5 ms·

AI Training is Copyright Infringement (under European law)

27 points by layer8 2y ago

daedrdev 2y ago
“The composer and spokesperson for the Copyright Initiative, Matthias Hornschuh, comments: […]All the better that the authors of our tandem study…“ Seems quite a bit biased, no?
Etheryte 2y ago
Unless I misunderstood, that's, to put a bit bluntly, just their opinion, no court or government involved?
- layer8 2y ago
  University professors specializing in copyright law and AI are involved. It’s a study whose results are being presented to the European Parliament.
  - rpdillon 2y ago
    The title suggests that AI Training _is_ copyright infringement, but none of the folks talking have the authority to say that. An (increasingly common) case of folks asserting opinions as fact.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
  Opinion pieces at these levels are technically just that, but in practice, they can form the legal consensus. I don't know how common it is, but I have the impression that in at least one jurisdiction I'm aware of, publishing a journal article that argues for an interpretation of the law favorable to your client is an actual legal strategy employed by lawyers (for areas where the law is open to a lot of interpretation/there isn't much precedent yet).
  - ranger_danger 2y ago
    Source? I have serious doubts this actually exists in any meaningful capacity in the world.
ranger_danger 2y ago
From the article: > parts of the training data can be memorized in whole or in part by current generative models Humans do the same thing... >can therefore be generated again with suitable prompts by end users and thus reproduced Personal copies (even verbatim) are not disallowed in most countries AFAIK, the concern is regarding distribution which is a separate issue. I would have thought it would be fair use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9RYuvPCQUA&t=41m44s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9RYuvPCQUA&t=41m44s Since the derived work is merely inspired by the original, just like a human being uses inspiration to create new things, whether consciously or not (hence the video "everything is a remix"). The only debate IMO is just how much is being "copied" exactly, and how obvious it is.
- diogocp 2y ago
  Fair use is a concept from US law. The article is about German and European law, which differ significantly from US law in that regard.
  - ranger_danger 2y ago
    Yes I think fair use should exist in the EU as well.
    - falcolas 2y ago
      We don't even know in the US whether fair use applies. There are court cases out there which are trying to test those bounds. Personally, I don't think it is. Significant portions of copyrighted works can be re-created, and these models are being leveraged to make money. That makes them unlikely to be fair use. But, I'm not a lawyer nor judge.
      - ranger_danger 2y ago
        I don't think there can be a blanket definition that applies to everything. Just like "inspiration" humans use to create all kinds of art already (even subconsciously), it's a case-by-case analysis, and one judge's subjective opinion, over how significant is too significant, for each creation that is distributed.
Sakos 2y ago
If this is used in the EU successfully, it just means AI will continue to be developed and used everywhere else. I doubt the EU can afford to reject the kind of competitive advantage that could be enabled by it, particularly in the future when more advanced models are launched. We also can't afford to not be involved in developing them, but it already looks like we're hopelessly behind.
retskrad 2y ago
If the U.S. operated like the EU, we’d be far less advanced technologically. In a world run by EU-level bureaucracy, there would be no Tesla, Apple, SpaceX, OpenAI, Meta, Amazon. Europe seems to carry this inflated sense of self-importance, but what have they really contributed to the global tech landscape that justifies this ego? I live in Europe, but let’s be honest—people here rely on U.S. products daily. Aside from Spotify, how many truly global tech innovations have come from Europe? The EU is not only a stagnating economy, it’s also dependant on U.S. not only for military aid but also products and services like Google search, phones, Instagram and ChatGPT.
- cryptonym 2y ago
  > how many truly global tech innovations have come from Europe? Way more than you think. You are mostly listing businesses and not actual technologies or inventions that shaped the world.
  - DougN7 2y ago
    True. WWW came out of Zurich as I recall. On the other hand, if someone doesn’t productize a technology and get it into peoples’ hands, does it matter that it was researched?
    - cryptonym 2y ago
      Yes it matters. Even in the US. Otherwise you wouldn't have copyright laws, royalties, patent...
- ranger_danger 2y ago
  And from what I have seen in several sectors, companies are leaving the EU in droves due to this bureaucracy. Just try starting a small business in Germany for example... it's exhausting. California in the US is having a similar problem. Healthcare and medical companies for example not only have to deal with the federal regulatory bodies like FDA, but California also has their own independent "FDB" that also perform their own separate audits and such... and this is the case in many other industries as well.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ur-whale 2y ago
