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> What’s really happening is that AI models have much better memory than humans and are more precise in their output. And yet, presumably we agree that a simpl

> What’s really happening is that AI models have much better memory than humans and are more precise in their output. And yet, presumably we agree that a simple file server that serves up exact copies of copyrighted work does constitute copyright infringement. What's the difference? You could also say "what's really happening is that the file server has much better memory than humans." Duh! It sounds like you're saying that, because an AI model is a very convoluted and sometimes inaccurate way to implement a computer system that sometimes serves up exact copies of copyrighted works, it's not copyright infringement when that computer system does serve up an exact copy of a copyrighted work. I'm not quite understanding the argument.

km3r 3y ago
The file server is only infringing when it serves those files. Photoshop itself isn't infringing just because someone recreates a famous art piece in it, it's the end user that is infringing. The difference between server driver vs user driven creation shifts responsibility.
- mjr00 3y ago
  What about a file server which hosts only encrypted files, which are unusable garbage on their own, that happen to turn into exact copies of copyrighted work when supplied with the right decryption key? That's user-driven creation, right?
- flextheruler 3y ago
  Photoshop doesn’t provide you with copyrighted materials to work with when prompted or require ingesting other copyrighted works to work optimally. Language models do both. The courts are going to rule in favor of these authors if they have a basic understanding of what’s happening.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > Photoshop doesn’t provide you with copyrighted materials to work with when prompted or require ingesting other copyrighted works to work optimally. Language models do both. They actually are not that different from Photoshop. Regarding providing you copyrighted materials, if you instruct it to generate something someone else already copyrighted, perhaps by using a feature meant to reproduce existing art style, you will generate an infringing work. As for "ingesting of other copyrighted works to work optimally", you don't know what goes into designing and building Photoshop - how many third-party datasets or copyrighted assets, which get embedded deep into the application in a form that the end-user cannot discover or consume. You don't know, and it doesn't matter, because Adobe using copyrighted materials in building Photoshop does not propagate copyright claims to you the user/renter of Photoshop. Same can be argued about LLMs - copyrighted inputs from training set get sufficiently blended when turned into weights that you, the end user, should be shielded from any IP claims related to the training data. (Yes, the last point enables "copyright laundering", but I'm not convinced this is a problem - not compared to regulatory environment trying to prevent it.)
    - flextheruler 3y ago
      My point is simply these models should not ingest copyrighted materials without paying the authors or publishers. Litigating end-users who are using LLMs that have ingested pirated copyrighted would be so complex as to not be worth it except for large businesses. If I want to ingest/read a book I need to pay money but if an LLM does it they’re free to pirate the book? Why? And why is it that I pay OpenAI to generate data based off books it stole for free when I had to pay money for the same book. I know what I am actually paying for is the model obviously but it just feels extra wrong to be paying a company for a service it’s built using pirated content.
      - pixl97 3y ago
        >If I want to ingest/read a book I need to pay money Or you just go to the local library. Or you borrow it from a friend. Or you stand in B&N and read it in the store. You're arguments are not great.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > Photoshop doesn’t provide you with copyrighted materials to work with when prompted or require ingesting other copyrighted works to work optimally. Language models do both. Photoshop now has generative AI features that leverage language models as well as training on imagery, so this is literally false when discussing Photoshop as it currently exists.
haberman 3y ago
I would say it’s reproduction of an exact copy that represents copyright infringement, not dissemination of the digital brain that remembered it. If and when someone tries to profit off an AI work that would be copyright infringement if a human had made it, it should be copyright infringement of an AI does it also.
dcow 3y ago
Two things: 1) I’m generally copyleft and would argue that copyright as we know it is nonsensical in the digital era and needs to be entirely rebuilt to make any sense whatsoever. And that as is it harms the commons more than it protects creators. So yeah a fileserver has always been a game changer just like the printing press was and we’re far behind as a society, legally. 2) When a computer system does reproduce copyrighted content verbatim, it’s infringement the same as if a human did it from memory. That wasn’t my point. My point was that use of copyrighted content to train the model is fair use because it’s no different from a human consuming the content and committing it to memory.
- blackoil 3y ago
  Copyleft licenses are a form of copyright. Unless it is some other meaning I am not aware of with left-right word play.
  - jazzyjackson 3y ago
    On one hand, copyleft licenses are a creative form of copyright to enforce the wishes of the author to allow derivative works under the condition they are also distributed freely. Let's call it weak copyleft, the pragmatic variety. OTOH are copyright abolitionists who are offended by the notion that their freedom to copy and modify code on their own harddisk could be restricted by a mere "license", to them the notion of intellectual property is poppycock. The Strong Copylefties consider GPL a necessary evil, a way to use their enemies' tools against them, to spread their ideals of free culture amidst a corporatist hellscape. Or it could merely be someone taking the naïve reading of "anti-copyright"
- dmbche 3y ago
  But the human that consumed the content paid for it didn't they?
  - hiatus 3y ago
    What if they heard it on the radio? Or read it in a library?

