. Any use is likely to be criminal. Another fun DMCA fact, apparently ripping out spyware and republishing is entirely legal. Huh.
- usrbinbash 4y ago
  I am not a lawyer, so the following is only my opinion. > It certainly prevents reusing the work in that specific manner without authorisation. Well, technically speaking, it doesn't prevent it. It just messes up the results of the work being used in that manner. And what if someone builds a training workflow that can just ingest such changed images and use them without being negatively affected by the changes? > so it's a bit up to interpretation. Interpretation that would likely have to be decided in court, and likely in a very drawn out and very very very expensive manner, with uncertain outcome. A machine-readable tagging that simply says "noone is allowed to use this for training AI" sounds way easier to argue in court to me.
  - kamray23 4y ago
    > It just messes up the results of the work being used in that manner. And what if someone builds a training workflow that can just ingest such changed images and use them without being negatively affected by the changes? That is what encryption does as well. You can certainly attempt to watch DVDs without permission. It won't be very enjoyable. And what if someone builds a viewing application which can just watch those DVDs anyway? You see, if this is legally protected, building that workflow is circumvention and very, very illegal. Defining "effectively restricts" is left intentionally up to interpretation because there is no clear line between messing up the result and preventing access.
    - usrbinbash 4y ago
      Disclaimer (again): I am not a lawyer, so this is only my opinion. Encryption prevents usage of the data. This doesn't. The data can still be viewed without any special software, device, password, key, etc. A sufficiently robust ingestion engine could still use it for training. In fact, even an unprepared engine can train on it, it only messes up the outcome. Honest question: Is it harder to argue legally that I DRM-protected my work if I publish them in a form that needs an encryption key/software/device, or if I publish them for everyone to see after changing some pixels around? > if this is legally protected "If" is the important term here. It was mentioned above that "maybe" this counts in the same way as a Copyright protection measure. I don't argue against that. Maybe it does. That is for lawmakers, courts and similar legal experts to decide. My opinion as someone who isn't a lawyer, is that it would be EASIER to get courts to agree on that machine-readable tagging, simply disallowing usage of works for training, is similar to DRM measures, and ignoring them should be punished the same way as circumventing copyright mechanisms. The added bonus for users: Such tagging is easier to implement, easier to update, there exists prior law already covering it (see several european countries) providing legal guidelines. Plus, artists wouldn't have to mangle their works to implement them, and it is useable with all forms of data, not just images.
      - kamray23 4y ago
        > it would be EASIER to get courts to agree on that machine-readable tagging, simply disallowing usage of works for training, is similar to DRM measures It should be. It'd be really great if it was. Sadly, lawyers wrote the DMCA. It has to be a measure which actually restricts access in an effective enough way, just saying "don't touch this" isn't a measure because it doesn't effectively prevent the usage. 17 USC § 1201(a)(3) and all that. If training on image sets isn't copyright infringement, "don't use this" doesn't count. It's a license, and you're not infringing on it. If it is copyright infringement, "don't use this" is the default and you can't use anything without explicit permission, effectively requiring datasets to only include CC0 images. Since the first one is way more likely to be true, you instead use the 17 USC 1201(a) which prevents circumvention of technical protection measures, by creating what is hopefully a technical protection measure. Is it foolproof? It was never meant to be. It's an attempt at best. But it's better than relying on a law which is incredibly likely to never apply to dataset scraping. Preventing the usage of the data for a specific application vs total restriction is the big issue here. Is it enough to qualify as a technical protection measure? Maybe, maybe not. The courts may agree, or they may not. But it's fairly established in conversation that dataset scraping isn't infringement, so tagging it doesn't really work.

kamray23 4y ago

To a): 17 USC § 1201(a)(3) А technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work. Maybe? It certainly prevents reusing the work in that specific manner without authorisation. It doesn't prevent just seeing the work though, so it's a bit up to interpretation. To b), US-like copyright law effectively applies in any WTO-conforming country. Anything that implements WIPO functiouns roughly the same way. Fun DMCA fact, there is no fair use provision. Any use is likely to be criminal. Another fun DMCA fact, apparently ripping out spyware and republishing is entirely legal. Huh.

usrbinbash 4y ago
I am not a lawyer, so the following is only my opinion. > It certainly prevents reusing the work in that specific manner without authorisation. Well, technically speaking, it doesn't prevent it. It just messes up the results of the work being used in that manner. And what if someone builds a training workflow that can just ingest such changed images and use them without being negatively affected by the changes? > so it's a bit up to interpretation. Interpretation that would likely have to be decided in court, and likely in a very drawn out and very very very expensive manner, with uncertain outcome. A machine-readable tagging that simply says "noone is allowed to use this for training AI" sounds way easier to argue in court to me.
- kamray23 4y ago
  > It just messes up the results of the work being used in that manner. And what if someone builds a training workflow that can just ingest such changed images and use them without being negatively affected by the changes? That is what encryption does as well. You can certainly attempt to watch DVDs without permission. It won't be very enjoyable. And what if someone builds a viewing application which can just watch those DVDs anyway? You see, if this is legally protected, building that workflow is circumvention and very, very illegal. Defining "effectively restricts" is left intentionally up to interpretation because there is no clear line between messing up the result and preventing access.
  - usrbinbash 4y ago
    Disclaimer (again): I am not a lawyer, so this is only my opinion. Encryption prevents usage of the data. This doesn't. The data can still be viewed without any special software, device, password, key, etc. A sufficiently robust ingestion engine could still use it for training. In fact, even an unprepared engine can train on it, it only messes up the outcome. Honest question: Is it harder to argue legally that I DRM-protected my work if I publish them in a form that needs an encryption key/software/device, or if I publish them for everyone to see after changing some pixels around? > if this is legally protected "If" is the important term here. It was mentioned above that "maybe" this counts in the same way as a Copyright protection measure. I don't argue against that. Maybe it does. That is for lawmakers, courts and similar legal experts to decide. My opinion as someone who isn't a lawyer, is that it would be EASIER to get courts to agree on that machine-readable tagging, simply disallowing usage of works for training, is similar to DRM measures, and ignoring them should be punished the same way as circumventing copyright mechanisms. The added bonus for users: Such tagging is easier to implement, easier to update, there exists prior law already covering it (see several european countries) providing legal guidelines. Plus, artists wouldn't have to mangle their works to implement them, and it is useable with all forms of data, not just images.
    - kamray23 4y ago
      > it would be EASIER to get courts to agree on that machine-readable tagging, simply disallowing usage of works for training, is similar to DRM measures It should be. It'd be really great if it was. Sadly, lawyers wrote the DMCA. It has to be a measure which actually restricts access in an effective enough way, just saying "don't touch this" isn't a measure because it doesn't effectively prevent the usage. 17 USC § 1201(a)(3) and all that. If training on image sets isn't copyright infringement, "don't use this" doesn't count. It's a license, and you're not infringing on it. If it is copyright infringement, "don't use this" is the default and you can't use anything without explicit permission, effectively requiring datasets to only include CC0 images. Since the first one is way more likely to be true, you instead use the 17 USC 1201(a) which prevents circumvention of technical protection measures, by creating what is hopefully a technical protection measure. Is it foolproof? It was never meant to be. It's an attempt at best. But it's better than relying on a law which is incredibly likely to never apply to dataset scraping. Preventing the usage of the data for a specific application vs total restriction is the big issue here. Is it enough to qualify as a technical protection measure? Maybe, maybe not. The courts may agree, or they may not. But it's fairly established in conversation that dataset scraping isn't infringement, so tagging it doesn't really work.