4 ms·

The RIAA pioneered copyright enforcement at the individual level back in the 2000s, they absolutely would try to sue downstream AudioCraft users.

throwaway290 3y ago
They should start with AudioCraft itself, conceptually it's derivative work and it doesn't matter if it's "open source" or not. Try throwing in someone's sample in a song and publish it saying "no copyright infringement intended and I totally don't make any money from it"... If it becomes popular, see how long it stays up until DMCA takedown. And we know this dataset is already popular.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  > and publish it This is precisely the opposite of the context I was remarking on.
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    AudioCraft itself is published. That's the context I am remarking on.
PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
[flagged]
- manquer 3y ago
  Even before streaming, You never "owned" any music legally [1], you merely owned a physical copy of a performance[3] of a song, that in no way gives you the right to make derivative works [2] automatically. Also it doesn't really matter on what the law says, RIAA in the last iteration, relied on the fact it you would rather pay a fine than be able to afford expensive lawyers to fight the specifics out in court on average. It was always about disproportionate ability to bring resources against individual "offenders" to create fear among everyone to deter "undesirable" forms of copying, not necessarily what the legal protections were. --- [1] Unless you specifically commissioned it under a contract which gave you the right [2] See recent cases including those related to Kris Kashtanova and Andy Warhol. [3] Not the song, just the performance, aka Taylor Swift version, for good explanation of how the rights are divvied up in the music industry a Planet Money series covers it well https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/10/29/1131927591/inflation-song-music-label-earnest-jackson https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/10/29/1131927591/inf...
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    Establishing derivation is at the crux of all legal matters surrounding diffusion models. It has not yet been clearly established. If it is, then I'd agree with you. Until then, I think it's a bit more up in the air. Also, IIRC, RIAA did not bring many resources to bear against e.g. "home taping" itself, because they could essentially never know that it had occured. The overwhelming majority of their efforts went into trying to takedown people distributing multiple copies. The Kashtanova case does not cover derivation in any real way, but is really about copyright attribution choices between human and software. The Warhol case specifically tests a fair use claim, not a derivation claim.
    - cmgbhm 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Home_Recording_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Home_Recording_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music Recording industries have fought end user reproduction often. They’ve fought sampling battles. Go after the pocketbooks and go after the technology waves. If there’s a derivative argument they can make, they will.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
        They may have gotten the AHRA passed, but they essentially lost in every important way: > "This exception was crucial in RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc.,[14] the only case in which the AHRA's provisions have been examined by the federal courts. The RIAA filed suit to enjoin the manufacture and distribution of the Rio PMP300, one of the first portable MP3 players, because it did not include the SCMS copy protection required by the act, and Diamond did not intend to pay royalties. The 9th Circuit, affirming the earlier District Court ruling in favor of Diamond Multimedia,[15] ruled that the "digital music recording" for the purposes of the act was not intended to include songs fixed on computer hard drives. The court also held that the Rio was not a digital audio recording device for the purposes of the AHRA, because 1) the Rio reproduced files from computer hard drives, which were specifically exempted from the SCMS and Royalty payments under the act, 2) could not directly record from the radio or other transmissions. " From the AHRA itself: > No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. and from Wikipedia