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Frankly, the point of copyright - an artificial monopoly on the reproduction of a work - is to encourage people to create by allowing them to financially benefi

Frankly, the point of copyright - an artificial monopoly on the reproduction of a work - is to encourage people to create by allowing them to financially benefit from their works. If letting AI train on whatever their masters want and it results in a reduction of creative works being created ... I think governments might just amend the law to fix that - rendering all the "lawyering" by OpenAI over current copyright laws moot.

dragonwriter 3y ago
Its worth noting that Fair Use, while now also incorporated into statute which Congress can change by refular law, was first articulated by courts as a First Amendment limit on the copyright power, and later incorporated as statute law (which is why its kind of a fuzzy statute: it just literally reproduced the judicially-articulated multifactor test.) So, fair use arguments probably cannot be overcome by simple statutory change.
- TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
  Free speech is about expression. It doesn't say anything about consumption. I think congress can ban the feeding of copyrighted content to AI. But IANAL.
- ang_cire 3y ago
  Sure, in terms of removing Fair Use entirely, but nothing about Fair Use is absolute, and it can absolutely be substantially changed and reinterpreted. Especially since this is about companies using Fair Use for financial gain, in ways that could absolutely harm the original creators, which runs completely counter to Fair Use's 1A intent.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > Sure, in terms of removing Fair Use entirely, but nothing about Fair Use is absolute, and it can absolutely be substantially changed and reinterpreted Yes, the courts could change how they interpret the first amendment restriction on the copyright power, but absent that, the interpretation binds the power and Congress cannot expand the scope by weakening the statutory articulation of the pre-existing court intepretation of the boundary of that limit. (Now, trying to do so would be a way to push the courts to reconsider the boundary, but that's about it.)
    - ang_cire 3y ago
      You're putting much more emphasis on the 1A link to Fair Use than it actually has. 1A is not the entirety of the basis for Fair Use, it is much more expansive than the 1A justification alone, which relates primarily to transformation for critical purposes, because that would constitute the government creating a law that limits critical speech. Most* everything else is non-1A, and can be much more easily changed by legislative means.
Tadpole9181 3y ago
I doubt governments will want to impede on the progress of AI. Doing so would likely be economic and cultural suicide over the coming decades, a modern equivalent to banning the loom or tractor.
- TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
  Depends on if AI (in its current form) ends up beneficial to society. If people stop writing because AI is going to "appropriate it" anyway and the amount of creative work drops, everyone will be poorer for it. The loom and the tractor displaced many workers but they also increase the production of whatever those workers produced. If article writers stop writing tutorials / guides / whatever because AI will just appropriate it, will AI be able to produce original tutorials / guides / whatever for the latest stuff?

dragonwriter 3y ago

Its worth noting that Fair Use, while now also incorporated into statute which Congress can change by refular law, was first articulated by courts as a First Amendment limit on the copyright power, and later incorporated as statute law (which is why its kind of a fuzzy statute: it just literally reproduced the judicially-articulated multifactor test.) So, fair use arguments probably cannot be overcome by simple statutory change.

TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
Free speech is about expression. It doesn't say anything about consumption. I think congress can ban the feeding of copyrighted content to AI. But IANAL.
ang_cire 3y ago
Sure, in terms of removing Fair Use entirely, but nothing about Fair Use is absolute, and it can absolutely be substantially changed and reinterpreted. Especially since this is about companies using Fair Use for financial gain, in ways that could absolutely harm the original creators, which runs completely counter to Fair Use's 1A intent.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Sure, in terms of removing Fair Use entirely, but nothing about Fair Use is absolute, and it can absolutely be substantially changed and reinterpreted Yes, the courts could change how they interpret the first amendment restriction on the copyright power, but absent that, the interpretation binds the power and Congress cannot expand the scope by weakening the statutory articulation of the pre-existing court intepretation of the boundary of that limit. (Now, trying to do so would be a way to push the courts to reconsider the boundary, but that's about it.)
  - ang_cire 3y ago
    You're putting much more emphasis on the 1A link to Fair Use than it actually has. 1A is not the entirety of the basis for Fair Use, it is much more expansive than the 1A justification alone, which relates primarily to transformation for critical purposes, because that would constitute the government creating a law that limits critical speech. Most* everything else is non-1A, and can be much more easily changed by legislative means.

Tadpole9181 3y ago

I doubt governments will want to impede on the progress of AI. Doing so would likely be economic and cultural suicide over the coming decades, a modern equivalent to banning the loom or tractor.

TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
Depends on if AI (in its current form) ends up beneficial to society. If people stop writing because AI is going to "appropriate it" anyway and the amount of creative work drops, everyone will be poorer for it. The loom and the tractor displaced many workers but they also increase the production of whatever those workers produced. If article writers stop writing tutorials / guides / whatever because AI will just appropriate it, will AI be able to produce original tutorials / guides / whatever for the latest stuff?