6 ms·

Nothing to disagree in this statement, for sure. If it's on the open internet, it will almost surely be used for AI training, consent be damned. But it feels li

by dend 2y ago

Nothing to disagree in this statement, for sure. If it's on the open internet, it will almost surely be used for AI training, consent be damned. But it feels like even at a rudimentary level, if I post a picture on my site that is then used by a large publisher for ads, I would (at least in theory) have some recourse to pursue the matter and prevent them from using my content. In contrast, if I uploaded something to a social media site like Instagram, and then Meta "sublicensed" my image to someone else, I wouldn't have much to say there. Would love someone with actual legal knowledge to chime in here.

chii 2y ago
> Meta "sublicensed" my image to someone else, I wouldn't have much to say there. but you agreed to this, when agreeing to the TOS. > I post a picture on my site that is then used by a large publisher for ads, I would (at least in theory) have some recourse which you didn't sign any contract, and therefore it is a violation of copyright. But the new AI training methods are currently, at least imho, not a violation of copyright - not any more than a human eye viewing it (which you've implicitly given permission to do so, by putting it up on the internet). On the other hand, if you put it behind a gate (no matter how trivial), then you could've at least legally protected yourself.
- immibis 2y ago
  > but you agreed to this Yes, that was the point? You agree to this by using Meta. So don't.
- ehnto 2y ago
  Strong disagree on the last paragraph. It's data online, your data, and it was used for commercial purposes without your consent. In fact, I never consented for anyone to access my server. Just because it has an IP address, does not make it a public service. Obviously in a practical sense that is a silly position to take, and in prior cases there is usually an extenuating factor that got the person charged, eg breaking through access controls, violating ToS, or intellectual property violations. But I don't rescind the prior statement. Just because I have an address doesn't mean you can come in through any unlocked doors.
  - ahtihn 2y ago
    > In fact, I never consented for anyone to access my server. Just because it has an IP address, does not make it a public service. If you don't take any steps to make it clear that it's not public, like an auth wall or putting pages on unguessable paths, then it is public, because that is what everyone expects. Just like you if you have a storefront, if the door is unlocked you'd expect people to just come in and no one would take you seriously if you complain that people keep coming in if you don't somehow make it clear that they're not supposed to.
    - DrScientist 2y ago
      Your shop might be open sure - but aren't we talking about people coming in and taking whatever they like for free? ie if you were an art gallery, the expectation would be people could come in and look, but you don't expect them to come in, photograph everything and then sell prints of everything online.
      - chii 2y ago
        That's not what's happening. Instead, it's that there's some people coming into your gallery, studying the art and its style, and leaving with the learned information. They then replicate that style in their own gallery. Of course, none of the images are copies, or would be judged to be copies by a reasonable person. So now you, the gallery owner, want to forbid just those people who would come to learn the style. But you still want people to come and admire the art, and may be buy a print.
        DrScientist 2y ago
        > Of course, none of the images are copies, or would be judged to be copies by a reasonable person. That's the fiction of course. Tell me how something like ChatGPT can simultaneously claim to return accurate information while at the same time being completely independent from the sources of the information? In terms of images - copyright isn't only for exact copies - it if was then humans would have been taking the piss by making minor changes for decades. Sure you could argue some is fair use with genuinely original content being produced in the process, but I think you are also overlooking an important part of what's considered 'fair' - industrialised copying of source material isn't really the same in terms of fairness as one person getting inspiration. Taking the Encylopedia Britanica and running it though an algorithm to change the wording, but not the meaning, and selling it on is really not the same as a student reading it and including those facts in their essay - the latter is considered fair use, the former is taking the piss.
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago
  > but you agreed to this, when agreeing to the TOS The legal definition of agreement means basically zilch
- entropi 2y ago
  >But the new AI training methods are currently, at least imho, not a violation of copyright - not any more than a human eye viewing it (which you've implicitly given permission to do so, by putting it up on the internet). I don't understand how that matters. I thought that the whole idea of copyright and licences was that the holder of the rights can decide what is ok to do with the content and what is not. If the holder of the rights does not agree to a certain kind of use, what else is there to discuss? It sure does not matter if I think that downloading a torrent is not any more pirating than borrowing a media from my friend.
  - chii 2y ago
