3 ms·

Which country has the most favorable 'fair use' laws, and why wouldn't big companies train their models there?

by rahimnathwani 2y ago

NitpickLawyer 2y ago
IIRC Japan has had at least one court ruling that training on copyrighted data is fair use (or a version thereof).
- anticensor 2y ago
  Japan does not have US-style fair use, their copyright exemptions are closer to UK/EU-style fair dealing (with stricter enforcement and a shorter copyright term on work-for-hire, though).
profmonocle 2y ago
Would that matter if the company wants to do business in countries with more restrictive laws? I.E. if I wrote my own spin-off of a popular book series, which was somehow considered fair use in country A, but considered infringing in country B, the publisher could get it removed from stores in country B. By the same logic, if AI training is ruled as copyright infringement in the US, it won't matter if the company trains their model somewhere else - if they open a US division to sell service using that model, they'd get sued. Granted I'm not an IP lawyer and AI IP law is in its infancy - maybe I'm missing something?
- rahimnathwani 2y ago
  IANAL but the article has a quotation from a lawyer that says that the infringing act is the training.
CaptainFever 2y ago
In the context of AI, it's possible that OpenAI is already doing this. From what I know, Singapore has the most pro-AI law currently, where any legally-acquired material can be used as training data, and you can legally ignore all opt-outs (e.g. in the ToS, noAI, etc). OpenAI has recently opened an office there. I'm not sure if it's related, but it's possible. Maybe this is why LAION was in the EU, too? They have a similar law too, though from what I know they require commercial entities to respect opt-outs. (Related to sibling comments; Japan seems to have one too.) https://store.lawnet.com/blog/post/understanding-the-text-and-data-mining-exception-to-copyright-laws-implications-for-training-large-language-models.html https://store.lawnet.com/blog/post/understanding-the-text-an...

Which country has the most favorable 'fair use' laws, and why wouldn't big companies train their models there?

NitpickLawyer 2y ago

IIRC Japan has had at least one court ruling that training on copyrighted data is fair use (or a version thereof).

anticensor 2y ago
Japan does not have US-style fair use, their copyright exemptions are closer to UK/EU-style fair dealing (with stricter enforcement and a shorter copyright term on work-for-hire, though).

profmonocle 2y ago

Would that matter if the company wants to do business in countries with more restrictive laws? I.E. if I wrote my own spin-off of a popular book series, which was somehow considered fair use in country A, but considered infringing in country B, the publisher could get it removed from stores in country B. By the same logic, if AI training is ruled as copyright infringement in the US, it won't matter if the company trains their model somewhere else - if they open a US division to sell service using that model, they'd get sued. Granted I'm not an IP lawyer and AI IP law is in its infancy - maybe I'm missing something?

rahimnathwani 2y ago
IANAL but the article has a quotation from a lawyer that says that the infringing act is the training.

CaptainFever 2y ago

In the context of AI, it's possible that OpenAI is already doing this. From what I know, Singapore has the most pro-AI law currently, where any legally-acquired material can be used as training data, and you can legally ignore all opt-outs (e.g. in the ToS, noAI, etc). OpenAI has recently opened an office there. I'm not sure if it's related, but it's possible. Maybe this is why LAION was in the EU, too? They have a similar law too, though from what I know they require commercial entities to respect opt-outs. (Related to sibling comments; Japan seems to have one too.) https://store.lawnet.com/blog/post/understanding-the-text-and-data-mining-exception-to-copyright-laws-implications-for-training-large-language-models.html https://store.lawnet.com/blog/post/understanding-the-text-an...