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I will again ask the obligatory question: are model weights even copyrightable? And if not, does the "license" still matter?
by ronsor 2y ago
I will again ask the obligatory question: are model weights even copyrightable? And if not, does the "license" still matter?
- parl_match 2y agoI doubt there will be a satisfactory answer for a long time.
- killjoywashere 2y agoHow's that NYTimes vs OpenAI lawsuit going? Last I can find is things are hung up in discovery: OpenAI has requested potentially a century of NYTimes reporters' notes. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/openais-aggressive-court-tactics-test-first-amendment-limits https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/openais-aggressive-cour...
- bdowling 2y agoHalf a century worth of reporters’ notes might be some valuable training data.
- neilv 2y ago> The AI company asked Judge Sidney H. Stein of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York to step in and compel the Times to produce reporters’ notes, interview memos, and other materials for each of the roughly 10 million contested articles the publication alleges were illegally plugged into the company’s AI models. OpenAI said it needs the material to suss out the copyrightability of the articles. The Times quickly fired back, calling the request absurd. Can any lawyer on here defend OpenAI's request? Or is the article not characterizing it well in the quote?
- warkdarrior 2y ago(IANAL) Model weights could be treated the same way phone books, encyclopedias, and other collections of data are treated. The copyright is over the collection itself, even if the individual items are not copyrightable.
- TMWNN 2y ago>phone books, encyclopedias, and other collections of data are treated Encyclopedias are copyrightable. Phone books are not.
- ronsor 2y agoEncyclopedias may be collections of facts, but the writing is generally creative. Phone books are literally just facts. AI models are literally just facts.
- roywiggins 2y agoWhat if I train an AI model on exactly one copyrighted work and all it does it spit that work back out? eg if I upload Marvels_Avengers.mkv.onnx and it reliably reproduces the original (after all, it's just a fact that the first byte of the original file is OxF0, etc)
- ronsor 2y agoIf the sole purpose of your model is to copy a work, then that's copyright infringement.
- roywiggins 2y agoOh, in this case, the model can either reproduce the work exactly, or it can play tic-tac-toe depending on how you prompt it.
- ronsor 2y agoWe can change "sole purpose" to "primary purpose", and I'd argue something that happens 50% of the time counts as a primary purpose.
- PeterStuer 2y agoIf the sole purpose of your model is to copy a work, then there would be far easier, cheaper and more reliable techniques to achieve that. Judge the output, not the system.