again: > In regard to home taping, the provision broadly permits noncommercial, private recording to analog devices and media. However, it fails to resolve the home taping debate "conclusively," as it only permits noncommercial, private recording to digital devices and media when certain technology is used. > Two reports by the House of Representatives characterize the provision as legalizing digital home copying to the same degree as analog. One states "in the case of home taping, the exemption protects all noncommercial copying by consumers of digital and analog recordings,"[22] and the other states "In short, the reported legislation [Section 1008] would clearly establish that consumers cannot be sued for making analog or digital audio copies for private noncommercial use."[23] Similarly, language in the RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia decision suggests a broader reading of the Section 1008 exemptions, providing blanket protection for "all noncommercial copying by consumers of digital and analog musical recordings" and equating the spaceshifting of audio with the fair use protections afforded home video recordings in Sony v. Universal Studios: >> In fact, the Rio's operation is entirely consistent with the Act's main purpose – the facilitation of personal use.
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  Legal acquisition does not matter for AI training. If training is fair use then you can train on pirated material (e.g. OpenAI GPT). If it's not fair use then buying the material does not matter, you have to negotiate a specific license for AI training for each work in the training set, which is impractical at the scales most AI companies want to work.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    This seems to distort the issue a little bit. If you purchase the music, you have a (sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit) license to do certain things with the music, entirely independent of any concept of "fair use". The question is not "is training part of fair use?" but "is training part of, implicitly or explicitly, the rights I already have after purchase?" Given that "training" can be done by simple playing the music in the presence of a computer with its microphone turned on, it's not clear how this plays out legally.
    - kmeisthax 3y ago
      In the US, exceptions to copyright come across in two distinct bundles: first sale and fair use. They exist specifically because of the intersection between copyright law and two other principles of the US constitution: - First sale: The Takings Clause prohibits government theft of private property without compensation. Because copyright owners are using a government-granted monopoly to enforce their rights, we have to bound those rights to avoid copyright owners being able to just come and take copies of books or music you've lawfully purchased. - Fair use: The 1st Amendment prohibits government prohibitions on free speech. Because copyright owners are using a government-granted monopoly to enforce their rights, we have to bound those rights to avoid copyright owners being able to censor you. If you hinge your argument on "I bought a copy", you're making a first sale argument. Notably, first sale is limited to acts that do not create copies. This limit was established by the ReDigi case[0]. Copyright doesn't care about the total number of copies in circulation, it cares about the right to create more. So an AI training defense based on first sale grounds would fail because training unequivocally creates copies. Fair use, on the contrary, does not care if you bought a copy of a work legally. It only cares about balancing your right to speech against the owners' right to a monopoly over theirs. And it has so far been far more resistant to creative industry attempts to limit exceptions to copyright - to the point where I would argue that "fair use" is an effective shorthand for any exception to copyright, including ones in countries that have no fair use doctrine and do not respect judicial precedent. The courts won't care how the training comes about, just if the act of training an AI alone[1] would compete with licensing the images used in the training set data. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_LLC_v._ReDigi_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_LLC_v._ReDigi.... [1] Notably, this is separate from the act of using the AI to generate new artistic works, which may be infringing

