5 ms·

Surely you must understand the difference between copying something and producing something entirely new. If you literally only consumed Tarantino media and ha

by everly 3y ago

Surely you must understand the difference between copying something and producing something entirely new. If you literally only consumed Tarantino media and had no other influences, and then one day made a movie so great everyone was calling you the next Tarantino - that would be fine! As long as you didn't copy anything that he actually made himself. Being influenced by is not the same as copying.

ClassyJacket 3y ago
But the whole point is that copying is not what's happening.
- everly 3y ago
  Copyrighted content was not _copied_ into the training corpus?
ada1981 3y ago
Of course Tarantino copied a ton for his films…
mdorazio 3y ago
I'm still not understanding your argument here. If a ML model spits out snippets of copyrighted material and you try to monetize those then that's clearly infringement. But if it ingests copyrighted material and then spits out entirely new content influenced by the originals... how is that an issue?
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > If a ML model spits out snippets of copyrighted material and you try to monetize those then that’s clearly infringement. If it spits it out because it was in the training set or prompt, yes. If it spits it out and it was in the training set (or prompt), it is at least difficult to make the case that it is not infringement (if it was the prompt, then you basically have the same problem as any other case where you are proving that production of something that matches something someone else has a copyright on was independent, since copyright only protects against copying, not coincidence.) If it spits it out but it was not in the training set or prompt then clearly it was not infringement. > But if it ingests copyrighted material and then spits out entirely new content influenced by the originals… how is that an issue? Because a non-perfect mechanical copy is still a copy violating copyright if there is no license, and a derivative work produced by a human using AI as a tool is still an infringing derivative work if there is no license. While copyright protects against perfect copies, it protects against imperfect copies and derivative works as well. (Except where exceptions like Fair Use apply.)
  - mdorazio 3y ago
    You're needlessly complicating this and also changing what the parent comment I was responding do takes issue with. There are two things to be evaluated here: 1) Is ingestion of copyrighted material as part of the model training process an infringement itself? I say no - it is equivalent to a human going to a library and reading all the books there. The knowledge gained by the human is equivalent to the weights that end up in the model. 2) Is the output of copyrighted material from a model infringement? Yes, obviously. In the exact same way as a human regurgitating a duplicate or close-to-duplicate of someone else's book/song/script/whatever is. We already have an entire body of copyright law to cover this and don't need to reinvent the wheel just because we swapped a human creator for a machine.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > Is ingestion of copyrighted material as part of the model training process an infringement itself? I say no - it is equivalent to a human going to a library and reading all the books there. It might be Fair Use for other reasons, but any argument that uses an “it’s like a human doing X” analogy is, legally, misguided. The courts simply do not see machines as being legally analogous to human brains. Humans can “copy" content into their brains through their senses and its not only not a copyright violation, its not legally a copy for which you need to do anything like fair use analysis, copy it, even lossily, into a machine where it is non-transiently stored, then it is, legally, a copy, and a violation unless an exception like Fair Use applies. > Is the output of copyrighted material from a model infringement? Yes, obviously. Again, only if it is actually a copy and not coincidence, and only if exceptions like Fair Use don't apply. It may be that training is more likely to be Fair Use than inference is—I’ve seen good arguments that don’t rely on treating machines as analogs of humans for that—but if you are copying copyright protected material, lossily or not, with a machine, it's going to be infringement unless an exception to copyright, like Fair Use, applies.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]

by everly 3y ago

ClassyJacket 3y ago

But the whole point is that copying is not what's happening.

everly 3y ago
Copyrighted content was not _copied_ into the training corpus?

ada1981 3y ago

Of course Tarantino copied a ton for his films…

mdorazio 3y ago

I'm still not understanding your argument here. If a ML model spits out snippets of copyrighted material and you try to monetize those then that's clearly infringement. But if it ingests copyrighted material and then spits out entirely new content influenced by the originals... how is that an issue?

dragonwriter 3y ago
> If a ML model spits out snippets of copyrighted material and you try to monetize those then that’s clearly infringement. If it spits it out because it was in the training set or prompt, yes. If it spits it out and it was in the training set (or prompt), it is at least difficult to make the case that it is not infringement (if it was the prompt, then you basically have the same problem as any other case where you are proving that production of something that matches something someone else has a copyright on was independent, since copyright only protects against copying, not coincidence.) If it spits it out but it was not in the training set or prompt then clearly it was not infringement. > But if it ingests copyrighted material and then spits out entirely new content influenced by the originals… how is that an issue? Because a non-perfect mechanical copy is still a copy violating copyright if there is no license, and a derivative work produced by a human using AI as a tool is still an infringing derivative work if there is no license. While copyright protects against perfect copies, it protects against imperfect copies and derivative works as well. (Except where exceptions like Fair Use apply.)
- mdorazio 3y ago
  You're needlessly complicating this and also changing what the parent comment I was responding do takes issue with. There are two things to be evaluated here: 1) Is ingestion of copyrighted material as part of the model training process an infringement itself? I say no - it is equivalent to a human going to a library and reading all the books there. The knowledge gained by the human is equivalent to the weights that end up in the model. 2) Is the output of copyrighted material from a model infringement? Yes, obviously. In the exact same way as a human regurgitating a duplicate or close-to-duplicate of someone else's book/song/script/whatever is. We already have an entire body of copyright law to cover this and don't need to reinvent the wheel just because we swapped a human creator for a machine.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > Is ingestion of copyrighted material as part of the model training process an infringement itself? I say no - it is equivalent to a human going to a library and reading all the books there. It might be Fair Use for other reasons, but any argument that uses an “it’s like a human doing X” analogy is, legally, misguided. The courts simply do not see machines as being legally analogous to human brains. Humans can “copy" content into their brains through their senses and its not only not a copyright violation, its not legally a copy for which you need to do anything like fair use analysis, copy it, even lossily, into a machine where it is non-transiently stored, then it is, legally, a copy, and a violation unless an exception like Fair Use applies. > Is the output of copyrighted material from a model infringement? Yes, obviously. Again, only if it is actually a copy and not coincidence, and only if exceptions like Fair Use don't apply. It may be that training is more likely to be Fair Use than inference is—I’ve seen good arguments that don’t rely on treating machines as analogs of humans for that—but if you are copying copyright protected material, lossily or not, with a machine, it's going to be infringement unless an exception to copyright, like Fair Use, applies.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]