4 ms·

Weights is derivative work, and as such should follow the licensing of the original works. If those works are public domain or were appropriately licensed, dist

Weights is derivative work, and as such should follow the licensing of the original works. If those works are public domain or were appropriately licensed, distributing weights openly should be protected as free speech. And let’s not anthropomorphize of ML. Models don’t “think” or “learn”. The only party with free will and agency is whoever makes or operates them; trying to paint an unthinking tool as a human is just a means of waiving responsibility for them.

andy99 3y ago
> Weights is derivative work, and as such should follow the licensing of the original works. No that's something you made up.
- owisd 3y ago
  Property rights in general are a thing made up by people, we're just arguing over where to draw the line.
  - idle_zealot 3y ago
    Ideally somewhere between "you're not allowed to take my things" and "you're not allowed to learn from what I tell you".
  - PeterisP 3y ago
    Not really - "arguing over where to draw the line" would be a discussion about how a hypothetical new law should treat model weights; however, assertions about whether they are a derivative work (or even "work" as such, in the sense of copyright law - noncreative transformations aren't copyrightable works, no matter how much "sweat of brow" or money they took) is a discussion about where the old copyright laws have drawn the line, and the "should's" don't matter there, it's about how the courts will interpret the precedent, and at the moment they haven't said that they are derived works, and while they could declare that, there are all kinds of arguments why they also might declare the opposite.
  - zoobab 3y ago
    Imaginary Property Rights don't exist in Nature. A purely man-made construction.
    - anileated 3y ago
      Humans are part of nature, like trees and foxes. Property rights are necessarily part of nature too, by extension.
vintermann 3y ago
"Derivative works" is a dodgy legal concept in the first place, because every work can be construed to be derivative. In practice it just gives lawyers and judges a lot of leeway to pretend that they're being consistent when they aren't.
- anileated 3y ago
  The concept that you call “dodgy” is actually fundamental to copyright. If you remove the idea of derivative works, the entire system that encourages innovation by protecting intellectual property (yes, the same system that gave us computing and ML) falls apart.
  - _aavaa_ 3y ago
    The one that encourages innovation by allowing copyrighted works to stay copyrighted for 100+ years? That's a long time to wait for something to build on something!
    - anileated 3y ago
      We’ve been building on top of each other’s work in the open-source software ecosystem and in science this entire time. Also, there are licensing models that specifically allow derivative works.
      - _aavaa_ 3y ago
        Unfortunately nobody told Marvel, Disney, and the Tolkien estate about it, so we'll have to wait until we're all dead before being able to build ontop of the cultural works that defined our childhoods.
        anileated 3y ago
        Don’t worry, you can always be inspired by them and make something of your own.
OkayPhysicist 3y ago
Derivative works are only concerned with the licensing of the original work if they don't fall under fair use. It's really, really hard to argue that an open weight AI doesn't fall under fair use. 1. "the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;" -> an openly distributed model is not of commercial nature. Check one for fair use. 2. "the nature of the copyrighted work;" -> Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone has very little in common nature with an artificial intelligence that produces arbitrary text based on a prompt. Check two for fair use. 3. "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;" -> The amount (all of it) goes in favor of the original work, but the substatiality of it is definitely more ambiguous, as while if they had used none of the copyrighted works, the AI couldn't exist, any single original copyright holder's work contributed very little to the end result. 4. "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." -> No one's using AI to avoid having to buy a copy of Harry Potter. An AI and a book are not currently considered substitutable goods. Basically, even if a model's weights constitute a derivative work of the training material's copywritten material (that's another can of worms, there's a finite possibility copyright doesn't protect/apply to weights at all), there's a very good argument to be made for fair use.
- anileated 3y ago
  1. First, there are commercial models. But also, we could consider that if something specifically enables unfair use then that may deserve a look. 2. Weights are a derivative of another nature, but one that specifically enables mass production of derivatives of the same nature. Could be an important concept that simply didn’t exist until now. 3. That’s roughly my understanding, too. 4. Valid point on one hand, but consider that using LLMs is exactly substitutable for any non-fiction book or resource. If no one can sell a book, then who would write them?

