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I am still absolutely baffled that people think weights are copyrightable and hence licensable. There is no reason to believe they are, which means any restric

I am still absolutely baffled that people think weights are copyrightable and hence licensable. There is no reason to believe they are, which means any restriction placed on the weights themselves is bullshit.

downWidOutaFite 3y ago
It takes millions of dollars to generate the weights, shouldn't it have some legal protection?
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > It takes millions of dollars to generate the weights, shouldn’t it have some legal protection? It does, if you choose to keep them internally as a trade secret. It does, if you share it only with people you contract with not to disclose it. But, for copyright specifically, rather than “some legal protection” more generally, the “it takes millions of dollars” argument is a financial recasting of the “sweat of the brow” concept which has been definitively rejected by the courts.
SuoDuanDao 3y ago
why wouldn't they be copyrightable? is it a discovered versus written thing?
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > why wouldn’t they be copyrightable? Why would they be? I mean, what is the specific argument that they fall within the scope of the definition of what is copyrightable under US law?
  - SuoDuanDao 3y ago
    not a lawyer, but here's my naive interpretation based on living in a society that uses it. 'copyright' seems to refer to a specific string of symbols. literary or musical styles can't be copyrighted, but individual sequences of letters or notes can. Basically, if a derivative work copypasted without adding anything, it's considered plagiarism and/or violation of copyright. Weights in a model would similarly be a long string of symbols that someone went to considerable trouble to collate and therefore fall under copyright.
- tdullien 3y ago
  The fact that software falls under copyright was a conscious decision in 1978 because they couldn't find a better place to put it under; so "writing software" was equated to writing books or poetry. The point here is that copyright requires a human to have created something using their own labor/creativity. The result of an algorithm run by a machine isn't a creative work under these definitions.
joelfried 3y ago
I think we can go further. From the US Copyright Office[1]: "A mere listing of ingredients is not protected under copyright law", and from their linked circular on that page [2]: "forms typically contain empty fields or lined spaces as well as words or short phrases that identify the content that should be recorded in each field or space". A list of identifiers and their weights seems pretty explicitly not protected under one or the other of these. [1] https://www.copyrightlaws.com/copyright-protection-recipes/ https://www.copyrightlaws.com/copyright-protection-recipes/ [2] https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ33.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ33.pdf

downWidOutaFite 3y ago

It takes millions of dollars to generate the weights, shouldn't it have some legal protection?

dragonwriter 3y ago
> It takes millions of dollars to generate the weights, shouldn’t it have some legal protection? It does, if you choose to keep them internally as a trade secret. It does, if you share it only with people you contract with not to disclose it. But, for copyright specifically, rather than “some legal protection” more generally, the “it takes millions of dollars” argument is a financial recasting of the “sweat of the brow” concept which has been definitively rejected by the courts.

SuoDuanDao 3y ago

why wouldn't they be copyrightable? is it a discovered versus written thing?

dragonwriter 3y ago
> why wouldn’t they be copyrightable? Why would they be? I mean, what is the specific argument that they fall within the scope of the definition of what is copyrightable under US law?
- SuoDuanDao 3y ago
  not a lawyer, but here's my naive interpretation based on living in a society that uses it. 'copyright' seems to refer to a specific string of symbols. literary or musical styles can't be copyrighted, but individual sequences of letters or notes can. Basically, if a derivative work copypasted without adding anything, it's considered plagiarism and/or violation of copyright. Weights in a model would similarly be a long string of symbols that someone went to considerable trouble to collate and therefore fall under copyright.
tdullien 3y ago
The fact that software falls under copyright was a conscious decision in 1978 because they couldn't find a better place to put it under; so "writing software" was equated to writing books or poetry. The point here is that copyright requires a human to have created something using their own labor/creativity. The result of an algorithm run by a machine isn't a creative work under these definitions.

joelfried 3y ago

I think we can go further. From the US Copyright Office[1]: "A mere listing of ingredients is not protected under copyright law", and from their linked circular on that page [2]: "forms typically contain empty fields or lined spaces as well as words or short phrases that identify the content that should be recorded in each field or space". A list of identifiers and their weights seems pretty explicitly not protected under one or the other of these. [1] https://www.copyrightlaws.com/copyright-protection-recipes/ https://www.copyrightlaws.com/copyright-protection-recipes/ [2] https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ33.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ33.pdf