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Shouldn't that be the default position? The training methods are certainly patentable, but the actual input to the algorithm is usually public domain, and outp

Shouldn't that be the default position? The training methods are certainly patentable, but the actual input to the algorithm is usually public domain, and outputs of algorithms are not generally copyrightable as new works (think of to_lowercase(Harry Potter), which is not a copyrightable work), so the model weights would be a derivative work of public domain materials, and hence also forced into the public domain from a copyright perspective. They are generally trade secrets now, which is what actually protects them. Leaks of trade secrets are serious business regardless of the IP status of the work otherwise.

vkou 4y ago
I like your legal interpretation, but it's way too early to tell if it is one that accurately represents the reality of the situation. We won't know until this hits the courts.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  For what it's worth, I've been working on a startup that involves training some models, and this is likely how we're going to be treating the legal stuff (and being very careful about how customers can interact with the models as a consequence). I assume people who have different incentives will take a different view, though.
teddyh 4y ago
> the model weights would be a derivative work of public domain materials, and hence also forced into the public domain from a copyright perspective. I don’t think “Public domain” means what you think it means.
- skissane 4y ago
  Yes, the person to whom you are responding appears to be mixing up "publicly available" (made available to general public) with "public domain" (not protected by copyright). IANAL but, I think, as far as US law goes, they have the right conclusion for the wrong reasons. Unsupervised training is an automated process, and the US Copyright Office has said [0] that the product of automated processes can't be copyrighted. While that statement was focused on the output of running an AI model, not the output of its training process (the parameters), I can't see how – for a model produced by unsupervised training – the conclusion would be any different. This is probably not the case in many non-US jurisdictions, such as the EU, UK, Australia, etc – all of which have far weaker standards for copyrightability than the US does. It may not apply for supervised training – the supervision may be sufficient human input for copyrightability even in the US. It may not apply for AI models trained from copyrighted datasets, where the copyright owner of the dataset is claiming ownership of the model – that is not the case for OpenAI/Google/Meta/etc, who are all using training datasets predominantly copyright by third parties, but maybe Getty Images will build their own Stable Diffusion-style AI based on their image library, and that might give them a way of copyrighting their model which OpenAI/Google/Meta/etc lack. It is always possible that US Congress will amend the law to make AI parameters copyrightable, or introduce some sui generis non-copyright legal protection for them, like the semiconductor mask work rights which were legislated in response to court rulings that semiconductor masks could not be copyrighted. I think the odds are reasonably high they will in fact do that sooner or later, but nobody knows for certain how things will pan out. [0] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/16/2023-05321/copyright-registration-guidance-works-containing-material-generated-by-artificial-intelligence https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/16/2023-05...
  - teddyh 4y ago
    > the product of automated processes can't be copyrighted. That output could still be covered by copyright: In the case where the input is covered by copyright, the product/output may be considered a derived work, in which case the output is still covered by the same copyright the input was. Your argument just explains why the output will not gain any additional copyright coverage.
  - anticensor 4y ago
    The EU and most of the world require human authorship too. The UK instead maintains the view the model's operator gets the copyright.

vkou 4y ago

I like your legal interpretation, but it's way too early to tell if it is one that accurately represents the reality of the situation. We won't know until this hits the courts.

pclmulqdq 4y ago
For what it's worth, I've been working on a startup that involves training some models, and this is likely how we're going to be treating the legal stuff (and being very careful about how customers can interact with the models as a consequence). I assume people who have different incentives will take a different view, though.

teddyh 4y ago

> the model weights would be a derivative work of public domain materials, and hence also forced into the public domain from a copyright perspective. I don’t think “Public domain” means what you think it means.

skissane 4y ago
Yes, the person to whom you are responding appears to be mixing up "publicly available" (made available to general public) with "public domain" (not protected by copyright). IANAL but, I think, as far as US law goes, they have the right conclusion for the wrong reasons. Unsupervised training is an automated process, and the US Copyright Office has said [0] that the product of automated processes can't be copyrighted. While that statement was focused on the output of running an AI model, not the output of its training process (the parameters), I can't see how – for a model produced by unsupervised training – the conclusion would be any different. This is probably not the case in many non-US jurisdictions, such as the EU, UK, Australia, etc – all of which have far weaker standards for copyrightability than the US does. It may not apply for supervised training – the supervision may be sufficient human input for copyrightability even in the US. It may not apply for AI models trained from copyrighted datasets, where the copyright owner of the dataset is claiming ownership of the model – that is not the case for OpenAI/Google/Meta/etc, who are all using training datasets predominantly copyright by third parties, but maybe Getty Images will build their own Stable Diffusion-style AI based on their image library, and that might give them a way of copyrighting their model which OpenAI/Google/Meta/etc lack. It is always possible that US Congress will amend the law to make AI parameters copyrightable, or introduce some sui generis non-copyright legal protection for them, like the semiconductor mask work rights which were legislated in response to court rulings that semiconductor masks could not be copyrighted. I think the odds are reasonably high they will in fact do that sooner or later, but nobody knows for certain how things will pan out. [0] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/16/2023-05321/copyright-registration-guidance-works-containing-material-generated-by-artificial-intelligence https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/16/2023-05...
- teddyh 4y ago
  > the product of automated processes can't be copyrighted. That output could still be covered by copyright: In the case where the input is covered by copyright, the product/output may be considered a derived work, in which case the output is still covered by the same copyright the input was. Your argument just explains why the output will not gain any additional copyright coverage.
- anticensor 4y ago
  The EU and most of the world require human authorship too. The UK instead maintains the view the model's operator gets the copyright.