5 ms·

So, the law has this concept of 'de minimus' infringement, where if you take a very small amount - like, way smaller than even a fair use - the courts don't car

So, the law has this concept of 'de minimus' infringement, where if you take a very small amount - like, way smaller than even a fair use - the courts don't care. If you're taking a handful of word probabilities from every book ever written, then the portion taken from each work is very, very low, so courts aren't likely to care. If you're only training on a handful of works then you're taking more from them, meaning it's not de minimus. For the record, I got this legal theory from Cory Doctorow[0], but I'm skeptical. It's very plausible, but at the same time, we also thought sampling in music was de minimus until the Second Circuit said otherwise. Copyright law is extremely malleable in the presence of moneyed interests, sometimes without Congressional intervention even! [0] who is NOT pro-AI, he just thinks labor law is a better bulwark against it than copyright

wtallis 2y ago
If your training process ingests the entire text of the book, and trains with a large context size, you're getting more than just "a handful of word probabilities" from that book.
- ben_w 2y ago
  If you've trained a 16-bit ten billion parameter model on ten trillion tokens, then the mean training token changes 2/125 of a bit, and a 60k word novel (~75k tokens) contributes 1200 bits. It's up to you if that counts as "a handful" or not.
  - hansworst 2y ago
    I think it’s questionable whether you can actually use this bit count to represent the amount of information from the book. Those 1200 bits represent the way in which this particular book is different from everything else the model has ingested. Similarly, if you read an entire book yourself, your brain will just store the salient bits, not the entire text, unless you have a photographic memory. If we take math or computer science for example: some very important algorithms can be compressed to a few bits of information if you (or a model) have a thorough understanding of the surrounding theory to go with it. Would it not amount to IP infringement if a model regurgitates the relevant information from a patent application, even if it is represented by under a kilobyte of information?
    - ben_w 2y ago
      I agree with what I think you're saying, so I'm not sure I've understood you. I think this is all still compatible with saying that ingesting an entire book is still: > If you're taking a handful of word probabilities from every book ever written, then the portion taken from each work is very, very low (Though I wouldn't want to make a bet either way on "so courts aren't likely to care" that follows on from that quote: my not-legally-trained interpretation of the rules leads to me being confused about how traditional search engines aren't a copyright violation).
  - snovv_crash 2y ago
    If I invent an amazing lossless compression algorithm such that adding an entire 60k word novel to my blob only increases the size by 1.2kb, does that mean I'm not copyright infringing if I release that model?
    - Sharlin 2y ago
      How is that relevant? If some LLM were able to regurgitate a 60k word novel verbatim on demand, sure, the copyright situation would be different. But last I checked they can’t, not 60k, 6k, or even 600 words. Perhaps they can do 60 words of some well-known passages from the Bible or other similar ubiquitous copyright-free works.
      - snovv_crash 2y ago
        So the fact that it's a lossy compression algorithm makes it ok?
        ben_w 2y ago
        "It's lossy" is in isolation much too vague to say if it's OK or not. A compression algorithm which loses 1 bit of real data is obviously not going to protect you from copyright infringement claims, something that reduces all inputs to a single bit is obviously fine. So, for example, what the NYT is suing over is that it (or so it is claimed) allows the model to regenerate entire articles, which is not OK. But to claim that it is a copyright infringement to "compress" a Harry Potter novel to 1200 bits, is to say that this: > Harry Potter discovers he is a wizard and attends Hogwarts, where he battles dark forces, including the evil Voldemort, to save the wizarding world. … which is just under 1200 bits, is an unlawful thing to post (and for the purpose of the hypothetical, imagine that quotation in the form of a zero-context tweet rather than the actual fact of this being a case of fair-use because of its appearance in a discussion about copyright infringement of novels). I think anyone who suggests suing over this to a lawyer, would discover that lawyers can in fact laugh. Now, there's also the question of if it's legal or not to train a model on all of the Harry Potter fan wikis, which almost certainly have a huge overlap with the contents of the novels and thus strengthens these same probabilities; some people accuse OpenAI et al of "copyright laundering", and I think ingesting derivative works such as fan sites would be a better description of "copyright laundering" than the specific things they're formally accused of in the lawsuits.
  - andrepd 2y ago