throwaway290 3y ago

They should start with AudioCraft itself, conceptually it's derivative work and it doesn't matter if it's "open source" or not. Try throwing in someone's sample in a song and publish it saying "no copyright infringement intended and I totally don't make any money from it"... If it becomes popular, see how long it stays up until DMCA takedown. And we know this dataset is already popular.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
> and publish it This is precisely the opposite of the context I was remarking on.
- throwaway290 3y ago
  AudioCraft itself is published. That's the context I am remarking on.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago

[flagged]

manquer 3y ago
Even before streaming, You never "owned" any music legally [1], you merely owned a physical copy of a performance[3] of a song, that in no way gives you the right to make derivative works [2] automatically. Also it doesn't really matter on what the law says, RIAA in the last iteration, relied on the fact it you would rather pay a fine than be able to afford expensive lawyers to fight the specifics out in court on average. It was always about disproportionate ability to bring resources against individual "offenders" to create fear among everyone to deter "undesirable" forms of copying, not necessarily what the legal protections were. --- [1] Unless you specifically commissioned it under a contract which gave you the right [2] See recent cases including those related to Kris Kashtanova and Andy Warhol. [3] Not the song, just the performance, aka Taylor Swift version, for good explanation of how the rights are divvied up in the music industry a Planet Money series covers it well https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/10/29/1131927591/inflation-song-music-label-earnest-jackson https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/10/29/1131927591/inf...
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  Establishing derivation is at the crux of all legal matters surrounding diffusion models. It has not yet been clearly established. If it is, then I'd agree with you. Until then, I think it's a bit more up in the air. Also, IIRC, RIAA did not bring many resources to bear against e.g. "home taping" itself, because they could essentially never know that it had occured. The overwhelming majority of their efforts went into trying to takedown people distributing multiple copies. The Kashtanova case does not cover derivation in any real way, but is really about copyright attribution choices between human and software. The Warhol case specifically tests a fair use claim, not a derivation claim.
  - cmgbhm 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Home_Recording_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Home_Recording_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music Recording industries have fought end user reproduction often. They’ve fought sampling battles. Go after the pocketbooks and go after the technology waves. If there’s a derivative argument they can make, they will.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
      They may have gotten the AHRA passed, but they essentially lost in every important way: > "This exception was crucial in RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc.,[14] the only case in which the AHRA's provisions have been examined by the federal courts. The RIAA filed suit to enjoin the manufacture and distribution of the Rio PMP300, one of the first portable MP3 players, because it did not include the SCMS copy protection required by the act, and Diamond did not intend to pay royalties. The 9th Circuit, affirming the earlier District Court ruling in favor of Diamond Multimedia,[15] ruled that the "digital music recording" for the purposes of the act was not intended to include songs fixed on computer hard drives. The court also held that the Rio was not a digital audio recording device for the purposes of the AHRA, because 1) the Rio reproduced files from computer hard drives, which were specifically exempted from the SCMS and Royalty payments under the act, 2) could not directly record from the radio or other transmissions. " From the AHRA itself: > No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. and from Wikipedia again: > In regard to home taping, the provision broadly permits noncommercial, private recording to analog devices and media. However, it fails to resolve the home taping debate "conclusively," as it only permits noncommercial, private recording to digital devices and media when certain technology is used. > Two reports by the House of Representatives characterize the provision as legalizing digital home copying to the same degree as analog. One states "in the case of home taping, the exemption protects all noncommercial copying by consumers of digital and analog recordings,"[22] and the other states "In short, the reported legislation [Section 1008] would clearly establish that consumers cannot be sued for making analog or digital audio copies for private noncommercial use."[23] Similarly, language in the RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia decision suggests a broader reading of the Section 1008 exemptions, providing blanket protection for "all noncommercial copying by consumers of digital and analog musical recordings" and equating the spaceshifting of audio with the fair use protections afforded home video recordings in Sony v. Universal Studios: >> In fact, the Rio's operation is entirely consistent with the Act's main purpose – the facilitation of personal use.
kmeisthax 3y ago
Legal acquisition does not matter for AI training. If training is fair use then you can train on pirated material (e.g. OpenAI GPT). If it's not fair use then buying the material does not matter, you have to negotiate a specific license for AI training for each work in the training set, which is impractical at the scales most AI companies want to work.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  This seems to distort the issue a little bit. If you purchase the music, you have a (sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit) license to do certain things with the music, entirely independent of any concept of "fair use". The question is not "is training part of fair use?" but "is training part of, implicitly or explicitly, the rights I already have after purchase?" Given that "training" can be done by simple playing the music in the presence of a computer with its microphone turned on, it's not clear how this plays out legally.
  - kmeisthax 3y ago
    In the US, exceptions to copyright come across in two distinct bundles: first sale and fair use. They exist specifically because of the intersection between copyright law and two other principles of the US constitution: - First sale: The Takings Clause prohibits government theft of private property without compensation. Because copyright owners are using a government-granted monopoly to enforce their rights, we have to bound those rights to avoid copyright owners being able to just come and take copies of books or music you've lawfully purchased. - Fair use: The 1st Amendment prohibits government prohibitions on free speech. Because copyright owners are using a government-granted monopoly to enforce their rights, we have to bound those rights to avoid copyright owners being able to censor you. If you hinge your argument on "I bought a copy", you're making a first sale argument. Notably, first sale is limited to acts that do not create copies. This limit was established by the ReDigi case[0]. Copyright doesn't care about the total number of copies in circulation, it cares about the right to create more. So an AI training defense based on first sale grounds would fail because training unequivocally creates copies. Fair use, on the contrary, does not care if you bought a copy of a work legally. It only cares about balancing your right to speech against the owners' right to a monopoly over theirs. And it has so far been far more resistant to creative industry attempts to limit exceptions to copyright - to the point where I would argue that "fair use" is an effective shorthand for any exception to copyright, including ones in countries that have no fair use doctrine and do not respect judicial precedent. The courts won't care how the training comes about, just if the act of training an AI alone[1] would compete with licensing the images used in the training set data. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_LLC_v._ReDigi_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_LLC_v._ReDigi.... [1] Notably, this is separate from the act of using the AI to generate new artistic works, which may be infringing