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>> Not trying to shill anything; just want to build and share cool stuff. Any commercial use of Facebook’s LLaMa remains a violation of the software’s terms of

>> Not trying to shill anything; just want to build and share cool stuff. Any commercial use of Facebook’s LLaMa remains a violation of the software’s terms of use to my understanding; not saying your use is a violation, but that as it relates to anything related to LLaMa there no related commercial use.

huggingmouth 4y ago
This is wrong. Terms of service only apply if you agree to them. They do do not magically apply if you download the weights from someone else. Both the weights and the fine-tuned data were generated without human creativity and thus not eligible for copyright protection under law.
- O__________O 4y ago
  Assuming you’re so sure of your opinion that you are willing to: post a commercial use of LLaMa; provide a public means of making payments; on the related site, provide your legal name, business name, legal address, etc.; and have no issue with users providing Facebook with proof of purchase and link to the purchase page for Facebook to make a purchase themselves, right? Even if there was no legal basis, which I disagree with, since as other have pointed out, contracts breach the limits of copyrights — there’s zero reason Facebook would not be able to file a legal complaint and bring the matter to trial. Once at trial, judges are legally allowed to rule as they please, laws are ultimately irrelevant; yes, that ruling might be over turned on appeal and judges do not like to be overturned, but also possible the ruling would stand and become case law.
  - huggingmouth 4y ago
    Why do you disagree with the premise that there is no legal basis? That's exactly the situation we find ourselves in right now. The fact of the mater is that there is no law to address what you perceive as a problem. Until it exists, people and corporations are free to do as they please. As for legal complaints, there would be no legal basis to sue third parties. I doubt they would go far enough to get a judgment let alone set a legal precident.
    - O__________O 4y ago
      You’re clearly unwilling to assume any liability for your opinions of the matter; as such, in my opinion, you should explicitly acknowledge this, as it’s relevant to assessing the merits of your beliefs. Beyond that, in this thread and in the comment you’re replied to, I already established legal basis for Facebook to contest any use of their property for commercial use as it relates to the topic at hand. Do you understand how contract law works? Also pointed out that regardless of the presence of an existing precedent either via legal code or case law, Facebook has the legal right to file a legal complaint, have it ruled on, and judges are free to rule as they see fit. Related comment on the impact of laundering stolen property on legal claims: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35260528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35260528
      - huggingmouth 4y ago
        I see where your coming from, i really do. I also agree that facebook can sue people right and left. Our main disagreement here is you maintaining that what people are sharing is Facebook's property while i maintain the exact opposite. At least not under current law. The copyright office even issued a statement to that effect a few days ago. Can a judge overrule the copyright office? Sure, though I have no idea on what law it would be based. Can congress pass a new law that gives new rights to facebook? Very likely (as depressing as this answer may be). This however does not change the fact that under current intellectual property laws, facebook does not have any rights to restrict the distribution and use of these weights among third-parties.
        O__________O 4y ago
        Understand your point, specifically that your claim is that subset of the intellectual property released by Facebook in your opinion is not protected by copyright law and that as such, it’s possible to use LLaMa given per you, none of the property required to use it for commercial use is legally protected property. What you have failed to do though is address that if: there been a breach of contract; laundering the property as a means of separating the current use of the related property from its original terms is legal pretext including if party receives notice of the terms directly from Facebook; and lastly, most importantly, that it is your position that Facebook lacks any legal basis to forbid the commercial use of any of the property it made publicly available in this specific context based on the existing facts of the matter.
