5 ms·

You don't copyright ideas, you copyright works. And these artists' productions are works, not abstract ideas, with copyrights, and they are being violated. This

by juunpp 3y ago

You don't copyright ideas, you copyright works. And these artists' productions are works, not abstract ideas, with copyrights, and they are being violated. This is simple law. Why do people have such a hard time with this? Are you the one training the models and you need to find a cognitive escape out of the illegality and wrong-doing of your activities?

theragra 3y ago
If it were true, then we wouldn't have that great difference in opinions on this topic.
- juunpp 3y ago
  That GP is utterly confused about copyright law is not an opinion.
  - sircastor 3y ago
    The United States Supreme Court rulings are supported literally by opinions of the justices.
sebzim4500 3y ago
That may be the law, although we are probably years of legal proceedings away from finding out. It obviously is not "simple law".
rlt 3y ago
It’s not obvious to me that using a copyrighted image to train a model is copyright infringement. It’s certainly not copyright infringement when used to train a human who may end up creating works that are influenced by (but not copies of) the original works. Now, if the original copyrighted work can be extracted or reproduced from the model, that’s obviously copyright infringement. OpenAI etc should ensure they don’t do that.
- Andrex 3y ago
  Reproduced to what fidelity? 100%? If OpenAI's output reproduces a copyrighted image with one pixel changed, is that valid in your view? Where does the line end? Copyrighted material should never be used for nonacademic language models. "Garbage in, garbage out." All results are tainted. "But being forced to use non-copyrighted works will only slow things down!" Maybe that's a good thing, too. Copyright is something every industry has to accept and deal with -- LLMs don't get a "cool tech, do whatever" get-out-of-jail free card.
  - pawelmurias 3y ago
    Copyright is decided by the courts, it's a legal thing not some a biological. If the courts decide it's legal it will be.
    - Andrex 3y ago
      I'm totally down for the courts handling this AI/copyright mess, but I don't think technologists are going to like the results. By virtue of the fact that it is "fuzzy" and open to interpretation, we're going to see lawsuits, the resulting chilling effects of those lawsuits will blunt US tech firms from the practice of ingesting large amounts of copywritten material without a second thought. US tech firms will be giving it a second, third, fourth, etc. thought once the lawsuits start. It's gonna be like submarine patents on steroids. Like I said, I'm down for letting the courts decide. But AI supporters should probably avoid kicking the hornets' nests regarding copyright.
  - rlt 3y ago
    > Reproduced to what fidelity? 100%? Whatever the standard is for humans doing the exact same thing.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- thereisnospork 3y ago
huytersd 3y ago
Nothing is being reproduced. Just the ideas being reused.
sircastor 3y ago
>This is simple law. Why do people have such a hard time with this? Because this isn’t simple law. It feels like simple infringement, but there’s no actual copying going on. You can’t open up the database and find a given duplicate of a work. Instead you have some abstraction of what it takes to get to a given work. Also it’s important to point out that nothing in the law is sure. A good lawyer, a sympathetic judge, a bored/interested/contrarian juror, etc can render “settled law” unsettled in an instant. The law is not a set of board game rules.
- flkiwi 3y ago
  If the AI were a human and that human made an image that copied substantial elements of another human's creative work after a careful review of the original creator's work, even if it was not an original copy and no archival copy was stored somewhere in the second creator's creative space, I would be concerned about copyright infringement exposure if I were the second (copying) creator. I'm open to the idea that copyright law might need to change, but it doesn't seem controversial to note that scraping actual creative works to extract elements for an algorithm to generate new works crosses a number of worrying lines.
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  Have you seen the examples of midjourney reproducing exact frames of Dune, Star Wars etc? With vague prompting not asking for the media property specifically. It's pretty close to querying a database, except if you're asking for something that's not there it's able to render an interpolated result on the fly. Ask it for something that is there however and the model will dutifully pull it up.
  - sircastor 3y ago
    Looking for it, I found this [1] which describes almost what you're saying. The key difference here is that these images aren't exact frames. They're close, of course, but close is not identical.Is there another instance you can point to that shows what you've described? [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/midjourney-copyright https://spectrum.ieee.org/midjourney-copyright
SamPatt 3y ago
Illegality and wrongdoing are completely distinct categories. I'm not convinced that most copyright infringements are immoral regardless of their legal status. If you post your images for the world to see, and someone uses that image, you are not harmed. The idea that the world owes you something after you deliberately shared it with others seems bizarre.
- brookst 3y ago
  Imagine if every book or advertisement or public conversation you overheard led to future claims that you had unethically learned from public information. It’s such a weird worldview. (BTW I forbid you from using my comment here in your future reasoning)
- fzeroracer 3y ago
  > If you post your images for the world to see, and someone uses that image, you are not harmed. Let me define a few cases of 'uses that image' and see where your line in the sand drops * If someone used that image as part of an advertising campaign for their product, they are profiting off your work. Are you not harmed? * If someone used that image and pretended they created it. Are you not harmed? * If someone used that image and sold it directly. Are you not harmed?
  - SamPatt 3y ago
    Someone claiming they created something which I created is the closest to harm on that list. Fraud should be punished. The others aren't harmful, unless you're defining harm to include the loss of something which someone believes they are entitled to, a concept which is fraught with problems. Creating an image (or any non-physical creation) doesn't obligate the world to compensate you for your work. If you choose to give it away by posting it on the internet, that's your choice, but you are entitled to nothing.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >I'm not convinced that most copyright infringements are immoral regardless of their legal status. You're right and wrong. You're right because most infringement is from people who can do minimal damage and in fact so more help by giving awareness to your works by sharing. But this is only becsuse copyright it working (most of the time) against corporate entities who don't want to leave any room for legalities to come in. If copyright ended I'd bet my bottom dollar Disney and all the other billionaires companies would be spamming any and everything that gets moderately popular. And Disney can put advertise the original artist easily.
fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago
> This is simple law. “One may well ask: ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’ The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’”
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  Well, fine, but you'll have to claim that copyright is unjust and that you are breaking the law as an act of civil disobedience. The AI corps do not want to take this stance as they also have intellectual property to protect. Classic "have their cake and eat it too" scenario.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by juunpp 3y ago

