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I don't believe they are the same. A derivative work is something like making a collage or a video game modification/sequel. An AI isn't really either of thos

I don't believe they are the same. A derivative work is something like making a collage or a video game modification/sequel. An AI isn't really either of those. It doesn't contain the original artwork in any sense, and as a trained numerical model it's not a derivative of any other works it was trained on. No more than you looking at the artwork and learning aspects of it at least. In the copyright sense it should be treated like you treat a person. If it produces something that is clearly a derivative copy of something. Hit it for copyright. Otherwise, treat the output as novel output. If you use an AI you need to be held liable for whatever you take from it and distribute, if you violate copyright you violate copyright. But the AI itself is no such thing. It's a model trained on billions of examples which fundamentally cannot contain all of the works it was trained on because it's just too small of a model and too large of a data. To sue over that containing artwork would be like to sue over Photoshop containing artwork because you can produce a derivative work based on it.

AshamedCaptain 3y ago
> To sue over that containing artwork would be like to sue over Photoshop containing artwork because you can produce a derivative work based on it. Except that Photoshop will not regurgitate someone else's program practically line-by-line when you type the first 7 words of it into a prompt, which Copilot definitely does. > In the copyright sense it should be treated like you treat a person. A person with a camera and/or a copy of the original code, if anything. The fact that it compresses very well doesn't remove that these systems have almost token-perfect memory capable of recalling it on demand. > as a trained numerical model it's not a derivative of any other works it was trained on. No more than you looking at the artwork and learning aspects of it at least. It is definitely a derived work of the programs it was trained on, which is kind of obvious since it can produce segments of them on demand. This is no different that compressing my program and then trying to claim the compressed file is no longer derivative of my program since it "just cannot contain my program anymore". Whether (as a person) _by using a model which is derived from my programs_ you are immediately creating a derivative work of my programs is a different story, but I think it is rather safe to assume that if you just copy paste large swaths of the output of the model (or even simply look at them), your program is also going to be derivative.
- bioemerl 3y ago
  > Photoshop will not regurgitate someone else's program practically line-by-line when you type the first 7 words of it into a prompt You could argue that the people who have that specific bit of code would have a decent right to sue, because they have real definitive proof that their works are in that model in some form. But unless you have managed to make such an output for (insert work here), You have no real claim to copyright on that model. Which is why I made that Photoshop analogy. You can use it and get it to output someone's copyrighted work. The fact that you can do that doesn't make photoshop itself a problem. The act of making it spit out that copyrighted work, then distributing it, is the problem. The liability for that is going to have to be figured out in the court system. > A person with a camera and/or a copy of the original code, if anything. No, the model doesn't have a copy of the original code when it's running. It only has what it was trained on, as if you read a bunch of stuff on GitHub and later on use what you saw in there while you were writing your own stuff. And people totally do this as well, they will see things and learn from them and accidentally or unintentionally reproduce them when they are working later. Which is another reason I think you should treat the output of these models as if someone has actually done it themselves. If you can prove there was violation there, there was violation there. Otherwise, you can't claim the model just like you can't claim the person who learned from your stuff. > The fact that it compresses very well It doesn't. The data of these things are trained on is absolutely massive and the final files are not nearly so large. The compression ratio would be absolutely bonkers if that was what was going on here. What you're seeing is the effects of overfitting on specific examples, which doesn't represent the whole at all. This is finding an exception to the rule and taking it out of context. To say that the model itself is a derivative work is absurd. You've got a picture and you're going to claim that this AI model that was trained on 7 billion pictures or something like that is derivative of your work? > This is no different that compressing my program It is very very different than compressing your program. A compressed file is a compressed file, builds to be compressed and then decompressed to get the original file back. Again, except for the example where you own a work that is being reproduced by one of these models, proven, this is more like claiming a hash of your file in a folder with 100,000 other files is a derivative work of your file.
  - 3y ago

AshamedCaptain 3y ago

> To sue over that containing artwork would be like to sue over Photoshop containing artwork because you can produce a derivative work based on it. Except that Photoshop will not regurgitate someone else's program practically line-by-line when you type the first 7 words of it into a prompt, which Copilot definitely does. > In the copyright sense it should be treated like you treat a person. A person with a camera and/or a copy of the original code, if anything. The fact that it compresses very well doesn't remove that these systems have almost token-perfect memory capable of recalling it on demand. > as a trained numerical model it's not a derivative of any other works it was trained on. No more than you looking at the artwork and learning aspects of it at least. It is definitely a derived work of the programs it was trained on, which is kind of obvious since it can produce segments of them on demand. This is no different that compressing my program and then trying to claim the compressed file is no longer derivative of my program since it "just cannot contain my program anymore". Whether (as a person) _by using a model which is derived from my programs_ you are immediately creating a derivative work of my programs is a different story, but I think it is rather safe to assume that if you just copy paste large swaths of the output of the model (or even simply look at them), your program is also going to be derivative.

bioemerl 3y ago
> Photoshop will not regurgitate someone else's program practically line-by-line when you type the first 7 words of it into a prompt You could argue that the people who have that specific bit of code would have a decent right to sue, because they have real definitive proof that their works are in that model in some form. But unless you have managed to make such an output for (insert work here), You have no real claim to copyright on that model. Which is why I made that Photoshop analogy. You can use it and get it to output someone's copyrighted work. The fact that you can do that doesn't make photoshop itself a problem. The act of making it spit out that copyrighted work, then distributing it, is the problem. The liability for that is going to have to be figured out in the court system. > A person with a camera and/or a copy of the original code, if anything. No, the model doesn't have a copy of the original code when it's running. It only has what it was trained on, as if you read a bunch of stuff on GitHub and later on use what you saw in there while you were writing your own stuff. And people totally do this as well, they will see things and learn from them and accidentally or unintentionally reproduce them when they are working later. Which is another reason I think you should treat the output of these models as if someone has actually done it themselves. If you can prove there was violation there, there was violation there. Otherwise, you can't claim the model just like you can't claim the person who learned from your stuff. > The fact that it compresses very well It doesn't. The data of these things are trained on is absolutely massive and the final files are not nearly so large. The compression ratio would be absolutely bonkers if that was what was going on here. What you're seeing is the effects of overfitting on specific examples, which doesn't represent the whole at all. This is finding an exception to the rule and taking it out of context. To say that the model itself is a derivative work is absurd. You've got a picture and you're going to claim that this AI model that was trained on 7 billion pictures or something like that is derivative of your work? > This is no different that compressing my program It is very very different than compressing your program. A compressed file is a compressed file, builds to be compressed and then decompressed to get the original file back. Again, except for the example where you own a work that is being reproduced by one of these models, proven, this is more like claiming a hash of your file in a folder with 100,000 other files is a derivative work of your file.
- 3y ago