    > If the holder of the rights does not agree to a certain kind of use, what else is there to discuss? the holder of content does not automatically get to prescribe how i would use said content, as long as i comply with the copyrights. The holder does not get to dictate anything beyond that - for example, i can learn from the content. Or i can berate it. Copyright is not a right that covers every single conceivable use - it is a limited set of uses that have been outlayed in the law. So the current arguments center on the fact that it is unknown if existing copyright covers the use of said works in ML training.
    - chromanoid 2y ago
      yeah, it is called _copy_ right. The question is, if AI is making obfuscated copies or not. interestingly in German it is not called copyright, but Urheberrecht "authors rights". So there the word itself implies more things. BTW at least in Germany you can own image rights of your art piece or building that is placed in a public place.
    - TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
      Copyright means the holder does automatically get to prescribe how content can be copied. That's literally the definition of copyright. A typical copyright notice for a book says something like (to paraphrase...) "not to be stored, transmitted, or used by or on any electronic device without explicit permission." That clearly includes use for training, because you can't train without making a copy, even if the copy is subsequently thrown away. Any argument about this is trying to redefine copyright as the right to extract the semantic or cultural value of a document. In reality the definition is already clear - no copying of a document by any means for any purpose without explicit permission. This is even implicitly acknowledged in the CC definitions. CC would be meaningless and pointless without it.
- DrScientist 2y ago
  > But the new AI training methods are currently, at least imho, not a violation of copyright - not any more than a human eye viewing it Interesting comparison - as if a human viewed something, memorized it and reproduced in a recognisable way to be pretty much the same, wouldn't that still breach copyright? ie in the human case it doesn't matter whether it went through an intermediate neural encoding - what matters is whether the output is sufficiently similar to be deemed a copy. Surely the same is the case of AI?
  - omnimus 2y ago
    This whole AI learns like a human is trajectory of thought pushed by AI companies. They at same time try to humanize AI (it learns like a human would) and dehumanize humans (humans are stochastic parrots anyway). It's if anything a distraction if not straight up anti-human. But you are right that copyright is complex and in the end decided by human (often in court). Consider how code infringement is not about code itself but about what it does. If you saw somewhat original implementation of something and then you rewrite it in different language by yourself there is high chance its still copyright infringement. On the other hand with images and art it's even more about cultural context. For example works of pop artists like Andy Warhol are for sure original works (even though some of it was disputed recently in court and lost). Nobody considers Andy Warhols work unoriginal even if it often looks very similar to some output it was riffing off because the essence is different to the original. Compare that to pepople prompting directly with name of artist they want to replicate. This in direct copyright infringement in both essence and intention no matter the resulting image. Also it's different to when human would want to replicate some artist style because humans can't do it 100% even if they want to. There is still piece of their "essence". There are many people who try to fake some famous artist style and sell it as real thing and simply can't do it. This is of course copyright infringement because of the intent but it's more original work than anything coming from LLMs.
    - DrScientist 2y ago
      It's both complex and extremely simple for the same reason - it's a human judgement in the end. Just because you can't define something mathematically, doesn't mean it isn't obvious to most people in 99% of cases. Reminds me of the endless games in tax law/avoidance/evasion and the almost pointless attempt to define something absolutely in words. To be honest you could simplify the whole thing by having a 'taking the piss' test - if the jury thinks you are obviously 'taking the piss' then you are guilty - and if you whine about the law not being clear and how it's unfair because you don't know whether or not you are breaking the law - well don't take the piss then - don't pretend you don't know whether something is an agressive tax dodge or not. If you create some fake IP, and license it from some shell company in a low tax regime to nuke your profits in the country you are actually doing business in - let's not pretend we all can't see what you doing there - you are taking the piss. Same goes for what some tech companies are doing right now - every reasonable person can see they are taking the piss - and high paid lawyers arguing technicalities isn't going to change that.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Terr_ 2y ago
  If they aren't a violation of copyright, then I want to see what happens when people are trading around models and "prompts" that describe recently released movies and music sufficiently that it competes with the original. Not necessarily because I like either "we monetize public work" or "copyright robber-barons", but I'd like at least one of them to clearly lose so that the rest of us have clear and fair rules to work with.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