theragra 3y ago

If it were true, then we wouldn't have that great difference in opinions on this topic.

juunpp 3y ago
That GP is utterly confused about copyright law is not an opinion.
- sircastor 3y ago
  The United States Supreme Court rulings are supported literally by opinions of the justices.

sebzim4500 3y ago

That may be the law, although we are probably years of legal proceedings away from finding out. It obviously is not "simple law".

rlt 3y ago

It’s not obvious to me that using a copyrighted image to train a model is copyright infringement. It’s certainly not copyright infringement when used to train a human who may end up creating works that are influenced by (but not copies of) the original works. Now, if the original copyrighted work can be extracted or reproduced from the model, that’s obviously copyright infringement. OpenAI etc should ensure they don’t do that.

Andrex 3y ago
Reproduced to what fidelity? 100%? If OpenAI's output reproduces a copyrighted image with one pixel changed, is that valid in your view? Where does the line end? Copyrighted material should never be used for nonacademic language models. "Garbage in, garbage out." All results are tainted. "But being forced to use non-copyrighted works will only slow things down!" Maybe that's a good thing, too. Copyright is something every industry has to accept and deal with -- LLMs don't get a "cool tech, do whatever" get-out-of-jail free card.
- pawelmurias 3y ago
  Copyright is decided by the courts, it's a legal thing not some a biological. If the courts decide it's legal it will be.
  - Andrex 3y ago
    I'm totally down for the courts handling this AI/copyright mess, but I don't think technologists are going to like the results. By virtue of the fact that it is "fuzzy" and open to interpretation, we're going to see lawsuits, the resulting chilling effects of those lawsuits will blunt US tech firms from the practice of ingesting large amounts of copywritten material without a second thought. US tech firms will be giving it a second, third, fourth, etc. thought once the lawsuits start. It's gonna be like submarine patents on steroids. Like I said, I'm down for letting the courts decide. But AI supporters should probably avoid kicking the hornets' nests regarding copyright.
- rlt 3y ago
  > Reproduced to what fidelity? 100%? Whatever the standard is for humans doing the exact same thing.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
thereisnospork 3y ago

huytersd 3y ago

Nothing is being reproduced. Just the ideas being reused.