    xz can compress the text of Harry Potter by a factor of 30:1. Does that mean I can also distribute compressed copies of copyrighted works and that's okay?
    - ben_w 2y ago
      Can you get that book out of an LLM? Because that's the distinction being argued here: it's "a handful"[0] of probabilities, not the complete work. [0] I'm not sold on the phrasing "a handful", but I don't care enough to argue terminology; the term "handful" feels like it's being used in a sorites paradox kind of way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox
    - Sharlin 2y ago
      Incredibly poor analogy. If an LLM were able to regurgitate Harry Potter on demand like xz can, the copyright situation would be much more black and white. But they can’t, and it’s not even close.
    - realusername 2y ago
      You can't get Harry Potter out of the LLM, that's the difference
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    To be fair, OP raises an important question that I hope smart legal minds are pondering. In my view, they aren't looking for a "programmer answers about legal issue" response. Probably the right court might agree with their premise. What the damages or restrictions might be, I cannot speculate. Any IP lawyers here who want to share some thoughts?
    - ben_w 2y ago
      Yup, that's fair. As my not-legally-trained interpretation of the rules leads to me being confused about how traditional search engines aren't a copyright violation, I don't trust my own beliefs about the law.
KoolKat23 2y ago
You don't even need to go this far. The word-probabilities are transformative use, a form of fair use and aren't an issue. The specific output at each point in time is what would be judged to be fair use or copyright infringing. I'd argue the user would be responsible for ensuring they're not infringing by using the output in a copyright infringing manner i.e. for profit, as they've fed certain inputs into the model which led to the output. In the same way you can't sue Microsoft for someone typing up copyrighted works into Microsoft Word and then distributing for profit. De minimus is still helpful here, not all infringments are noteworthy.
- rcbdev 2y ago
  OpenAI is outputting the partially copyright-infringing works of their LLM for profit. How does that square?
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    You raise an interesting point. If more professional lawyers agreed with you, then why have we not seen a lawsuit from publishers against OpenAI?
    - dgoldstein0 2y ago
      Some of them are suing https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-t... https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-newspapers-sue-openai-copyright-infringement-over-ai-training-2024-04-30/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-newspapers-sue-openai-copyr... https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/04/09/openai-lawsuit-regulation-lawyers/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/04/09/openai-... Some decided to make deals instead
    - kmeisthax 2y ago
      There are some lawsuits, especially in the very reflexively copyright-pilled industries. However, a good chunk of publishers aren't suing for self-interested reasons. There's a lot of people in the creative industry who see a machine that can cut artists out of the copyright bargain completely and are shouting "omg piracy is based now" because LLMs can spit out content faster and for free.
bryanrasmussen 2y ago
>we also thought sampling in music was de minimus I would think if I can recognize exactly what song it comes from - not de minimus.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  When I was younger, I was told that the album from Beastie Boys called Paul's Boutique was the straw that broke the camel's back! I have no idea if this true, but that album has a batshit crazy amount of recognizable samples. I doubt very much that Beastie paid anything for the rights to sample.
Gravityloss 2y ago
I think with some AI you could reproduce artworks of obscure indie artists who are working right now. If you were a director at a game company and needed art in that style, it would be cheaper to have the AI do it instead of buying from the artist. I think this is currently an open question.
- dgoldstein0 2y ago
  I recently read an article that I annoyingly can't find again about an art director at a company that decided to hire some prompters. They got some art, told them to completely change it, got other art, told them to make smaller changes... And then got nothing useful as the prompters couldn't tell the ai "like that but make this change". Ai art may get there in a few years or maybe a decade or two, but it's not there yet. (End of that article: they fired the prompters after a few days) An ai-enhanced Photoshop, however, could do wonders though as the base capabilities seem to be mostly there. Haven't used any of the newer ai stuff myself but https://www.shruggingface.com/blog/how-i-used-stable-diffusion-and-dreambooth-to-create-a-painted-portrait-of-my-dog https://www.shruggingface.com/blog/how-i-used-stable-diffusi... makes it pretty clear the building blocks seem largely there. So my guess is the main disconnect is in making the machines understand natural language instructions for how to change the art.

