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I think people are getting confused between using something and redistributing it. If you train an AI or build a search engine index, or your browser caches a w

I think people are getting confused between using something and redistributing it. If you train an AI or build a search engine index, or your browser caches a webpage, you're just using it, and it was put on the web so that it can be used, without any restrictions on what for (except perhaps when the permission to even download it is granted conditionally on how you use it as Suleyman mentioned). Copyright restricts copying, not private use. Since it's on the web, there really is an implied permission to use it privately for whatever you want. The copyright issue only comes up if you publish the output of your model. But if the AI is (somehow) clever enough to never reproduce the source material in any way that counts as copying for the purposes of copyright, then there's no copyright problem making it available to the public. Some artists assume they have more rights than they really do and that other people aren't even allowed to mimic their style.

yencabulator 2y ago
> and it was put on the web so that it can be used, without any restrictions on what for Nope, copyright applies just like it always does.
keiferski 2y ago
Your comment is a traditional understanding of copyright, pre-AI tools. The point is that this old model increasingly seems inadequate when a megacorporation can functionally copy and reproduce your work to an extremely close, but not exact, degree and then claim they did nothing wrong.
- EnigmaFlare 2y ago
  Extremely close but not exact copying is already not allowed. Human artists have tried that. Just because AI threatens to produce equally valuable material for much lower cost doesn't mean that's wrong. It just means those people got out-competed in the market. That's what the free market is for - to serve the consumers, not the producers.
  - keiferski 2y ago
    I don't even disagree that these tools aren't useful - I use them myself and agree that they allow for creating things for cheap that used to cost a lot. The reason everyone is irritated at the tech companies is not so much because they made it cheaper to do these things, but because they seem to have such a smarmy, slimy attitude about the whole thing - these comments by the Microsoft CEO of AI as a prime example. They could have just trained their models on old public domain content, Wikipedia, or a million other things, but instead they want to justify raiding content that was shared for free under different expectations. This is only going to result in a locked-down, paywalled web that is pretty much the opposite of 90s net values.
  - latexr 2y ago
    > It just means those people got out-competed in the market. That's what the free market is for - to serve the consumers, not the producers. For one, if you serve only the consumers at the detriment of the producers, soon you’ll have no producers left (or, more likely, a handful of extremely powerful ones which will stay stale as they have no reason to innovate). For another, you appear to be arguing as if the “free market” is an unambiguous positive, when it very much is not. It doesn’t even adequately serve consumers, it serves businesses. The free market is what makes companies knowingly produce and sell harmful substances, like cigarettes or lead paint.
    - EnigmaFlare 2y ago
      If AI stagnates, then some human will out-perform it and be able to sell their work. The AI won't be able to generate competitive work because it's stagnant at a lower level. I'm not arguing free market is all positive, just pointing out that the whole reason people see free markets as a good thing is because they benefit people (consumers). They have downsides too but those aren't the reason they're popular. Nobody wants free markets so they can get poisoned more easily.
operae 2y ago
If you use the data to train a commercial model and distribute it how is that not infringement? If I use a reversed Jay-Z sample in my music, I will still get sued. This is just a couple of orders of magnitude higher abstraction.
- EnigmaFlare 2y ago
  I'm not talking about distributing the model, just its output, which won't be something the user can non-creatively transform into a Jay-Z sample. However, if the model really can't regenerate its training data no matter how hard you try, then that would be fine too. I don't think anyone can really guarantee that now so that might be a problem, but it isn't necessarily a problem.
latexr 2y ago
> and it was put on the web so that it can be used, without any restrictions on what for No, this is not true at all. A lot of things are put on the web with plenty of “restrictions on what for”. That’s why licenses exist. Creative Commons being an example of licenses with well defined limits on what you can and cannot do with the content. Furthermore, a significant portion of content on the web was put there without permission: think piracy or revenge porn. AI systems have been trained on tons of pirated books. > Since it's on the web, there really is an implied permission to use it privately for whatever you want. There really is not. It’s just that if you’re using it privately then by definition no one else knows and thus no one can complain. It doesn’t mean that the creator condones whatever you’re doing. > Some artists assume they have more rights than they really do and that other people aren't even allowed to mimic their style. We’re not talking about “other people”. Another person mimicking your style is, to an extent, harmless because they’re also making a time investment to replicate your style. With the AI tools you can reproduce hundreds of knock offs in minutes. We have to stop with this comparison of “what these AI systems are doing is fine because humans could also do it by hand”. It is not the same thing. Scale matters.
- MiguelX413 2y ago
  I struggle to see how scale would fit into the equation
- EnigmaFlare 2y ago
  That material with restrictions on use would fall under the "grey area" he referred to. You're essentially not given permission to download/copy it if you're going to do the prohibited thing with it. But if it's just a random picture, there's an implied permission to download it and use it for yourself, since that's what it was put there for.
  - yencabulator 2y ago
    There is no such implied permission. You have fair use, that's it. When something has a stated license, that only increases your rights to use it; the default is nothing allowed except fair use.

