4 ms·

> you must have legally purchased a copy, or been given it by someone who did so (for example, if you received it as a gift). I am also NAL, but can I imagine

by danans 3y ago

> you must have legally purchased a copy, or been given it by someone who did so (for example, if you received it as a gift). I am also NAL, but can I imagine it goes further than that. Just purchasing a copy doesn't let you create and sell (directly as content or indirectly via a service like a chatbot) derivative works that are substantially similar in style and voice to the original work. For example, an LLM 's response to the request: "Write a short story about a comical trip to the nail salon in the style of Sarah Silverman" ... IMO doesn't constitute fair use, because the intellectual property of the artist is their style even more than the content they produce. Their style, built from their lived human experience, is what generates their copyrighted content. Even more than the content, the artist's style should be protected. The fact that a technology exists that can convincingly mimic their style doesn't change that. One might then ask, well what about artists mimicking each others work? Well, any artist with a shred of integrity will credit their major influences. We should hold machines (and their creators) to an even tougher standard than we hold people when it comes to mimicry. A real person can be inspired and moved by another person's artistic work such that they mimic it. Inspiration means nothing to a machine.

hayleox 3y ago
This is not how U.S. copyright law works. In order for something to eligible for copyright protection, it must be "fixed in a tangible medium of expression". Someone's exact words can be copyrighted, but their ideas or their style cannot be. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fixed_in_a_tangible_medium_of_expression https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fixed_in_a_tangible_medium_o...
- danans 3y ago
  I'm arguing that we should draw a line here between human mimicry and machine mimicry. When it comes to machine mimicry, we should protect style, even if we don't do that today. Our laws are built on the now flawed assumption that machines are not capable of style mimicry. I do not believe in giving machines the same rights of personhood.
dvt 3y ago
> ... IMO doesn't constitute fair use, because the intellectual property of the artist is their style even more than the content they produce You're essentially banning satire here, though. There's plenty of folks making a living as cover bands or impersonators. I'm not sure what the answer is, but it's definitely not outright outlawing imitation.
- danans 3y ago
  > You're essentially banning satire here, though. I specifically noted that I'm talking about limiting the rights of machine generated mimicry. Satire by a person is completely different and involves the satirist's own style and experience that is derived from their human experience. Alec Baldwin's Trump impersonation is quite different than Trevor Noah's, for example. I presume both were also written by people, not LLMs. I fully support the satirical impersonation of politicians and celebrities, but I feel far less comfortable with LLM generated content in the style of Trump or Obama, especially when presented using voice synthesis, even when it is fully disclaimed as a fake.
pdonis 3y ago
> IMO doesn't constitute fair use Yes, the question of whether the way LLMs use the content they use qualifies as fair use is a separate question. My point was simply that that question can't even be reached if the maker of the LLMs doesn't have a legal right to fair use in the first place (because they don't legally own their copy).
- danans 3y ago
  > My point was simply that that question can't even be reached if the maker of the LLMs doesn't have a legal right to fair use in the first place (because they don't legally own their copy). I agree, and I expect that eventually we will start seeing injunctions against creators requiring them to remove content that they don't have legal access to from their training data sets. And this will probably end up at the Supreme Court.
  - danans 3y ago
    > I expect that eventually we will start seeing injunctions against creators Self edit: I meant against LLM creators.

by danans 3y ago

hayleox 3y ago

This is not how U.S. copyright law works. In order for something to eligible for copyright protection, it must be "fixed in a tangible medium of expression". Someone's exact words can be copyrighted, but their ideas or their style cannot be. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fixed_in_a_tangible_medium_of_expression https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fixed_in_a_tangible_medium_o...

danans 3y ago
I'm arguing that we should draw a line here between human mimicry and machine mimicry. When it comes to machine mimicry, we should protect style, even if we don't do that today. Our laws are built on the now flawed assumption that machines are not capable of style mimicry. I do not believe in giving machines the same rights of personhood.

dvt 3y ago

> ... IMO doesn't constitute fair use, because the intellectual property of the artist is their style even more than the content they produce You're essentially banning satire here, though. There's plenty of folks making a living as cover bands or impersonators. I'm not sure what the answer is, but it's definitely not outright outlawing imitation.

danans 3y ago
> You're essentially banning satire here, though. I specifically noted that I'm talking about limiting the rights of machine generated mimicry. Satire by a person is completely different and involves the satirist's own style and experience that is derived from their human experience. Alec Baldwin's Trump impersonation is quite different than Trevor Noah's, for example. I presume both were also written by people, not LLMs. I fully support the satirical impersonation of politicians and celebrities, but I feel far less comfortable with LLM generated content in the style of Trump or Obama, especially when presented using voice synthesis, even when it is fully disclaimed as a fake.

pdonis 3y ago

> IMO doesn't constitute fair use Yes, the question of whether the way LLMs use the content they use qualifies as fair use is a separate question. My point was simply that that question can't even be reached if the maker of the LLMs doesn't have a legal right to fair use in the first place (because they don't legally own their copy).

danans 3y ago
> My point was simply that that question can't even be reached if the maker of the LLMs doesn't have a legal right to fair use in the first place (because they don't legally own their copy). I agree, and I expect that eventually we will start seeing injunctions against creators requiring them to remove content that they don't have legal access to from their training data sets. And this will probably end up at the Supreme Court.
- danans 3y ago
  > I expect that eventually we will start seeing injunctions against creators Self edit: I meant against LLM creators.