wtallis 2y ago

If your training process ingests the entire text of the book, and trains with a large context size, you're getting more than just "a handful of word probabilities" from that book.

ben_w 2y ago
If you've trained a 16-bit ten billion parameter model on ten trillion tokens, then the mean training token changes 2/125 of a bit, and a 60k word novel (~75k tokens) contributes 1200 bits. It's up to you if that counts as "a handful" or not.
- hansworst 2y ago
  I think it’s questionable whether you can actually use this bit count to represent the amount of information from the book. Those 1200 bits represent the way in which this particular book is different from everything else the model has ingested. Similarly, if you read an entire book yourself, your brain will just store the salient bits, not the entire text, unless you have a photographic memory. If we take math or computer science for example: some very important algorithms can be compressed to a few bits of information if you (or a model) have a thorough understanding of the surrounding theory to go with it. Would it not amount to IP infringement if a model regurgitates the relevant information from a patent application, even if it is represented by under a kilobyte of information?
  - ben_w 2y ago
    I agree with what I think you're saying, so I'm not sure I've understood you. I think this is all still compatible with saying that ingesting an entire book is still: > If you're taking a handful of word probabilities from every book ever written, then the portion taken from each work is very, very low (Though I wouldn't want to make a bet either way on "so courts aren't likely to care" that follows on from that quote: my not-legally-trained interpretation of the rules leads to me being confused about how traditional search engines aren't a copyright violation).
- snovv_crash 2y ago
  If I invent an amazing lossless compression algorithm such that adding an entire 60k word novel to my blob only increases the size by 1.2kb, does that mean I'm not copyright infringing if I release that model?
  - Sharlin 2y ago
    How is that relevant? If some LLM were able to regurgitate a 60k word novel verbatim on demand, sure, the copyright situation would be different. But last I checked they can’t, not 60k, 6k, or even 600 words. Perhaps they can do 60 words of some well-known passages from the Bible or other similar ubiquitous copyright-free works.
    - snovv_crash 2y ago
      So the fact that it's a lossy compression algorithm makes it ok?
      - ben_w 2y ago
        "It's lossy" is in isolation much too vague to say if it's OK or not. A compression algorithm which loses 1 bit of real data is obviously not going to protect you from copyright infringement claims, something that reduces all inputs to a single bit is obviously fine. So, for example, what the NYT is suing over is that it (or so it is claimed) allows the model to regenerate entire articles, which is not OK. But to claim that it is a copyright infringement to "compress" a Harry Potter novel to 1200 bits, is to say that this: > Harry Potter discovers he is a wizard and attends Hogwarts, where he battles dark forces, including the evil Voldemort, to save the wizarding world. … which is just under 1200 bits, is an unlawful thing to post (and for the purpose of the hypothetical, imagine that quotation in the form of a zero-context tweet rather than the actual fact of this being a case of fair-use because of its appearance in a discussion about copyright infringement of novels). I think anyone who suggests suing over this to a lawyer, would discover that lawyers can in fact laugh. Now, there's also the question of if it's legal or not to train a model on all of the Harry Potter fan wikis, which almost certainly have a huge overlap with the contents of the novels and thus strengthens these same probabilities; some people accuse OpenAI et al of "copyright laundering", and I think ingesting derivative works such as fan sites would be a better description of "copyright laundering" than the specific things they're formally accused of in the lawsuits.
- andrepd 2y ago
  xz can compress the text of Harry Potter by a factor of 30:1. Does that mean I can also distribute compressed copies of copyrighted works and that's okay?
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Can you get that book out of an LLM? Because that's the distinction being argued here: it's "a handful"[0] of probabilities, not the complete work. [0] I'm not sold on the phrasing "a handful", but I don't care enough to argue terminology; the term "handful" feels like it's being used in a sorites paradox kind of way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox
  - Sharlin 2y ago
    Incredibly poor analogy. If an LLM were able to regurgitate Harry Potter on demand like xz can, the copyright situation would be much more black and white. But they can’t, and it’s not even close.
  - realusername 2y ago
    You can't get Harry Potter out of the LLM, that's the difference
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  To be fair, OP raises an important question that I hope smart legal minds are pondering. In my view, they aren't looking for a "programmer answers about legal issue" response. Probably the right court might agree with their premise. What the damages or restrictions might be, I cannot speculate. Any IP lawyers here who want to share some thoughts?
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Yup, that's fair. As my not-legally-trained interpretation of the rules leads to me being confused about how traditional search engines aren't a copyright violation, I don't trust my own beliefs about the law.