Europe is never going to be able to catch up in AI, much less innovate if it keeps cranking out useless and damaging regulation such as this. As Elon pointed out, when regulators crank out an endless stream of laws, they never ever think about: a) unintended consequences b) the fact that once a law is on the books, the effort to cancel it is such that it almost never goes away, however irrelevant or damaging it becomes. The result is mathematically an inextricable operating environment that stifles innovation, and more generally speaking economic output. It should be compulsory for every voted law and regulation to come with an automatic expiry date, only to be given a new lease on life by democratic process.
- cryptonym 2y ago
  This is not a new EU regulation. This is an assessment of model training under pre-existing regulation. If legal risk exist, the issue can be discussed and regulation can evolve accordingly to people's decision.
- layer8 2y ago
  There is no regulation being cranked out, in the context of TFA. It is the existing copyright law in Europe that is lacking any exemptions for AI use cases.
  - falcolas 2y ago
    Neither does the US for that matter. It’s not yet known if the Fair Use positive defense will apply.
seydor 2y ago
> Axel Voss, MEP and host of today's event in the European Parliament, expressly thanks the scientists Dornis and Stober and is pleased that This guy is pleased, PLEASED about the state of the laws. He s not gravely concerned and devastated that all across the EU training is illegal. He 's not asking for laws to be rewritten and exceptions being introduced, but instead he s jerking off to his own image in the mirror. I wonder how do German and Dutch people (the biggest EU contributors) feel about funding this level of idiocy. And what about the rest of us, the level of technophobia in the EU is giving us psychological trauma. Can we at least get compensation for our wounds
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
  Let's just say that I wasn't surprised at all when I saw the name, as I remember it coming up in the context of laws that are at odds with what the typical internet freedom proponents ("netizens", pirate parties, ...) consider sensible.
frankjr 2y ago
And EU's descent into technological irrelevance continues at a rapid pace.
Yizahi 2y ago
Great news, protection of creators and their work should be a priority. And if text generators will go broke without stealing other's property then good riddance.
modeless 2y ago
Let me get this straight. They crawl the entire web without explicit permission, only a weird opt-out process. They save a copy of all the copyrighted data on the entire web and preprocess it into a compressed form. Then in response to user requests they serve that copyrighted data directly to users, either paraphrased, quoted in small snippets, or even whole articles verbatim. Oh yes, Google Search is most definitely totally illegal. My point in saying this isn't just that search looks very similar to AI. A bigger point is that the same people making these arguments would have, and did, make those arguments against search. Imagine the world today if their lawsuits had been successful back in 1999 and building a search index had been deemed illegal. The world would not be a better place today.
- orev 2y ago
  Search has already been litigated, and is allowed because it brings benefits to the original sites through links back to the original sources. AI does no such thing, and therefore is not covered under any rulings that allow search indexes. It’s a totally different thing.
  - modeless 2y ago
    Perplexity cites its sources with hyperlinks. So it's totally legal in your opinion?
aeurielesn 2y ago
I'm shocked people in this thread think technological and research advancement means breaking laws and stealing copyrighted data. I'm hoping for this article to show up again on the frontpage on a EU timezone where I can read some civilized discussion about it.
- falcolas 2y ago
  Move fast and break things has always been a popular slogan in the startup industry, and "things" is quite often a replacement word for "laws I disagree with". Plus, many technologists believe that copyright should be outright abolished, again because they disagree with it. No matter that around 40%† of the US' GDP is generated by industries which make use of copyright protection. † https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/economic-research/intellectual-property-and-us-economy https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/economic-research/intellectu...
  - aeurielesn 2y ago
    All of them can be abused but patents are the most abusable among IP protections.
- rpdillon 2y ago
  > stealing copyrighted data. As ever, I'll be a pedant and point out that "stealing copyrighted data" is not a thing. More substantively, we don't know whether training is copyright infringement or not. The courts have yet to weigh in in any jurisdiction I'm aware of (i.e. the EU or the US).
  - aeurielesn 2y ago
    I didn't make any statements about rulings. I just commented about what seems to be the general sentiment this time around. As others pointed out, if LLM startups have to go broke after not being able to steal any more data then that will just be the reality of it.
    - 2y ago

27 points by layer8 2y ago

“The composer and spokesperson for the Copyright Initiative, Matthias Hornschuh, comments: […]All the better that the authors of our tandem study…“ Seems quite a bit biased, no?