sircastor 3y ago

>This is simple law. Why do people have such a hard time with this? Because this isn’t simple law. It feels like simple infringement, but there’s no actual copying going on. You can’t open up the database and find a given duplicate of a work. Instead you have some abstraction of what it takes to get to a given work. Also it’s important to point out that nothing in the law is sure. A good lawyer, a sympathetic judge, a bored/interested/contrarian juror, etc can render “settled law” unsettled in an instant. The law is not a set of board game rules.

flkiwi 3y ago
If the AI were a human and that human made an image that copied substantial elements of another human's creative work after a careful review of the original creator's work, even if it was not an original copy and no archival copy was stored somewhere in the second creator's creative space, I would be concerned about copyright infringement exposure if I were the second (copying) creator. I'm open to the idea that copyright law might need to change, but it doesn't seem controversial to note that scraping actual creative works to extract elements for an algorithm to generate new works crosses a number of worrying lines.
jazzyjackson 3y ago
Have you seen the examples of midjourney reproducing exact frames of Dune, Star Wars etc? With vague prompting not asking for the media property specifically. It's pretty close to querying a database, except if you're asking for something that's not there it's able to render an interpolated result on the fly. Ask it for something that is there however and the model will dutifully pull it up.
- sircastor 3y ago
  Looking for it, I found this [1] which describes almost what you're saying. The key difference here is that these images aren't exact frames. They're close, of course, but close is not identical.Is there another instance you can point to that shows what you've described? [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/midjourney-copyright https://spectrum.ieee.org/midjourney-copyright

SamPatt 3y ago

Illegality and wrongdoing are completely distinct categories. I'm not convinced that most copyright infringements are immoral regardless of their legal status. If you post your images for the world to see, and someone uses that image, you are not harmed. The idea that the world owes you something after you deliberately shared it with others seems bizarre.

brookst 3y ago
Imagine if every book or advertisement or public conversation you overheard led to future claims that you had unethically learned from public information. It’s such a weird worldview. (BTW I forbid you from using my comment here in your future reasoning)
fzeroracer 3y ago
> If you post your images for the world to see, and someone uses that image, you are not harmed. Let me define a few cases of 'uses that image' and see where your line in the sand drops * If someone used that image as part of an advertising campaign for their product, they are profiting off your work. Are you not harmed? * If someone used that image and pretended they created it. Are you not harmed? * If someone used that image and sold it directly. Are you not harmed?
- SamPatt 3y ago
  Someone claiming they created something which I created is the closest to harm on that list. Fraud should be punished. The others aren't harmful, unless you're defining harm to include the loss of something which someone believes they are entitled to, a concept which is fraught with problems. Creating an image (or any non-physical creation) doesn't obligate the world to compensate you for your work. If you choose to give it away by posting it on the internet, that's your choice, but you are entitled to nothing.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>I'm not convinced that most copyright infringements are immoral regardless of their legal status. You're right and wrong. You're right because most infringement is from people who can do minimal damage and in fact so more help by giving awareness to your works by sharing. But this is only becsuse copyright it working (most of the time) against corporate entities who don't want to leave any room for legalities to come in. If copyright ended I'd bet my bottom dollar Disney and all the other billionaires companies would be spamming any and everything that gets moderately popular. And Disney can put advertise the original artist easily.

fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago

> This is simple law. “One may well ask: ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’ The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’”

jazzyjackson 3y ago
Well, fine, but you'll have to claim that copyright is unjust and that you are breaking the law as an act of civil disobedience. The AI corps do not want to take this stance as they also have intellectual property to protect. Classic "have their cake and eat it too" scenario.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]