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Because copyright, and law in general, is an expression of the political agreement reached amongst the members of our society. It does not exist in the absolute

Because copyright, and law in general, is an expression of the political agreement reached amongst the members of our society. It does not exist in the absolute, there are no legal principles that transcend humanity, law is a human creation to arbitrate our collaboration and conflicts. Therefore, in the legal sense, an algorithm does not "learn", despite any functional analogy you can make with human learning, because an algorithm is not a party to the social contract that established said law; its only "rights" are an extension of the legal right of its author/proprietor. Your "learning" right does not cover, for example, your tape player recording a performance and playing it back at later date to some commercial audience. You have a right to hear and learn the song, you can play it back from memory, but your tape recorder does not, it's a tool, just like your fancy AI machine. This will continue to hold true despite any advancements in AI, up to the moment when synthetic entities will acquire distinct legal rights.

mindcrime 3y ago
Therefore, in the legal sense, an algorithm does not "learn", Are you saying there is actual case law / precedent establishing that, or is that just your personal theory? If the former, I'd love to see any such citations, as I was not aware of those developments. Your "learning" right does not cover, for example, your tape player recording a performance and playing it back at later date to some commercial audience. That's pretty much a straw-man here. I'm not talking about cases where an AI reproduces an existing work exactly. That is problematic from a copyright standpoint for both a machine OR a human.
est31 3y ago
> You have a right to hear and learn the song, you can play it back from memory, but your tape recorder does not, it's a tool, just like your fancy AI machine. There is two different copyrights, one for the melody/text, and one for the recording. Sometimes they have different owners who fight. The most famous recent example is the Taylor Swift controversy I guess. She ended up re-recording some of her old songs so that she owns the rights to the new recording. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift_masters_controversy#Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift_masters_controver...
- cornholio 3y ago
  Yes, I was talking about the copyright for the performance, not the underlying melody. If, for example, you hear a public domain folk song, you can sing it later, but you tape player can't, even if it "remembers" it just like you do, because the rendition is owned by its performer. The example had the purpose to clarify the distinction between the rights of the human listener and their tools, but I see based on the response it confused some people. To give another example, even if I can walk or run in a park, my bot army with a million mechanical feet that all behave by analogy to the human foot can't also run through the park. Why should it be any different in the case of my AI derivation machine with superhuman memory and derivation ability? So even if the courts find that AI training is fair use, and not derivation, that conclusion will not be based on the analogy with the way humans and machines learn. Nor will it preclude the writing of laws, by humans, explicitly redefining copyright to protect human creators from unlicensed AI training. The social contract is anthropocentric all the way down.
tsimionescu 3y ago
> You have a right to hear and learn the song, you can play it back from memory You do not in fact have a right to play a copyrighted song from memory, any more than you have a right to play a recording, unless you're playing it for yourself. Just like you don't have a right to show a movie on a DVD you bought to others.

mindcrime 3y ago

Therefore, in the legal sense, an algorithm does not "learn", Are you saying there is actual case law / precedent establishing that, or is that just your personal theory? If the former, I'd love to see any such citations, as I was not aware of those developments. Your "learning" right does not cover, for example, your tape player recording a performance and playing it back at later date to some commercial audience. That's pretty much a straw-man here. I'm not talking about cases where an AI reproduces an existing work exactly. That is problematic from a copyright standpoint for both a machine OR a human.

est31 3y ago

> You have a right to hear and learn the song, you can play it back from memory, but your tape recorder does not, it's a tool, just like your fancy AI machine. There is two different copyrights, one for the melody/text, and one for the recording. Sometimes they have different owners who fight. The most famous recent example is the Taylor Swift controversy I guess. She ended up re-recording some of her old songs so that she owns the rights to the new recording. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift_masters_controversy#Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift_masters_controver...

cornholio 3y ago
Yes, I was talking about the copyright for the performance, not the underlying melody. If, for example, you hear a public domain folk song, you can sing it later, but you tape player can't, even if it "remembers" it just like you do, because the rendition is owned by its performer. The example had the purpose to clarify the distinction between the rights of the human listener and their tools, but I see based on the response it confused some people. To give another example, even if I can walk or run in a park, my bot army with a million mechanical feet that all behave by analogy to the human foot can't also run through the park. Why should it be any different in the case of my AI derivation machine with superhuman memory and derivation ability? So even if the courts find that AI training is fair use, and not derivation, that conclusion will not be based on the analogy with the way humans and machines learn. Nor will it preclude the writing of laws, by humans, explicitly redefining copyright to protect human creators from unlicensed AI training. The social contract is anthropocentric all the way down.

tsimionescu 3y ago

> You have a right to hear and learn the song, you can play it back from memory You do not in fact have a right to play a copyrighted song from memory, any more than you have a right to play a recording, unless you're playing it for yourself. Just like you don't have a right to show a movie on a DVD you bought to others.