km3r 3y ago

The file server is only infringing when it serves those files. Photoshop itself isn't infringing just because someone recreates a famous art piece in it, it's the end user that is infringing. The difference between server driver vs user driven creation shifts responsibility.

mjr00 3y ago
What about a file server which hosts only encrypted files, which are unusable garbage on their own, that happen to turn into exact copies of copyrighted work when supplied with the right decryption key? That's user-driven creation, right?
flextheruler 3y ago
Photoshop doesn’t provide you with copyrighted materials to work with when prompted or require ingesting other copyrighted works to work optimally. Language models do both. The courts are going to rule in favor of these authors if they have a basic understanding of what’s happening.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > Photoshop doesn’t provide you with copyrighted materials to work with when prompted or require ingesting other copyrighted works to work optimally. Language models do both. They actually are not that different from Photoshop. Regarding providing you copyrighted materials, if you instruct it to generate something someone else already copyrighted, perhaps by using a feature meant to reproduce existing art style, you will generate an infringing work. As for "ingesting of other copyrighted works to work optimally", you don't know what goes into designing and building Photoshop - how many third-party datasets or copyrighted assets, which get embedded deep into the application in a form that the end-user cannot discover or consume. You don't know, and it doesn't matter, because Adobe using copyrighted materials in building Photoshop does not propagate copyright claims to you the user/renter of Photoshop. Same can be argued about LLMs - copyrighted inputs from training set get sufficiently blended when turned into weights that you, the end user, should be shielded from any IP claims related to the training data. (Yes, the last point enables "copyright laundering", but I'm not convinced this is a problem - not compared to regulatory environment trying to prevent it.)
  - flextheruler 3y ago
    My point is simply these models should not ingest copyrighted materials without paying the authors or publishers. Litigating end-users who are using LLMs that have ingested pirated copyrighted would be so complex as to not be worth it except for large businesses. If I want to ingest/read a book I need to pay money but if an LLM does it they’re free to pirate the book? Why? And why is it that I pay OpenAI to generate data based off books it stole for free when I had to pay money for the same book. I know what I am actually paying for is the model obviously but it just feels extra wrong to be paying a company for a service it’s built using pirated content.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      >If I want to ingest/read a book I need to pay money Or you just go to the local library. Or you borrow it from a friend. Or you stand in B&N and read it in the store. You're arguments are not great.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Photoshop doesn’t provide you with copyrighted materials to work with when prompted or require ingesting other copyrighted works to work optimally. Language models do both. Photoshop now has generative AI features that leverage language models as well as training on imagery, so this is literally false when discussing Photoshop as it currently exists.

haberman 3y ago

I would say it’s reproduction of an exact copy that represents copyright infringement, not dissemination of the digital brain that remembered it. If and when someone tries to profit off an AI work that would be copyright infringement if a human had made it, it should be copyright infringement of an AI does it also.

dcow 3y ago

Two things: 1) I’m generally copyleft and would argue that copyright as we know it is nonsensical in the digital era and needs to be entirely rebuilt to make any sense whatsoever. And that as is it harms the commons more than it protects creators. So yeah a fileserver has always been a game changer just like the printing press was and we’re far behind as a society, legally. 2) When a computer system does reproduce copyrighted content verbatim, it’s infringement the same as if a human did it from memory. That wasn’t my point. My point was that use of copyrighted content to train the model is fair use because it’s no different from a human consuming the content and committing it to memory.

blackoil 3y ago
Copyleft licenses are a form of copyright. Unless it is some other meaning I am not aware of with left-right word play.
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  On one hand, copyleft licenses are a creative form of copyright to enforce the wishes of the author to allow derivative works under the condition they are also distributed freely. Let's call it weak copyleft, the pragmatic variety. OTOH are copyright abolitionists who are offended by the notion that their freedom to copy and modify code on their own harddisk could be restricted by a mere "license", to them the notion of intellectual property is poppycock. The Strong Copylefties consider GPL a necessary evil, a way to use their enemies' tools against them, to spread their ideals of free culture amidst a corporatist hellscape. Or it could merely be someone taking the naïve reading of "anti-copyright"
dmbche 3y ago
But the human that consumed the content paid for it didn't they?
- hiatus 3y ago
  What if they heard it on the radio? Or read it in a library?