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> MusicGen's weights are licensed CC-BY-NC, which is effectively a nonlicense as there is no noncommercial use you could make of an art generator How do you fi

> MusicGen's weights are licensed CC-BY-NC, which is effectively a nonlicense as there is no noncommercial use you could make of an art generator How do you figure? Have you never just...made stuff to make stuff?

analognoise 3y ago
I think the key word there is "noncommercial".
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  Yes, but you can easily make noncommercial use of an art generator. Obviously, you can't host a commercial art generation service with a noncommercial-use license, and (insofar as art produced by a generator is a derivative work of the model weights, which is a controversial and untested legal theory) you can’t make commercial art with a noncommercial license, but not all art is commercial.
  - kmeisthax 3y ago
    "Noncommercial art" is not a thing in the eyes of the law. Even if you don't intend to make money the law still considers the work itself to be commercial. That's why CC-BY-NC has to have a special "filesharing is non-commercial" statement in it, because people have made successful legal arguments that it is. You're probably thinking of "not charging a fee to use", which is a subset of all the ways you can monetize a creative work. You can still make money off of AudioCraft by just hosting it with banner ads next to the output. Even a "no monetization" clause[0] would be less onerous than "noncommercial use only", because it'd at least be legal to use AudioCraft for things like background music in offices. [0] Which already precludes the use of AudioCraft music on YouTube since you can't do unmonetized uploads anymore
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > “Noncommercial art” is not a thing in the eyes of the law The definition of “NonCommercial”, the oddly capitalized term of art in the license, is not a matter of general law, it is a matter of the license, which defines it as “not primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation. For purposes of this Public License, the exchange of the Licensed Material for other material subject to Copyright and Similar Rights by digital file-sharing or similar means is NonCommercial provided there is no payment of monetary compensation in connection with the exchange.” > Even if you don’t intend to make money the law still considers the work itself to be commercial. Even if you do make money, if the use is “not primarily intended” for that purpose, it is "NonCommercial" in the terms of the license. > That’s why CC-BY-NC has to have a special “filesharing is non-commercial” statement in it, because people have made successful legal arguments that it is. It has the filesharing term in it because it permits that particular exchange-of-value as a primary purpose. > Even a “no monetization” clause would be less onerous than "noncommercial use only" How would a clause that prohibits monetization entirely be less onerous than one which prohibits it only as the primary intent of use? > it’d at least be legal to use AudioCraft for things like background music in offices. It is legal to use it for that purpose (in a for-profit enterprise, I suppose, one might make an argument that any activity was ultimately primarily directed at “commercial advantage”, but in a government or many nonprofit environments, that wouldn’t be the case.)
      - vel0city 3y ago
        In their example audio clips they have a "perfect for the beach" audio track. With your understanding of the NC license, would a resort or private beach club be able to play a similar generated music track at their poolside bar or something along those lines? Their primary intention of the bar isn't to play the music, its just an additional ambiance thing; they're trying to sell drinks and have guests pay membership fees, people aren't really coming because of the background music. I realize, this isn't legal advice, YMMV, etc.
        dragonwriter 3y ago
        > With your understanding of the NC license, would a resort or private beach club be able to play a similar generated music track at their poolside bar or something along those lines? A resort, probably not, ambiance is, at least arguably, a marketable commercial advantage; a private club in the “mutual benefit organization” sense (rather than a “business selling memberships”, which is just like a resort), probably, because their interest, even indirectly, isn’t making money.
    - Blahah 3y ago
      Yes it is. Art that I make for my own enjoyment is noncommercial. Art that I make to explain concepts to my son is noncommercial.
kmeisthax 3y ago
In copyright law the use of the work itself is considered a commercial benefit, so "noncommercial use" is an oxymoron. Consider these situations: - If I use AudioCraft to post freely-downloadable tracks on my SoundCloud, I still get the benefit of having a large audio catalog in my name, even if I'm not selling the individual tracks. I could later compose tracks on my own and ride off the exposure I got from posting "noncommercially". - If I run AudioCraft as a background music generator in my store, I save money by not having to license music for public performance. - If I host AudioCraft on a website and put ads on it, I'm making money by making the work available, even though I'm not charging a fee for entry. I suspect that a lot of people reading this are going to have different arguments for each. My point is that if you don't think that all of these situations are equally infringing of CC-BY-NC, then you need to explain why some are commercial and some are not. Keep in mind that every exception you make can be easily exploited to strip the NC clause off of the license. If you're angry at the logic on display here, keep in mind that this is how judges will construe the license, and probably also how Facebook will if you find a way to make any use of their AI. The only thing that stops them from rugpulling you later is explicit guidance in CC-BY-NC. Unfortunately, the only such guidance is that they don't consider P2P filesharing to be a commercial use. So, absent any other clarifications from Facebook, all you can do without risking a lawsuit is share the weights on BitTorrent. EDIT: And yes, I have made stuff just to make stuff. I license all of that under copyleft licenses because they express the underlying idea of 'noncommercial' better than actual noncommercial clauses do.
- NegativeK 3y ago
  Is listening at home a violation of NC? That's what I've interpreted as its intent.
- stale2002 3y ago
  This is a weird comment. Do you think that non commercial use simply doesn't exist or something? Because non commercial use isn't some crazy concept. It is a well established one, that doesnt disclude literally everything. Also, you are ignoring the idea that Facebook will almost certainly not sue anyone for using this for any reason, except possibly Google or Apple. So if you aren't literally one of those companies you could probably just use it anyway, ignore the license completely, and have zero risk of being sued.