  - bsenftner 4y ago
    This is how deep wealth is created: the moment something is beyond current law, drive a fully loaded train thru that loop hole, generate unregulated wealth, lawyer up, and write the regulations yourself. I'd say they might now exactly what they are doing.
    - O__________O 4y ago
      No one has done anything, nor for that matter is it clear what current law you believe might be overturned; if someone had done something that was in violation of terms related to this matter and Facebook filed a motion, matter would be resolved by the courts. If you’re saying US courts would throw out contract law or laws preventing the laundering of stole property, likely need little more than two sentences and wealth to do so.
      - huggingmouth 4y ago
        Regarding your point that it is Facebook's property, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35261582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35261582
- eob 4y ago
  Has a court decided that yet? That’s huge if true. Someone once told me a curation was impossible to copyright for similar reasons.
  - weberer 4y ago
    It may apply to this case. The court ruled that Netscape's terms were not valid because end users did not give unambiguous consent before downloading. It may or may not apply here since people are downloading a leaked copy of Facebook's weights through a torrent. https://cyber.harvard.edu/stjohns/Specht_v_Netscape.pdf https://cyber.harvard.edu/stjohns/Specht_v_Netscape.pdf
- codingdave 4y ago
  Copyright !== TOS. And any use of a service tends to constitute agreement to the terms.
  - dannyw 4y ago
    But you aren’t using someone else’s service. You are using model weights of something that is explicitly uncopyrightable; like public domain. It may be against XYZ’s TOS to scrape public domain content from their website, but if you obtained that content elsewhere, XYZ’s TOS doesn’t apply to you. It’s a weird world with AI and copyright.
    - vlovich123 4y ago
      Dollars to donuts any judge would rule that the 7 billion weights constitute a copyright violation because you didn’t spontaneously come up with those weights on your own. Heck, this “it’s just a number” logic didn’t pan out for DeCSS [1] and that was a fixed small encryption key where it wasn’t as clear cut. So why would things suddenly shift here where there’s a very clear line that this is a derived work from FB’s model? The only thing that would help you I think is if FB decided to not enforce their copyright but I don’t think they’ve made clarifying statements either way. If I recall correctly, unlike trademarks, copyrights don’t have requirements that you must go after all instances of infringement to maintain your rights so FB can be totally selective about which instances they choose to prosecute. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number
      - huggingmouth 4y ago
        Copyright isn't some magical concept that is applied on the whims of a judge. It has very specific conditions of which at least 2 aren't satisfied by model weights (creativity, human authorship). The DeCSS legal issues have nothing to do with the copyrightability of ai models and stem solely from it circumventing copyright protection. If you want to restrict models then propose new laws. Don't try to pretend that coycopyright somehow applies here.
    - 4y ago
voxic11 4y ago
Its not software? Its a LLM model which doesn't have any copyright, and I doubt they obtained it via a facebook service, they probably just torrented it so they wouldn't have needed to agree to any terms for a service they were never provided.
- O__________O 4y ago
  Regardless of the merits of copyright claims, other legal issues exist; related comments: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35259914 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35259914 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35260275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35260275