by dend 2y ago

chii 2y ago

> Meta "sublicensed" my image to someone else, I wouldn't have much to say there. but you agreed to this, when agreeing to the TOS. > I post a picture on my site that is then used by a large publisher for ads, I would (at least in theory) have some recourse which you didn't sign any contract, and therefore it is a violation of copyright. But the new AI training methods are currently, at least imho, not a violation of copyright - not any more than a human eye viewing it (which you've implicitly given permission to do so, by putting it up on the internet). On the other hand, if you put it behind a gate (no matter how trivial), then you could've at least legally protected yourself.

immibis 2y ago
> but you agreed to this Yes, that was the point? You agree to this by using Meta. So don't.
ehnto 2y ago
Strong disagree on the last paragraph. It's data online, your data, and it was used for commercial purposes without your consent. In fact, I never consented for anyone to access my server. Just because it has an IP address, does not make it a public service. Obviously in a practical sense that is a silly position to take, and in prior cases there is usually an extenuating factor that got the person charged, eg breaking through access controls, violating ToS, or intellectual property violations. But I don't rescind the prior statement. Just because I have an address doesn't mean you can come in through any unlocked doors.
- ahtihn 2y ago
  > In fact, I never consented for anyone to access my server. Just because it has an IP address, does not make it a public service. If you don't take any steps to make it clear that it's not public, like an auth wall or putting pages on unguessable paths, then it is public, because that is what everyone expects. Just like you if you have a storefront, if the door is unlocked you'd expect people to just come in and no one would take you seriously if you complain that people keep coming in if you don't somehow make it clear that they're not supposed to.
  - DrScientist 2y ago
    Your shop might be open sure - but aren't we talking about people coming in and taking whatever they like for free? ie if you were an art gallery, the expectation would be people could come in and look, but you don't expect them to come in, photograph everything and then sell prints of everything online.
    - chii 2y ago
      That's not what's happening. Instead, it's that there's some people coming into your gallery, studying the art and its style, and leaving with the learned information. They then replicate that style in their own gallery. Of course, none of the images are copies, or would be judged to be copies by a reasonable person. So now you, the gallery owner, want to forbid just those people who would come to learn the style. But you still want people to come and admire the art, and may be buy a print.
      - DrScientist 2y ago
        > Of course, none of the images are copies, or would be judged to be copies by a reasonable person. That's the fiction of course. Tell me how something like ChatGPT can simultaneously claim to return accurate information while at the same time being completely independent from the sources of the information? In terms of images - copyright isn't only for exact copies - it if was then humans would have been taking the piss by making minor changes for decades. Sure you could argue some is fair use with genuinely original content being produced in the process, but I think you are also overlooking an important part of what's considered 'fair' - industrialised copying of source material isn't really the same in terms of fairness as one person getting inspiration. Taking the Encylopedia Britanica and running it though an algorithm to change the wording, but not the meaning, and selling it on is really not the same as a student reading it and including those facts in their essay - the latter is considered fair use, the former is taking the piss.
PittleyDunkin 2y ago
> but you agreed to this, when agreeing to the TOS The legal definition of agreement means basically zilch
entropi 2y ago
>But the new AI training methods are currently, at least imho, not a violation of copyright - not any more than a human eye viewing it (which you've implicitly given permission to do so, by putting it up on the internet). I don't understand how that matters. I thought that the whole idea of copyright and licences was that the holder of the rights can decide what is ok to do with the content and what is not. If the holder of the rights does not agree to a certain kind of use, what else is there to discuss? It sure does not matter if I think that downloading a torrent is not any more pirating than borrowing a media from my friend.
- chii 2y ago