Etheryte 2y ago

Unless I misunderstood, that's, to put a bit bluntly, just their opinion, no court or government involved?

layer8 2y ago
University professors specializing in copyright law and AI are involved. It’s a study whose results are being presented to the European Parliament.
- rpdillon 2y ago
  The title suggests that AI Training _is_ copyright infringement, but none of the folks talking have the authority to say that. An (increasingly common) case of folks asserting opinions as fact.
tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
Opinion pieces at these levels are technically just that, but in practice, they can form the legal consensus. I don't know how common it is, but I have the impression that in at least one jurisdiction I'm aware of, publishing a journal article that argues for an interpretation of the law favorable to your client is an actual legal strategy employed by lawyers (for areas where the law is open to a lot of interpretation/there isn't much precedent yet).
- ranger_danger 2y ago
  Source? I have serious doubts this actually exists in any meaningful capacity in the world.

ranger_danger 2y ago

From the article: > parts of the training data can be memorized in whole or in part by current generative models Humans do the same thing... >can therefore be generated again with suitable prompts by end users and thus reproduced Personal copies (even verbatim) are not disallowed in most countries AFAIK, the concern is regarding distribution which is a separate issue. I would have thought it would be fair use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9RYuvPCQUA&t=41m44s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9RYuvPCQUA&t=41m44s Since the derived work is merely inspired by the original, just like a human being uses inspiration to create new things, whether consciously or not (hence the video "everything is a remix"). The only debate IMO is just how much is being "copied" exactly, and how obvious it is.

diogocp 2y ago
Fair use is a concept from US law. The article is about German and European law, which differ significantly from US law in that regard.
- ranger_danger 2y ago
  Yes I think fair use should exist in the EU as well.
  - falcolas 2y ago
    We don't even know in the US whether fair use applies. There are court cases out there which are trying to test those bounds. Personally, I don't think it is. Significant portions of copyrighted works can be re-created, and these models are being leveraged to make money. That makes them unlikely to be fair use. But, I'm not a lawyer nor judge.
    - ranger_danger 2y ago
      I don't think there can be a blanket definition that applies to everything. Just like "inspiration" humans use to create all kinds of art already (even subconsciously), it's a case-by-case analysis, and one judge's subjective opinion, over how significant is too significant, for each creation that is distributed.

Sakos 2y ago

If this is used in the EU successfully, it just means AI will continue to be developed and used everywhere else. I doubt the EU can afford to reject the kind of competitive advantage that could be enabled by it, particularly in the future when more advanced models are launched. We also can't afford to not be involved in developing them, but it already looks like we're hopelessly behind.

retskrad 2y ago

If the U.S. operated like the EU, we’d be far less advanced technologically. In a world run by EU-level bureaucracy, there would be no Tesla, Apple, SpaceX, OpenAI, Meta, Amazon. Europe seems to carry this inflated sense of self-importance, but what have they really contributed to the global tech landscape that justifies this ego? I live in Europe, but let’s be honest—people here rely on U.S. products daily. Aside from Spotify, how many truly global tech innovations have come from Europe? The EU is not only a stagnating economy, it’s also dependant on U.S. not only for military aid but also products and services like Google search, phones, Instagram and ChatGPT.

cryptonym 2y ago
> how many truly global tech innovations have come from Europe? Way more than you think. You are mostly listing businesses and not actual technologies or inventions that shaped the world.
- DougN7 2y ago
  True. WWW came out of Zurich as I recall. On the other hand, if someone doesn’t productize a technology and get it into peoples’ hands, does it matter that it was researched?
  - cryptonym 2y ago
    Yes it matters. Even in the US. Otherwise you wouldn't have copyright laws, royalties, patent...
ranger_danger 2y ago
And from what I have seen in several sectors, companies are leaving the EU in droves due to this bureaucracy. Just try starting a small business in Germany for example... it's exhausting. California in the US is having a similar problem. Healthcare and medical companies for example not only have to deal with the federal regulatory bodies like FDA, but California also has their own independent "FDB" that also perform their own separate audits and such... and this is the case in many other industries as well.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ur-whale 2y ago

