7 ms·

United States copyright law in quite clear on the matter: >A "derivative work" is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, music

United States copyright law in quite clear on the matter: >A "derivative work" is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. The emphasis part clearly applies: not only the AI model needs to be trained on massive amounts of copyrighted works *); but without these input works, it displays no intrinsic creative ability, it has no capacity to produce a single intelligible word or sketch. All creative features of its productions are a transformation of (and only of) the creative features of the inputs, the AI algorithm has no "intelligence" in the common meaning of the word and no ability to create original works. *) by that, I mean a specific instance of the model with certain desirable features, for example the ability to imitate the style of J.K Rowling

anotherman554 4y ago
That's an interesting analysis. The issue isn't really whether the A.I. has creative ability, though, if we're talking about whether it infringes copyright. I think comparing the A.I. to a really simple bot is informative. If I wrote a novel that contained once sentence from 1,000 people's novels, it would probably be fair use since I hardly took anything from any individual person and because my novel is probably not harming those other writers. If I wrote a bot that did the same thing, same result, because my bot uses only a little from everyone's novel and doesn't harm the original novelist, so it's likely fair use. Now I think a J.K. Rowling A.I. probably takes at least a little from her when it produces output, but it's not clear to me how much is actually based on J.K. Rowling and how much is a dataset of how words tend to be associated with other words. You could design a J.K. Rowling A.I. that uses nothing from J.K. Rowling, just data that is said to be J.K. Rowling-esque.
- shagie 4y ago
  Your one sentence from one thousand works is likely seen as transformative. https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/ https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/ > Additionally, “transformative” uses are more likely to be considered fair. Transformative uses are those that add something new, with a further purpose or different character, and do not substitute for the original use of the work. Creating a model from copyrighted works is likely sufficiently transformative to be non-infringing even if it is found to be a derivative work.
  - anotherman554 4y ago
    "Creating a model from copyrighted works is likely sufficiently transformative to be non-infringing even if it is found to be a derivative work." Maybe, but one of the factors of fair use is whether it deprives the copyright owner of income or undermines a new or potential market for the copyrighted work. If ChatGPD gets so good at writing J.K. Rowling novels that it hurts the sales of the next J.K. Rowling book, that's a strong argument against the use being fair, even if it is transformative. If J.K. Rowling signs an exclusive agreement with Google to train on J.K. Rowling novels, that's another factors that would suggest OpenAI's use is not fair, because she's shown OpenAI is hurting a potential market for J.K. Rowling selling the use of her novels to train A.I.
    - shagie 4y ago
      But the model doesn't have any agency. GPT isn't spitting out novels in the style of J.K. Rowling and sending them to publishers - a human is. GPT being instructed to tell a Harry Potter story itself is no more infringing than a child asking a parent for a made up Harry Potter bed time story. They equally infringe and undermine new or potential markets for copyrighted work. The question is "what do you do with the material?" If a human took the output of GPT writing as J.K. Rowling or a parent took their collected Harry Potter bedtime stories - those are equally problematic. If I was to take a portrait of Marilyn Monroe and send it through a plugin called Warholize in Photoshop ( https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/hub/guides/create-andy-warhol-style-pop-art-photoshop-how-to https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/hub/guides/c... ) , it's not the plugin or photoshop that is infringing - it would be me, the human who created an infringing work. If I print it out and hang it on my wall, that didn't particularly impact on the income for the Warhol estate nor deprive them of new markets. If I print out copies of it and sell them - then that is a different matter. The question is what you - the human with agency - do with the infringing work after you create it. You can't blame photoshop for creating a Warhol infringing work nor can you blame GPT for writing in the style of J.K. Rowling if you instruct it to do so.
      - cornholio 4y ago

anotherman554 4y ago

That's an interesting analysis. The issue isn't really whether the A.I. has creative ability, though, if we're talking about whether it infringes copyright. I think comparing the A.I. to a really simple bot is informative. If I wrote a novel that contained once sentence from 1,000 people's novels, it would probably be fair use since I hardly took anything from any individual person and because my novel is probably not harming those other writers. If I wrote a bot that did the same thing, same result, because my bot uses only a little from everyone's novel and doesn't harm the original novelist, so it's likely fair use. Now I think a J.K. Rowling A.I. probably takes at least a little from her when it produces output, but it's not clear to me how much is actually based on J.K. Rowling and how much is a dataset of how words tend to be associated with other words. You could design a J.K. Rowling A.I. that uses nothing from J.K. Rowling, just data that is said to be J.K. Rowling-esque.

shagie 4y ago
Your one sentence from one thousand works is likely seen as transformative. https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/ https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/ > Additionally, “transformative” uses are more likely to be considered fair. Transformative uses are those that add something new, with a further purpose or different character, and do not substitute for the original use of the work. Creating a model from copyrighted works is likely sufficiently transformative to be non-infringing even if it is found to be a derivative work.
- anotherman554 4y ago
  "Creating a model from copyrighted works is likely sufficiently transformative to be non-infringing even if it is found to be a derivative work." Maybe, but one of the factors of fair use is whether it deprives the copyright owner of income or undermines a new or potential market for the copyrighted work. If ChatGPD gets so good at writing J.K. Rowling novels that it hurts the sales of the next J.K. Rowling book, that's a strong argument against the use being fair, even if it is transformative. If J.K. Rowling signs an exclusive agreement with Google to train on J.K. Rowling novels, that's another factors that would suggest OpenAI's use is not fair, because she's shown OpenAI is hurting a potential market for J.K. Rowling selling the use of her novels to train A.I.
  - shagie 4y ago
    But the model doesn't have any agency. GPT isn't spitting out novels in the style of J.K. Rowling and sending them to publishers - a human is. GPT being instructed to tell a Harry Potter story itself is no more infringing than a child asking a parent for a made up Harry Potter bed time story. They equally infringe and undermine new or potential markets for copyrighted work. The question is "what do you do with the material?" If a human took the output of GPT writing as J.K. Rowling or a parent took their collected Harry Potter bedtime stories - those are equally problematic. If I was to take a portrait of Marilyn Monroe and send it through a plugin called Warholize in Photoshop ( https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/hub/guides/create-andy-warhol-style-pop-art-photoshop-how-to https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/hub/guides/c... ) , it's not the plugin or photoshop that is infringing - it would be me, the human who created an infringing work. If I print it out and hang it on my wall, that didn't particularly impact on the income for the Warhol estate nor deprive them of new markets. If I print out copies of it and sell them - then that is a different matter. The question is what you - the human with agency - do with the infringing work after you create it. You can't blame photoshop for creating a Warhol infringing work nor can you blame GPT for writing in the style of J.K. Rowling if you instruct it to do so.
    - cornholio 4y ago