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Has OpenAI said anything (in their TOS/etc) about who owns the copyright/ip on the code that it generates? I know it’s a legal minefield of a question, just cur

Has OpenAI said anything (in their TOS/etc) about who owns the copyright/ip on the code that it generates? I know it’s a legal minefield of a question, just curious if they have said “we won’t sue you if you copy/paste this code in your app” publically or anything.

bloak 4y ago
Semi-serious: Perhaps they are scared of even mentioning copyright in case it makes their own infringement "wilful".
chongli 4y ago
I think courts have started to find that the output of AIs like ChatGPT can’t be copyrighted at all because it isn’t human expression.
CuriouslyC 4y ago
The USPTO has already ruled that stuff created solely via prompt to a model with no modification is not copyrightable.
- spacebanana7 4y ago
  That might be the case in theory, but if a university can't tell the difference between AI generated essays/books and human generated ones the how could the courts?
  - CuriouslyC 4y ago
    If someone tries to sue you for copyright infringement on a model output, you can just produce the parameters to the model that produced the output and the case will be thrown out pretty much instantly.
    - spacebanana7 4y ago
      My understanding is that LLMs are generally probabilistic so repeating the inputs won’t produce the same output.
    - bioemerl 4y ago
      This feels like it could easily be abused if you can get a model to output code that is "pretty close". You could use it to try and invalidate human written copyright as well.
    - r00fus 4y ago
      What happens when you incidentally created something very similar to something ChatGPT could produce - does that mean you can't enforce copyright on it? (as someone could automate a prompt engineering process to create a near-copy of your original work? Let's take that to the next step - what happens if ChatGPT happens to get trained on something that is copyrightable - then a prompt script can be used to reproduce the original - does that mean the original is now considered not protected by copyright? This is a lot more murky than "show me the prompts/parameters" and it's not protected by copyright.
      - CuriouslyC 4y ago
        If you try to sue someone for copyright infringement and they demonstrate that what you're claiming is infringement is solely the result of model output, you're going to be out of luck, and honestly I don't think that's a problem - if your creation is so derivative that a model produces it via a reasonable prompt it probably doesn't deserve protection. Using prompt interrogation on a specially fine tuned model in an attempt to end-run a reasonable copyright is a different matter, but I don't think that'd be worth the effort for anyone to actually do. If a copyright precedes the existence of a model, the model was trained on that code and someone distributes code from the model that is a near-verbatim reproduction, that's a different story (in large part because getting that near verbatim reproduction would probably require willful intent rather than just being accidental)
      - ilyt 4y ago
        Or vice versa - when you only modify answer a bit ? I guess it would be derivative work ?
        wongarsu 4y ago
        It would be derivative work, which is copyrightable in the US. But you have to modify it enough to hit some threshold of originality.
      - SllX 4y ago
        Can you explain to a court why it is “generating” the original from scratch from a prompt and not simply retrieving the input and printing it to screen? Just out of curiosity. I don’t think the owner of the copyright loses copyright simply because something else output a copy of his work. Maybe it is “generated” but the copyright holder still has his rights per copyright statutes and you would still be violating those rights by distributing your own copies from the AI output.
    - codyb 4y ago
      Aren't these models constantly updating though?
- nerdponx 4y ago
  This will be reverted by a federal court and/or Congress as soon as Disney gets involved, or at least relegated to an unenforceable legal footnote.
Terretta 4y ago
As anyone well-informed how LLMs work will tell you, it's not violating any copyright or IP, because these answers are coming from a probabilistic walk through condensed remix of learning, not the sources themselves. Another way of thinking of it is compressed knowledge, with learned structure, and an ability to pick likely words to describe that structure rather than an ability to use original words. The compression ratio of the source corpus versus the model demonstrates it doesn't have all the source material, ipso facto, results are not infringement. As an easy to understand analog, if you grab a Shutterstock photo, change it from 100% quality to 5% quality, the file size drops to 100th of the original and on display, none of the pixels are the same. While it may be the same general concept depicted badly, it is certainly not the original and clearly isn't copyrightable. (Note: That last paragraph is firmly tongue in cheek /s ... I've used the "uniqueness (originality) is compressed out, what remains as learned is fair use" argument in the past, but on further reflection about the interaction of creativity and structure, I'm not sure it stands, especially at temperature 0 aka zero creativity.)
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  It should be noted that the GP was asking a different question - they were asking whether OpenAI might have any claims of copyright over the output of their model, so that they might sue you for using the output of their model for your own business.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - madamelic 4y ago
    The current ruling for AI generated images is that they cannot have copyright by anyone because copyright only covers human-generated works. If a human didn't create it, it can't have a copyright.
    - throwbadubadu 4y ago
      Hmm.. so there is also procedural computer art, writing code to produce nice images. Also not copyrightable? At least the code? I draw an image. I write some lines of code that draws an image. I write many lines of code that do something, gather something, and then draws an image? I just wonder how one can reasonably draw hard lines (and now I don't mean art :D) in the future.. there are so many ridiculous incarnations of copyright and patent fights already out there..
nick_urban 4y ago
Yes. OpenAI ToS 3(a): "OpenAI hereby assigns to you all its right, title and interest in and to Output. This means you can use Content for any purpose, including commercial purposes such as sale or publication, if you comply with these Terms."

bloak 4y ago

Semi-serious: Perhaps they are scared of even mentioning copyright in case it makes their own infringement "wilful".

chongli 4y ago

I think courts have started to find that the output of AIs like ChatGPT can’t be copyrighted at all because it isn’t human expression.