andy99 3y ago

> Weights is derivative work, and as such should follow the licensing of the original works. No that's something you made up.

owisd 3y ago
Property rights in general are a thing made up by people, we're just arguing over where to draw the line.
- idle_zealot 3y ago
  Ideally somewhere between "you're not allowed to take my things" and "you're not allowed to learn from what I tell you".
- PeterisP 3y ago
  Not really - "arguing over where to draw the line" would be a discussion about how a hypothetical new law should treat model weights; however, assertions about whether they are a derivative work (or even "work" as such, in the sense of copyright law - noncreative transformations aren't copyrightable works, no matter how much "sweat of brow" or money they took) is a discussion about where the old copyright laws have drawn the line, and the "should's" don't matter there, it's about how the courts will interpret the precedent, and at the moment they haven't said that they are derived works, and while they could declare that, there are all kinds of arguments why they also might declare the opposite.
- zoobab 3y ago
  Imaginary Property Rights don't exist in Nature. A purely man-made construction.
  - anileated 3y ago
    Humans are part of nature, like trees and foxes. Property rights are necessarily part of nature too, by extension.

vintermann 3y ago

"Derivative works" is a dodgy legal concept in the first place, because every work can be construed to be derivative. In practice it just gives lawyers and judges a lot of leeway to pretend that they're being consistent when they aren't.

anileated 3y ago
The concept that you call “dodgy” is actually fundamental to copyright. If you remove the idea of derivative works, the entire system that encourages innovation by protecting intellectual property (yes, the same system that gave us computing and ML) falls apart.
- _aavaa_ 3y ago
  The one that encourages innovation by allowing copyrighted works to stay copyrighted for 100+ years? That's a long time to wait for something to build on something!
  - anileated 3y ago
    We’ve been building on top of each other’s work in the open-source software ecosystem and in science this entire time. Also, there are licensing models that specifically allow derivative works.
    - _aavaa_ 3y ago
      Unfortunately nobody told Marvel, Disney, and the Tolkien estate about it, so we'll have to wait until we're all dead before being able to build ontop of the cultural works that defined our childhoods.
      - anileated 3y ago
        Don’t worry, you can always be inspired by them and make something of your own.

OkayPhysicist 3y ago

Derivative works are only concerned with the licensing of the original work if they don't fall under fair use. It's really, really hard to argue that an open weight AI doesn't fall under fair use. 1. "the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;" -> an openly distributed model is not of commercial nature. Check one for fair use. 2. "the nature of the copyrighted work;" -> Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone has very little in common nature with an artificial intelligence that produces arbitrary text based on a prompt. Check two for fair use. 3. "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;" -> The amount (all of it) goes in favor of the original work, but the substatiality of it is definitely more ambiguous, as while if they had used none of the copyrighted works, the AI couldn't exist, any single original copyright holder's work contributed very little to the end result. 4. "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." -> No one's using AI to avoid having to buy a copy of Harry Potter. An AI and a book are not currently considered substitutable goods. Basically, even if a model's weights constitute a derivative work of the training material's copywritten material (that's another can of worms, there's a finite possibility copyright doesn't protect/apply to weights at all), there's a very good argument to be made for fair use.

anileated 3y ago
1. First, there are commercial models. But also, we could consider that if something specifically enables unfair use then that may deserve a look. 2. Weights are a derivative of another nature, but one that specifically enables mass production of derivatives of the same nature. Could be an important concept that simply didn’t exist until now. 3. That’s roughly my understanding, too. 4. Valid point on one hand, but consider that using LLMs is exactly substitutable for any non-fiction book or resource. If no one can sell a book, then who would write them?