KoolKat23 2y ago

You don't even need to go this far. The word-probabilities are transformative use, a form of fair use and aren't an issue. The specific output at each point in time is what would be judged to be fair use or copyright infringing. I'd argue the user would be responsible for ensuring they're not infringing by using the output in a copyright infringing manner i.e. for profit, as they've fed certain inputs into the model which led to the output. In the same way you can't sue Microsoft for someone typing up copyrighted works into Microsoft Word and then distributing for profit. De minimus is still helpful here, not all infringments are noteworthy.

rcbdev 2y ago
OpenAI is outputting the partially copyright-infringing works of their LLM for profit. How does that square?
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  You raise an interesting point. If more professional lawyers agreed with you, then why have we not seen a lawsuit from publishers against OpenAI?
  - dgoldstein0 2y ago
    Some of them are suing https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-t... https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-newspapers-sue-openai-copyright-infringement-over-ai-training-2024-04-30/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-newspapers-sue-openai-copyr... https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/04/09/openai-lawsuit-regulation-lawyers/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/04/09/openai-... Some decided to make deals instead
  - kmeisthax 2y ago
    There are some lawsuits, especially in the very reflexively copyright-pilled industries. However, a good chunk of publishers aren't suing for self-interested reasons. There's a lot of people in the creative industry who see a machine that can cut artists out of the copyright bargain completely and are shouting "omg piracy is based now" because LLMs can spit out content faster and for free.

bryanrasmussen 2y ago

>we also thought sampling in music was de minimus I would think if I can recognize exactly what song it comes from - not de minimus.

throwaway2037 2y ago
When I was younger, I was told that the album from Beastie Boys called Paul's Boutique was the straw that broke the camel's back! I have no idea if this true, but that album has a batshit crazy amount of recognizable samples. I doubt very much that Beastie paid anything for the rights to sample.

Gravityloss 2y ago

I think with some AI you could reproduce artworks of obscure indie artists who are working right now. If you were a director at a game company and needed art in that style, it would be cheaper to have the AI do it instead of buying from the artist. I think this is currently an open question.

dgoldstein0 2y ago
I recently read an article that I annoyingly can't find again about an art director at a company that decided to hire some prompters. They got some art, told them to completely change it, got other art, told them to make smaller changes... And then got nothing useful as the prompters couldn't tell the ai "like that but make this change". Ai art may get there in a few years or maybe a decade or two, but it's not there yet. (End of that article: they fired the prompters after a few days) An ai-enhanced Photoshop, however, could do wonders though as the base capabilities seem to be mostly there. Haven't used any of the newer ai stuff myself but https://www.shruggingface.com/blog/how-i-used-stable-diffusion-and-dreambooth-to-create-a-painted-portrait-of-my-dog https://www.shruggingface.com/blog/how-i-used-stable-diffusi... makes it pretty clear the building blocks seem largely there. So my guess is the main disconnect is in making the machines understand natural language instructions for how to change the art.