CuriouslyC 4y ago

The USPTO has already ruled that stuff created solely via prompt to a model with no modification is not copyrightable.

spacebanana7 4y ago
That might be the case in theory, but if a university can't tell the difference between AI generated essays/books and human generated ones the how could the courts?
- CuriouslyC 4y ago
  If someone tries to sue you for copyright infringement on a model output, you can just produce the parameters to the model that produced the output and the case will be thrown out pretty much instantly.
  - spacebanana7 4y ago
    My understanding is that LLMs are generally probabilistic so repeating the inputs won’t produce the same output.
  - bioemerl 4y ago
    This feels like it could easily be abused if you can get a model to output code that is "pretty close". You could use it to try and invalidate human written copyright as well.
  - r00fus 4y ago
    What happens when you incidentally created something very similar to something ChatGPT could produce - does that mean you can't enforce copyright on it? (as someone could automate a prompt engineering process to create a near-copy of your original work? Let's take that to the next step - what happens if ChatGPT happens to get trained on something that is copyrightable - then a prompt script can be used to reproduce the original - does that mean the original is now considered not protected by copyright? This is a lot more murky than "show me the prompts/parameters" and it's not protected by copyright.
    - CuriouslyC 4y ago
      If you try to sue someone for copyright infringement and they demonstrate that what you're claiming is infringement is solely the result of model output, you're going to be out of luck, and honestly I don't think that's a problem - if your creation is so derivative that a model produces it via a reasonable prompt it probably doesn't deserve protection. Using prompt interrogation on a specially fine tuned model in an attempt to end-run a reasonable copyright is a different matter, but I don't think that'd be worth the effort for anyone to actually do. If a copyright precedes the existence of a model, the model was trained on that code and someone distributes code from the model that is a near-verbatim reproduction, that's a different story (in large part because getting that near verbatim reproduction would probably require willful intent rather than just being accidental)
    - ilyt 4y ago
      Or vice versa - when you only modify answer a bit ? I guess it would be derivative work ?
      - wongarsu 4y ago
        It would be derivative work, which is copyrightable in the US. But you have to modify it enough to hit some threshold of originality.
    - SllX 4y ago
      Can you explain to a court why it is “generating” the original from scratch from a prompt and not simply retrieving the input and printing it to screen? Just out of curiosity. I don’t think the owner of the copyright loses copyright simply because something else output a copy of his work. Maybe it is “generated” but the copyright holder still has his rights per copyright statutes and you would still be violating those rights by distributing your own copies from the AI output.
  - codyb 4y ago
    Aren't these models constantly updating though?
nerdponx 4y ago
This will be reverted by a federal court and/or Congress as soon as Disney gets involved, or at least relegated to an unenforceable legal footnote.

Terretta 4y ago

As anyone well-informed how LLMs work will tell you, it's not violating any copyright or IP, because these answers are coming from a probabilistic walk through condensed remix of learning, not the sources themselves. Another way of thinking of it is compressed knowledge, with learned structure, and an ability to pick likely words to describe that structure rather than an ability to use original words. The compression ratio of the source corpus versus the model demonstrates it doesn't have all the source material, ipso facto, results are not infringement. As an easy to understand analog, if you grab a Shutterstock photo, change it from 100% quality to 5% quality, the file size drops to 100th of the original and on display, none of the pixels are the same. While it may be the same general concept depicted badly, it is certainly not the original and clearly isn't copyrightable. (Note: That last paragraph is firmly tongue in cheek /s ... I've used the "uniqueness (originality) is compressed out, what remains as learned is fair use" argument in the past, but on further reflection about the interaction of creativity and structure, I'm not sure it stands, especially at temperature 0 aka zero creativity.)

tsimionescu 4y ago
It should be noted that the GP was asking a different question - they were asking whether OpenAI might have any claims of copyright over the output of their model, so that they might sue you for using the output of their model for your own business.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- madamelic 4y ago
  The current ruling for AI generated images is that they cannot have copyright by anyone because copyright only covers human-generated works. If a human didn't create it, it can't have a copyright.
  - throwbadubadu 4y ago
    Hmm.. so there is also procedural computer art, writing code to produce nice images. Also not copyrightable? At least the code? I draw an image. I write some lines of code that draws an image. I write many lines of code that do something, gather something, and then draws an image? I just wonder how one can reasonably draw hard lines (and now I don't mean art :D) in the future.. there are so many ridiculous incarnations of copyright and patent fights already out there..

nick_urban 4y ago

Yes. OpenAI ToS 3(a): "OpenAI hereby assigns to you all its right, title and interest in and to Output. This means you can use Content for any purpose, including commercial purposes such as sale or publication, if you comply with these Terms."