yencabulator 2y ago

> and it was put on the web so that it can be used, without any restrictions on what for Nope, copyright applies just like it always does.

keiferski 2y ago

Your comment is a traditional understanding of copyright, pre-AI tools. The point is that this old model increasingly seems inadequate when a megacorporation can functionally copy and reproduce your work to an extremely close, but not exact, degree and then claim they did nothing wrong.

EnigmaFlare 2y ago
Extremely close but not exact copying is already not allowed. Human artists have tried that. Just because AI threatens to produce equally valuable material for much lower cost doesn't mean that's wrong. It just means those people got out-competed in the market. That's what the free market is for - to serve the consumers, not the producers.
- keiferski 2y ago
  I don't even disagree that these tools aren't useful - I use them myself and agree that they allow for creating things for cheap that used to cost a lot. The reason everyone is irritated at the tech companies is not so much because they made it cheaper to do these things, but because they seem to have such a smarmy, slimy attitude about the whole thing - these comments by the Microsoft CEO of AI as a prime example. They could have just trained their models on old public domain content, Wikipedia, or a million other things, but instead they want to justify raiding content that was shared for free under different expectations. This is only going to result in a locked-down, paywalled web that is pretty much the opposite of 90s net values.
- latexr 2y ago
  > It just means those people got out-competed in the market. That's what the free market is for - to serve the consumers, not the producers. For one, if you serve only the consumers at the detriment of the producers, soon you’ll have no producers left (or, more likely, a handful of extremely powerful ones which will stay stale as they have no reason to innovate). For another, you appear to be arguing as if the “free market” is an unambiguous positive, when it very much is not. It doesn’t even adequately serve consumers, it serves businesses. The free market is what makes companies knowingly produce and sell harmful substances, like cigarettes or lead paint.
  - EnigmaFlare 2y ago
    If AI stagnates, then some human will out-perform it and be able to sell their work. The AI won't be able to generate competitive work because it's stagnant at a lower level. I'm not arguing free market is all positive, just pointing out that the whole reason people see free markets as a good thing is because they benefit people (consumers). They have downsides too but those aren't the reason they're popular. Nobody wants free markets so they can get poisoned more easily.

operae 2y ago

If you use the data to train a commercial model and distribute it how is that not infringement? If I use a reversed Jay-Z sample in my music, I will still get sued. This is just a couple of orders of magnitude higher abstraction.

EnigmaFlare 2y ago
I'm not talking about distributing the model, just its output, which won't be something the user can non-creatively transform into a Jay-Z sample. However, if the model really can't regenerate its training data no matter how hard you try, then that would be fine too. I don't think anyone can really guarantee that now so that might be a problem, but it isn't necessarily a problem.

latexr 2y ago

> and it was put on the web so that it can be used, without any restrictions on what for No, this is not true at all. A lot of things are put on the web with plenty of “restrictions on what for”. That’s why licenses exist. Creative Commons being an example of licenses with well defined limits on what you can and cannot do with the content. Furthermore, a significant portion of content on the web was put there without permission: think piracy or revenge porn. AI systems have been trained on tons of pirated books. > Since it's on the web, there really is an implied permission to use it privately for whatever you want. There really is not. It’s just that if you’re using it privately then by definition no one else knows and thus no one can complain. It doesn’t mean that the creator condones whatever you’re doing. > Some artists assume they have more rights than they really do and that other people aren't even allowed to mimic their style. We’re not talking about “other people”. Another person mimicking your style is, to an extent, harmless because they’re also making a time investment to replicate your style. With the AI tools you can reproduce hundreds of knock offs in minutes. We have to stop with this comparison of “what these AI systems are doing is fine because humans could also do it by hand”. It is not the same thing. Scale matters.

MiguelX413 2y ago
I struggle to see how scale would fit into the equation
EnigmaFlare 2y ago
That material with restrictions on use would fall under the "grey area" he referred to. You're essentially not given permission to download/copy it if you're going to do the prohibited thing with it. But if it's just a random picture, there's an implied permission to download it and use it for yourself, since that's what it was put there for.
- yencabulator 2y ago
  There is no such implied permission. You have fair use, that's it. When something has a stated license, that only increases your rights to use it; the default is nothing allowed except fair use.