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I'd argue ChatGPT is closer to restating copyrighted materials in a different way. And that is legally questionable. Whether that actually matters depends on
by mywittyname 3y ago
I'd argue ChatGPT is closer to restating copyrighted materials in a different way. And that is legally questionable. Whether that actually matters depends on how much money is at stake and how much each party cares to spend to enforce or protect their viewpoint.
Allowing these systems to utilize copyrighted materials without compensating the copyright holder is a legal loophole the size of the sun. Then it becomes a perfectly legal defense to write "an AI" that slurps up copyrighted material and produces results that are "based on" that material.
My issue is that the copyrighted work is fundamentally integrated into the algorithm. Say you wrote a program that would input a copyrighted work, then prints out the contents, but with some words replaced with synonyms. Would the output of that be okay? What about if phrases were replaced? How about if entire sections are added, rearranged, and/or removed? At some point, the results become so mangled as to not be recognizable, but the fact that a copyrighted work serves as an input to the program is still an issue, IMHO.
A major difference between humans and computers is that a human can't (generally) recall hundreds of pages of text and regurgitate it on demand. So a human who has read a book only retains a fraction of the contents, and even then, generally they don't retain all of the information accurately.
- mindcrime 3y agoI get what you're saying, but I'm still not convinced that introducing the notion of "a computer program" vs "a human" changes anything in the equation. That is to say, IF you - as a human - had a "photographic memory" and after reading a copyrighted work began to spit out big chunks of it verbatim in response to a query, then you would already be guilty of copyright infringement, no? Likewise, if a computer program reads 10 books on, I dunno, let's say Quantum Physics, and then - in response to a query - emits a technically correct answer that isn't obviously cribbed from any one book... has it violated copyright? My point is not to say that contemporary "AI" systems never emit things that are arguably copyright infringement. It's more just to say that there's nothing about being an AI that makes it necessary that its output be copyright infringing.
- amanaplanacanal 3y agoAs far as I can tell, restating materials in a different way does not infringe copyright.
- SilasX 3y agoRight, that’s just citing sources. Even if your source is only one book (the Cliff Notes model).
- Engineering-MD 3y agoIt can be seen as a derived work. A translation of Harry Potter in to French, Japanese or Latin is not free from the copyright of the original work. That is literally restating materials in a different way.