analognoise 3y ago

I think the key word there is "noncommercial".

dragonwriter 3y ago
Yes, but you can easily make noncommercial use of an art generator. Obviously, you can't host a commercial art generation service with a noncommercial-use license, and (insofar as art produced by a generator is a derivative work of the model weights, which is a controversial and untested legal theory) you can’t make commercial art with a noncommercial license, but not all art is commercial.
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  "Noncommercial art" is not a thing in the eyes of the law. Even if you don't intend to make money the law still considers the work itself to be commercial. That's why CC-BY-NC has to have a special "filesharing is non-commercial" statement in it, because people have made successful legal arguments that it is. You're probably thinking of "not charging a fee to use", which is a subset of all the ways you can monetize a creative work. You can still make money off of AudioCraft by just hosting it with banner ads next to the output. Even a "no monetization" clause[0] would be less onerous than "noncommercial use only", because it'd at least be legal to use AudioCraft for things like background music in offices. [0] Which already precludes the use of AudioCraft music on YouTube since you can't do unmonetized uploads anymore
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > “Noncommercial art” is not a thing in the eyes of the law The definition of “NonCommercial”, the oddly capitalized term of art in the license, is not a matter of general law, it is a matter of the license, which defines it as “not primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation. For purposes of this Public License, the exchange of the Licensed Material for other material subject to Copyright and Similar Rights by digital file-sharing or similar means is NonCommercial provided there is no payment of monetary compensation in connection with the exchange.” > Even if you don’t intend to make money the law still considers the work itself to be commercial. Even if you do make money, if the use is “not primarily intended” for that purpose, it is "NonCommercial" in the terms of the license. > That’s why CC-BY-NC has to have a special “filesharing is non-commercial” statement in it, because people have made successful legal arguments that it is. It has the filesharing term in it because it permits that particular exchange-of-value as a primary purpose. > Even a “no monetization” clause would be less onerous than "noncommercial use only" How would a clause that prohibits monetization entirely be less onerous than one which prohibits it only as the primary intent of use? > it’d at least be legal to use AudioCraft for things like background music in offices. It is legal to use it for that purpose (in a for-profit enterprise, I suppose, one might make an argument that any activity was ultimately primarily directed at “commercial advantage”, but in a government or many nonprofit environments, that wouldn’t be the case.)
    - vel0city 3y ago
      In their example audio clips they have a "perfect for the beach" audio track. With your understanding of the NC license, would a resort or private beach club be able to play a similar generated music track at their poolside bar or something along those lines? Their primary intention of the bar isn't to play the music, its just an additional ambiance thing; they're trying to sell drinks and have guests pay membership fees, people aren't really coming because of the background music. I realize, this isn't legal advice, YMMV, etc.
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        > With your understanding of the NC license, would a resort or private beach club be able to play a similar generated music track at their poolside bar or something along those lines? A resort, probably not, ambiance is, at least arguably, a marketable commercial advantage; a private club in the “mutual benefit organization” sense (rather than a “business selling memberships”, which is just like a resort), probably, because their interest, even indirectly, isn’t making money.
  - Blahah 3y ago
    Yes it is. Art that I make for my own enjoyment is noncommercial. Art that I make to explain concepts to my son is noncommercial.

kmeisthax 3y ago

In copyright law the use of the work itself is considered a commercial benefit, so "noncommercial use" is an oxymoron. Consider these situations: - If I use AudioCraft to post freely-downloadable tracks on my SoundCloud, I still get the benefit of having a large audio catalog in my name, even if I'm not selling the individual tracks. I could later compose tracks on my own and ride off the exposure I got from posting "noncommercially". - If I run AudioCraft as a background music generator in my store, I save money by not having to license music for public performance. - If I host AudioCraft on a website and put ads on it, I'm making money by making the work available, even though I'm not charging a fee for entry. I suspect that a lot of people reading this are going to have different arguments for each. My point is that if you don't think that all of these situations are equally infringing of CC-BY-NC, then you need to explain why some are commercial and some are not. Keep in mind that every exception you make can be easily exploited to strip the NC clause off of the license. If you're angry at the logic on display here, keep in mind that this is how judges will construe the license, and probably also how Facebook will if you find a way to make any use of their AI. The only thing that stops them from rugpulling you later is explicit guidance in CC-BY-NC. Unfortunately, the only such guidance is that they don't consider P2P filesharing to be a commercial use. So, absent any other clarifications from Facebook, all you can do without risking a lawsuit is share the weights on BitTorrent. EDIT: And yes, I have made stuff just to make stuff. I license all of that under copyleft licenses because they express the underlying idea of 'noncommercial' better than actual noncommercial clauses do.

NegativeK 3y ago
Is listening at home a violation of NC? That's what I've interpreted as its intent.
stale2002 3y ago
This is a weird comment. Do you think that non commercial use simply doesn't exist or something? Because non commercial use isn't some crazy concept. It is a well established one, that doesnt disclude literally everything. Also, you are ignoring the idea that Facebook will almost certainly not sue anyone for using this for any reason, except possibly Google or Apple. So if you aren't literally one of those companies you could probably just use it anyway, ignore the license completely, and have zero risk of being sued.