3 ms·

Not just humans in general, the NYT specifically relies on the fact news cannot be copyrighted. Then claims it's articles are sacred...

dspillett 3y ago
IIRC the distinction is that facts can't be copyrighted, a particular arrangement of facts can, particularly if something more subjective (analysis or opinion) is included. So I can write my own article about the sky being shown to appear blue much of the time, but I can't copy someone else's article about the same subject.
- paulmd 3y ago
  How would one even go about a phonebook-style mechanical listing of facts and occurrences? You’re listing an impossibility and then saying that garden-variety connective sentences somehow make it not a factual listing. Like yes if you copy a NYT article verbatim it’s like copying a phone book ads and all, and that’s infringement. But that’s not what a LLM does, NYT doesn’t like their content being used and summarized at all, even in a rearranged form that merely relies on the factual information included in the article. That’s what they want to get paid for, and unfortunately that’s not copyrightable and OpenAI is correct they don’t have to pay for that. NYT disagrees but again, they are kinda attempting to claim copyright on the factual information because they wrote some connective sentences between.
  - dspillett 3y ago
    > How would one even go about a phonebook-style mechanical listing of facts and occurrences? The traditional trick there is to include some small amount of fake data in the directory. You know someone has copied your collection of facts instead of compiling their own because it includes your fake facts. Mapmakers have used the method for at least as long as cartography has been part of our recorded history, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street for details. As noted in that page, the legal status of this, like many IP related issues, depends upon jurisdiction. > But that’s not what a LLM does, What does it do that means it is only summarizing factual information? While NYT effectively trying to claim copyright on facts is wrong, OpenAI claiming it can't reproduce copyrightable information while it can reproduce/summarize facts found within the same training set seems at best disingenuous.
    - paulmd 3y ago
      How are trap streets “the trick” if they are not copyrightable or enforceable under US law? Like the Supreme Court has specifically considered and dismissed this “one clever trick to keep people from copying lists of facts” because to allow it would completely undermine the idea of facts and figures not being copyrightable. > Trap streets are not copyrightable under the federal law of the United States. In Nester's Map & Guide Corp. v. Hagstrom Map Co. (1992),[3][4] a United States federal court found that copyright traps are not themselves protectable by copyright. There, the court stated: "[t]o treat 'false' facts interspersed among actual facts and represented as actual facts as fiction would mean that no one could ever reproduce or copy actual facts without risk of reproducing a false fact and thereby violating a copyright ... If such were the law, information could never be reproduced or widely disseminated." (Id. at 733) And yes the EU has the concept of “database rights” but notionally there is still supposed to be a creative step required in the selection or arrangement of records. So just a raw copy of the numbers in a telephone directory is theoretically not copyrightable, but a telephone book might be because of the creative/transformational step. It’s possible this might be such a low bar that it’s impossible to fail to clear, but, at least on paper you can’t copyright mere facts and figures either. But either way it’s generally true that simple facts and figures are not protected and trap streets are a discredited and clumsy attempt to work around this.
      - dspillett 3y ago
        > How are trap streets “the trick” if they are not copyrightable or enforceable under US law? US law is not the only law. Current US law has not been as it is for the entire existence of the US. Trap streets and other such devices have existed much longer than the US. As well as copyright law the trick can help detect beaches in contractual agreements that cover use of information from services. Action based on such breaches do not necessarily end up in a court of law at all. Out of court settlements do not necessarily rely on the letter (nor intent) of the law, but often instead the expense (money directly, time, potential reputational risk) of defending a position even if the law is on your side. The threat of action is often enough to make the other party cave and such actions will usually happen well out of public view (I know of one instance involving a list of phone numbers, that I won't go into in detail because while there is no NDA or such in force this discussion is not worth irritating people I have the confidence of!). > clumsy attempt to work around this. That the trick is clumsy does not mean it isn't still commonly used (it absolutely is) or that it has not been used in successful cases between map makers and such (it has, one significant example is given in the paragraph directly following the one you selected to quote from the page linked in my previous post).