huggingmouth 4y ago

This is wrong. Terms of service only apply if you agree to them. They do do not magically apply if you download the weights from someone else. Both the weights and the fine-tuned data were generated without human creativity and thus not eligible for copyright protection under law.

O__________O 4y ago
Assuming you’re so sure of your opinion that you are willing to: post a commercial use of LLaMa; provide a public means of making payments; on the related site, provide your legal name, business name, legal address, etc.; and have no issue with users providing Facebook with proof of purchase and link to the purchase page for Facebook to make a purchase themselves, right? Even if there was no legal basis, which I disagree with, since as other have pointed out, contracts breach the limits of copyrights — there’s zero reason Facebook would not be able to file a legal complaint and bring the matter to trial. Once at trial, judges are legally allowed to rule as they please, laws are ultimately irrelevant; yes, that ruling might be over turned on appeal and judges do not like to be overturned, but also possible the ruling would stand and become case law.
- huggingmouth 4y ago
  Why do you disagree with the premise that there is no legal basis? That's exactly the situation we find ourselves in right now. The fact of the mater is that there is no law to address what you perceive as a problem. Until it exists, people and corporations are free to do as they please. As for legal complaints, there would be no legal basis to sue third parties. I doubt they would go far enough to get a judgment let alone set a legal precident.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    You’re clearly unwilling to assume any liability for your opinions of the matter; as such, in my opinion, you should explicitly acknowledge this, as it’s relevant to assessing the merits of your beliefs. Beyond that, in this thread and in the comment you’re replied to, I already established legal basis for Facebook to contest any use of their property for commercial use as it relates to the topic at hand. Do you understand how contract law works? Also pointed out that regardless of the presence of an existing precedent either via legal code or case law, Facebook has the legal right to file a legal complaint, have it ruled on, and judges are free to rule as they see fit. Related comment on the impact of laundering stolen property on legal claims: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35260528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35260528
    - huggingmouth 4y ago
      I see where your coming from, i really do. I also agree that facebook can sue people right and left. Our main disagreement here is you maintaining that what people are sharing is Facebook's property while i maintain the exact opposite. At least not under current law. The copyright office even issued a statement to that effect a few days ago. Can a judge overrule the copyright office? Sure, though I have no idea on what law it would be based. Can congress pass a new law that gives new rights to facebook? Very likely (as depressing as this answer may be). This however does not change the fact that under current intellectual property laws, facebook does not have any rights to restrict the distribution and use of these weights among third-parties.
      - O__________O 4y ago
        Understand your point, specifically that your claim is that subset of the intellectual property released by Facebook in your opinion is not protected by copyright law and that as such, it’s possible to use LLaMa given per you, none of the property required to use it for commercial use is legally protected property. What you have failed to do though is address that if: there been a breach of contract; laundering the property as a means of separating the current use of the related property from its original terms is legal pretext including if party receives notice of the terms directly from Facebook; and lastly, most importantly, that it is your position that Facebook lacks any legal basis to forbid the commercial use of any of the property it made publicly available in this specific context based on the existing facts of the matter.
- bsenftner 4y ago
  This is how deep wealth is created: the moment something is beyond current law, drive a fully loaded train thru that loop hole, generate unregulated wealth, lawyer up, and write the regulations yourself. I'd say they might now exactly what they are doing.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    No one has done anything, nor for that matter is it clear what current law you believe might be overturned; if someone had done something that was in violation of terms related to this matter and Facebook filed a motion, matter would be resolved by the courts. If you’re saying US courts would throw out contract law or laws preventing the laundering of stole property, likely need little more than two sentences and wealth to do so.
    - huggingmouth 4y ago
      Regarding your point that it is Facebook's property, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35261582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35261582
eob 4y ago
Has a court decided that yet? That’s huge if true. Someone once told me a curation was impossible to copyright for similar reasons.
- weberer 4y ago
  It may apply to this case. The court ruled that Netscape's terms were not valid because end users did not give unambiguous consent before downloading. It may or may not apply here since people are downloading a leaked copy of Facebook's weights through a torrent. https://cyber.harvard.edu/stjohns/Specht_v_Netscape.pdf https://cyber.harvard.edu/stjohns/Specht_v_Netscape.pdf
codingdave 4y ago
Copyright !== TOS. And any use of a service tends to constitute agreement to the terms.
- dannyw 4y ago
  But you aren’t using someone else’s service. You are using model weights of something that is explicitly uncopyrightable; like public domain. It may be against XYZ’s TOS to scrape public domain content from their website, but if you obtained that content elsewhere, XYZ’s TOS doesn’t apply to you. It’s a weird world with AI and copyright.
  - vlovich123 4y ago
    Dollars to donuts any judge would rule that the 7 billion weights constitute a copyright violation because you didn’t spontaneously come up with those weights on your own. Heck, this “it’s just a number” logic didn’t pan out for DeCSS [1] and that was a fixed small encryption key where it wasn’t as clear cut. So why would things suddenly shift here where there’s a very clear line that this is a derived work from FB’s model? The only thing that would help you I think is if FB decided to not enforce their copyright but I don’t think they’ve made clarifying statements either way. If I recall correctly, unlike trademarks, copyrights don’t have requirements that you must go after all instances of infringement to maintain your rights so FB can be totally selective about which instances they choose to prosecute. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number
    - huggingmouth 4y ago
      Copyright isn't some magical concept that is applied on the whims of a judge. It has very specific conditions of which at least 2 aren't satisfied by model weights (creativity, human authorship). The DeCSS legal issues have nothing to do with the copyrightability of ai models and stem solely from it circumventing copyright protection. If you want to restrict models then propose new laws. Don't try to pretend that coycopyright somehow applies here.
  - 4y ago

voxic11 4y ago

Its not software? Its a LLM model which doesn't have any copyright, and I doubt they obtained it via a facebook service, they probably just torrented it so they wouldn't have needed to agree to any terms for a service they were never provided.

O__________O 4y ago
Regardless of the merits of copyright claims, other legal issues exist; related comments: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35259914 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35259914 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35260275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35260275