4 ms·

It’s not a copyright violation. Maybe not myself, but many averagely-talented artists can draw Mickey Mouse. They might even draw one for me if I ask! Or I ca

by tomp 2y ago

It’s not a copyright violation. Maybe not myself, but many averagely-talented artists can draw Mickey Mouse. They might even draw one for me if I ask! Or I can just find it on Google… (technically my computer is producing it on the screen…) That in itself is not a copyright violation. But if I use it, in a commercial manner, then it becomes a copyright violation. Producing copyrighted things isn’t illegal. It’s on the user to not use copyrighted things, in a way that’s illegal (not fair use or licenced).

BobaFloutist 2y ago
But the AI is a commercial product, that is able to produce copyrighted material. How is that not using copyrighted material for commercial purposes?
- amanaplanacanal 2y ago
  A cassette recorder is a commercial product that is able to produce copyrighted material. If the user directs it to.
  - skydhash 2y ago
    There was no media used as the material for the cassete recorder.
kelnos 2y ago
So what? Most uses when we're talking about code or artwork are going to involve someone taking the generated result and publishing it somewhere. > But if I use it, in a commercial manner, then it becomes a copyright violation. No, that's incorrect. Commercial use has nothing to do with it. Any act of distribution, regardless of whether or not it's for commercial or personal use, regardless of whether you charge $100,000 or $0, falls under copyright law.
- Maxatar 2y ago
  You can usually dismiss anyone who talks about the law in such absolute terms, especially when it comes to copyright. The U.S. Copyright Office has some guidelines about fair use, and non-commercial as well as personal use are listed as considerations that courts take into account when judging whether an unlicensed copy constitutes an infringement: https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/ https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    You're technically correct, but this ignores some unfortunate realities of DMCA for the smaller fry. The bigger fry are and will keep fighting to change the ideas of copryright, now that it's inconvinient for them after spending decades strenghening it.
    - Maxatar 2y ago
      No one who draws Mickey Mouse for personal use is getting prosecuted or litigated, big or small.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        I pretty much said that, yes. But the argument of "personal use" ends when you post on the internet. Which is what most "big fries" are doing as some endpoint. But those are more "medium fries" anyway. The "big fries" aren't gonna take any risk whatsoever unless they are going the edgy parody route (someone like Adult Swim). There's little upside to Bungie or Microsoft or Laika posting Mickey mouse to begin with
        Maxatar 2y ago
        You are making it seem like people aren't getting sued for drawing Mickey Mouse for personal use because Disney would rather go after the big guys. My point is that it is perfectly legal to draw Mickey Mouse for your own personal use because it does not violate the law.
codedokode 2y ago
Technically torrent sites do not host copyrighted content but you can go to jail for this.
codedokode 2y ago
The fact that those service can reproduce copyrighted content proves that it was used during training. And was it legally obtained? How do you think, services like Udio bought millions of CDs? Or they got the training material somewhere else? You cannot legally download content from streaming services for example.
spmurrayzzz 2y ago
> Producing copyrighted things isn’t illegal That isn't true, strictly speaking. The right to reproduce work is covered by copyright law, irrespective of whether the reproduction is commercial or not.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
yes, and no. Stricly speaking you need a licesnse to allow you to use copyright information. Even if it's non-commercial (obvious example, if you post, say, Jasmine making out with Hitler on some non-monetized account, Disney can take that down. Or try. It really comes down to if the platform wants to argue fair use or parody or whatnot. Most won't defend you, though). But enforcement-wise, Disney won't bother going after every copyright potential. They will focus on the biggest money makers or the biggest potential to brand damage. So it's not a worry for most people who will just draw some mickey mouse for a friend, or even private client as long as they aren't stupid.
codedokode 2y ago
I wanted to note that you cannot compare learning by a human and "ML learning" which basically is calculating coefficients from copyrighted materials. Don't those coefficients fall under definition of a "derivative work" by the way? ML models are not "learning" in the same way as human do, and while they use the misleading word "learning" is has completely different meaning; also, ML models are not humans and therefore they are not subject of laws; the engineers who perform calculations are. So comparing calculation of ML model parameters to a person studying art is incorrect; you should compare engineers performing calculations with data from copyrighted material to a person studying art. It is immediately obvious that there cases are not equivalent. And those engineers are not learning anything in the process so the cannot use the analogy as an excuse.
camgunz 2y ago
> Producing copyrighted things isn’t illegal. There's no difference between producing and copying. Let's take a real world example: music samples. There's an entire clearinghouse process for music sampling, more or less forged after the 80s/90s when sampling blew up. Record companies and artist were like, "hey that's my song", courts agreed, a market was created. This is pretty analogous to what's happening now, which is code samples. Developers are like, "hey that's my code". But that's where we're diverging, and this is probably because big companies aren't involved. People were sampling Atlantic Records' stuff. People aren't sampling Microsoft's stuff, they're sampling random GitHub OSS project guy's stuff. But to your point, you're basically arguing that it's fine as long as no one listens to "Bitter Sweet Symphony". Most people think it's not the end user (listener) who's infringing copyright, but the party doing the copying (The Verve). Even if we accept your principle here, you're putting way too heavy a burden on people who use services like Copilot. Am I supposed to check that everything I autocomplete is properly licensed? You more or less said "shut these services down" in so many words.