dspillett 3y ago

IIRC the distinction is that facts can't be copyrighted, a particular arrangement of facts can, particularly if something more subjective (analysis or opinion) is included. So I can write my own article about the sky being shown to appear blue much of the time, but I can't copy someone else's article about the same subject.

paulmd 3y ago
How would one even go about a phonebook-style mechanical listing of facts and occurrences? You’re listing an impossibility and then saying that garden-variety connective sentences somehow make it not a factual listing. Like yes if you copy a NYT article verbatim it’s like copying a phone book ads and all, and that’s infringement. But that’s not what a LLM does, NYT doesn’t like their content being used and summarized at all, even in a rearranged form that merely relies on the factual information included in the article. That’s what they want to get paid for, and unfortunately that’s not copyrightable and OpenAI is correct they don’t have to pay for that. NYT disagrees but again, they are kinda attempting to claim copyright on the factual information because they wrote some connective sentences between.
- dspillett 3y ago
  > How would one even go about a phonebook-style mechanical listing of facts and occurrences? The traditional trick there is to include some small amount of fake data in the directory. You know someone has copied your collection of facts instead of compiling their own because it includes your fake facts. Mapmakers have used the method for at least as long as cartography has been part of our recorded history, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street for details. As noted in that page, the legal status of this, like many IP related issues, depends upon jurisdiction. > But that’s not what a LLM does, What does it do that means it is only summarizing factual information? While NYT effectively trying to claim copyright on facts is wrong, OpenAI claiming it can't reproduce copyrightable information while it can reproduce/summarize facts found within the same training set seems at best disingenuous.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    How are trap streets “the trick” if they are not copyrightable or enforceable under US law? Like the Supreme Court has specifically considered and dismissed this “one clever trick to keep people from copying lists of facts” because to allow it would completely undermine the idea of facts and figures not being copyrightable. > Trap streets are not copyrightable under the federal law of the United States. In Nester's Map & Guide Corp. v. Hagstrom Map Co. (1992),[3][4] a United States federal court found that copyright traps are not themselves protectable by copyright. There, the court stated: "[t]o treat 'false' facts interspersed among actual facts and represented as actual facts as fiction would mean that no one could ever reproduce or copy actual facts without risk of reproducing a false fact and thereby violating a copyright ... If such were the law, information could never be reproduced or widely disseminated." (Id. at 733) And yes the EU has the concept of “database rights” but notionally there is still supposed to be a creative step required in the selection or arrangement of records. So just a raw copy of the numbers in a telephone directory is theoretically not copyrightable, but a telephone book might be because of the creative/transformational step. It’s possible this might be such a low bar that it’s impossible to fail to clear, but, at least on paper you can’t copyright mere facts and figures either. But either way it’s generally true that simple facts and figures are not protected and trap streets are a discredited and clumsy attempt to work around this.
    - dspillett 3y ago
      > How are trap streets “the trick” if they are not copyrightable or enforceable under US law? US law is not the only law. Current US law has not been as it is for the entire existence of the US. Trap streets and other such devices have existed much longer than the US. As well as copyright law the trick can help detect beaches in contractual agreements that cover use of information from services. Action based on such breaches do not necessarily end up in a court of law at all. Out of court settlements do not necessarily rely on the letter (nor intent) of the law, but often instead the expense (money directly, time, potential reputational risk) of defending a position even if the law is on your side. The threat of action is often enough to make the other party cave and such actions will usually happen well out of public view (I know of one instance involving a list of phone numbers, that I won't go into in detail because while there is no NDA or such in force this discussion is not worth irritating people I have the confidence of!). > clumsy attempt to work around this. That the trick is clumsy does not mean it isn't still commonly used (it absolutely is) or that it has not been used in successful cases between map makers and such (it has, one significant example is given in the paragraph directly following the one you selected to quote from the page linked in my previous post).