Europe is never going to be able to catch up in AI, much less innovate if it keeps cranking out useless and damaging regulation such as this. As Elon pointed out, when regulators crank out an endless stream of laws, they never ever think about: a) unintended consequences b) the fact that once a law is on the books, the effort to cancel it is such that it almost never goes away, however irrelevant or damaging it becomes. The result is mathematically an inextricable operating environment that stifles innovation, and more generally speaking economic output. It should be compulsory for every voted law and regulation to come with an automatic expiry date, only to be given a new lease on life by democratic process.

cryptonym 2y ago
This is not a new EU regulation. This is an assessment of model training under pre-existing regulation. If legal risk exist, the issue can be discussed and regulation can evolve accordingly to people's decision.
layer8 2y ago
There is no regulation being cranked out, in the context of TFA. It is the existing copyright law in Europe that is lacking any exemptions for AI use cases.
- falcolas 2y ago
  Neither does the US for that matter. It’s not yet known if the Fair Use positive defense will apply.

seydor 2y ago

> Axel Voss, MEP and host of today's event in the European Parliament, expressly thanks the scientists Dornis and Stober and is pleased that This guy is pleased, PLEASED about the state of the laws. He s not gravely concerned and devastated that all across the EU training is illegal. He 's not asking for laws to be rewritten and exceptions being introduced, but instead he s jerking off to his own image in the mirror. I wonder how do German and Dutch people (the biggest EU contributors) feel about funding this level of idiocy. And what about the rest of us, the level of technophobia in the EU is giving us psychological trauma. Can we at least get compensation for our wounds

tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
Let's just say that I wasn't surprised at all when I saw the name, as I remember it coming up in the context of laws that are at odds with what the typical internet freedom proponents ("netizens", pirate parties, ...) consider sensible.

frankjr 2y ago

And EU's descent into technological irrelevance continues at a rapid pace.

Yizahi 2y ago

Great news, protection of creators and their work should be a priority. And if text generators will go broke without stealing other's property then good riddance.

modeless 2y ago

Let me get this straight. They crawl the entire web without explicit permission, only a weird opt-out process. They save a copy of all the copyrighted data on the entire web and preprocess it into a compressed form. Then in response to user requests they serve that copyrighted data directly to users, either paraphrased, quoted in small snippets, or even whole articles verbatim. Oh yes, Google Search is most definitely totally illegal. My point in saying this isn't just that search looks very similar to AI. A bigger point is that the same people making these arguments would have, and did, make those arguments against search. Imagine the world today if their lawsuits had been successful back in 1999 and building a search index had been deemed illegal. The world would not be a better place today.

orev 2y ago
Search has already been litigated, and is allowed because it brings benefits to the original sites through links back to the original sources. AI does no such thing, and therefore is not covered under any rulings that allow search indexes. It’s a totally different thing.
- modeless 2y ago
  Perplexity cites its sources with hyperlinks. So it's totally legal in your opinion?

aeurielesn 2y ago

I'm shocked people in this thread think technological and research advancement means breaking laws and stealing copyrighted data. I'm hoping for this article to show up again on the frontpage on a EU timezone where I can read some civilized discussion about it.

falcolas 2y ago
Move fast and break things has always been a popular slogan in the startup industry, and "things" is quite often a replacement word for "laws I disagree with". Plus, many technologists believe that copyright should be outright abolished, again because they disagree with it. No matter that around 40%† of the US' GDP is generated by industries which make use of copyright protection. † https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/economic-research/intellectual-property-and-us-economy https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/economic-research/intellectu...
- aeurielesn 2y ago
  All of them can be abused but patents are the most abusable among IP protections.
rpdillon 2y ago
> stealing copyrighted data. As ever, I'll be a pedant and point out that "stealing copyrighted data" is not a thing. More substantively, we don't know whether training is copyright infringement or not. The courts have yet to weigh in in any jurisdiction I'm aware of (i.e. the EU or the US).
- aeurielesn 2y ago
  I didn't make any statements about rulings. I just commented about what seems to be the general sentiment this time around. As others pointed out, if LLM startups have to go broke after not being able to steal any more data then that will just be the reality of it.
  - 2y ago