by tomp 2y ago

BobaFloutist 2y ago

But the AI is a commercial product, that is able to produce copyrighted material. How is that not using copyrighted material for commercial purposes?

amanaplanacanal 2y ago
A cassette recorder is a commercial product that is able to produce copyrighted material. If the user directs it to.
- skydhash 2y ago
  There was no media used as the material for the cassete recorder.

kelnos 2y ago

So what? Most uses when we're talking about code or artwork are going to involve someone taking the generated result and publishing it somewhere. > But if I use it, in a commercial manner, then it becomes a copyright violation. No, that's incorrect. Commercial use has nothing to do with it. Any act of distribution, regardless of whether or not it's for commercial or personal use, regardless of whether you charge $100,000 or $0, falls under copyright law.

Maxatar 2y ago
You can usually dismiss anyone who talks about the law in such absolute terms, especially when it comes to copyright. The U.S. Copyright Office has some guidelines about fair use, and non-commercial as well as personal use are listed as considerations that courts take into account when judging whether an unlicensed copy constitutes an infringement: https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/ https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  You're technically correct, but this ignores some unfortunate realities of DMCA for the smaller fry. The bigger fry are and will keep fighting to change the ideas of copryright, now that it's inconvinient for them after spending decades strenghening it.
  - Maxatar 2y ago
    No one who draws Mickey Mouse for personal use is getting prosecuted or litigated, big or small.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      I pretty much said that, yes. But the argument of "personal use" ends when you post on the internet. Which is what most "big fries" are doing as some endpoint. But those are more "medium fries" anyway. The "big fries" aren't gonna take any risk whatsoever unless they are going the edgy parody route (someone like Adult Swim). There's little upside to Bungie or Microsoft or Laika posting Mickey mouse to begin with
      - Maxatar 2y ago
        You are making it seem like people aren't getting sued for drawing Mickey Mouse for personal use because Disney would rather go after the big guys. My point is that it is perfectly legal to draw Mickey Mouse for your own personal use because it does not violate the law.

codedokode 2y ago

Technically torrent sites do not host copyrighted content but you can go to jail for this.

codedokode 2y ago

The fact that those service can reproduce copyrighted content proves that it was used during training. And was it legally obtained? How do you think, services like Udio bought millions of CDs? Or they got the training material somewhere else? You cannot legally download content from streaming services for example.

spmurrayzzz 2y ago

> Producing copyrighted things isn’t illegal That isn't true, strictly speaking. The right to reproduce work is covered by copyright law, irrespective of whether the reproduction is commercial or not.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

yes, and no. Stricly speaking you need a licesnse to allow you to use copyright information. Even if it's non-commercial (obvious example, if you post, say, Jasmine making out with Hitler on some non-monetized account, Disney can take that down. Or try. It really comes down to if the platform wants to argue fair use or parody or whatnot. Most won't defend you, though). But enforcement-wise, Disney won't bother going after every copyright potential. They will focus on the biggest money makers or the biggest potential to brand damage. So it's not a worry for most people who will just draw some mickey mouse for a friend, or even private client as long as they aren't stupid.

codedokode 2y ago

I wanted to note that you cannot compare learning by a human and "ML learning" which basically is calculating coefficients from copyrighted materials. Don't those coefficients fall under definition of a "derivative work" by the way? ML models are not "learning" in the same way as human do, and while they use the misleading word "learning" is has completely different meaning; also, ML models are not humans and therefore they are not subject of laws; the engineers who perform calculations are. So comparing calculation of ML model parameters to a person studying art is incorrect; you should compare engineers performing calculations with data from copyrighted material to a person studying art. It is immediately obvious that there cases are not equivalent. And those engineers are not learning anything in the process so the cannot use the analogy as an excuse.

camgunz 2y ago

> Producing copyrighted things isn’t illegal. There's no difference between producing and copying. Let's take a real world example: music samples. There's an entire clearinghouse process for music sampling, more or less forged after the 80s/90s when sampling blew up. Record companies and artist were like, "hey that's my song", courts agreed, a market was created. This is pretty analogous to what's happening now, which is code samples. Developers are like, "hey that's my code". But that's where we're diverging, and this is probably because big companies aren't involved. People were sampling Atlantic Records' stuff. People aren't sampling Microsoft's stuff, they're sampling random GitHub OSS project guy's stuff. But to your point, you're basically arguing that it's fine as long as no one listens to "Bitter Sweet Symphony". Most people think it's not the end user (listener) who's infringing copyright, but the party doing the copying (The Verve). Even if we accept your principle here, you're putting way too heavy a burden on people who use services like Copilot. Am I supposed to check that everything I autocomplete is properly licensed? You more or less said "shut these services down" in so many words.