  > If the holder of the rights does not agree to a certain kind of use, what else is there to discuss? the holder of content does not automatically get to prescribe how i would use said content, as long as i comply with the copyrights. The holder does not get to dictate anything beyond that - for example, i can learn from the content. Or i can berate it. Copyright is not a right that covers every single conceivable use - it is a limited set of uses that have been outlayed in the law. So the current arguments center on the fact that it is unknown if existing copyright covers the use of said works in ML training.
  - chromanoid 2y ago
    yeah, it is called _copy_ right. The question is, if AI is making obfuscated copies or not. interestingly in German it is not called copyright, but Urheberrecht "authors rights". So there the word itself implies more things. BTW at least in Germany you can own image rights of your art piece or building that is placed in a public place.
  - TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
    Copyright means the holder does automatically get to prescribe how content can be copied. That's literally the definition of copyright. A typical copyright notice for a book says something like (to paraphrase...) "not to be stored, transmitted, or used by or on any electronic device without explicit permission." That clearly includes use for training, because you can't train without making a copy, even if the copy is subsequently thrown away. Any argument about this is trying to redefine copyright as the right to extract the semantic or cultural value of a document. In reality the definition is already clear - no copying of a document by any means for any purpose without explicit permission. This is even implicitly acknowledged in the CC definitions. CC would be meaningless and pointless without it.
DrScientist 2y ago
> But the new AI training methods are currently, at least imho, not a violation of copyright - not any more than a human eye viewing it Interesting comparison - as if a human viewed something, memorized it and reproduced in a recognisable way to be pretty much the same, wouldn't that still breach copyright? ie in the human case it doesn't matter whether it went through an intermediate neural encoding - what matters is whether the output is sufficiently similar to be deemed a copy. Surely the same is the case of AI?
- omnimus 2y ago
  This whole AI learns like a human is trajectory of thought pushed by AI companies. They at same time try to humanize AI (it learns like a human would) and dehumanize humans (humans are stochastic parrots anyway). It's if anything a distraction if not straight up anti-human. But you are right that copyright is complex and in the end decided by human (often in court). Consider how code infringement is not about code itself but about what it does. If you saw somewhat original implementation of something and then you rewrite it in different language by yourself there is high chance its still copyright infringement. On the other hand with images and art it's even more about cultural context. For example works of pop artists like Andy Warhol are for sure original works (even though some of it was disputed recently in court and lost). Nobody considers Andy Warhols work unoriginal even if it often looks very similar to some output it was riffing off because the essence is different to the original. Compare that to pepople prompting directly with name of artist they want to replicate. This in direct copyright infringement in both essence and intention no matter the resulting image. Also it's different to when human would want to replicate some artist style because humans can't do it 100% even if they want to. There is still piece of their "essence". There are many people who try to fake some famous artist style and sell it as real thing and simply can't do it. This is of course copyright infringement because of the intent but it's more original work than anything coming from LLMs.
  - DrScientist 2y ago
    It's both complex and extremely simple for the same reason - it's a human judgement in the end. Just because you can't define something mathematically, doesn't mean it isn't obvious to most people in 99% of cases. Reminds me of the endless games in tax law/avoidance/evasion and the almost pointless attempt to define something absolutely in words. To be honest you could simplify the whole thing by having a 'taking the piss' test - if the jury thinks you are obviously 'taking the piss' then you are guilty - and if you whine about the law not being clear and how it's unfair because you don't know whether or not you are breaking the law - well don't take the piss then - don't pretend you don't know whether something is an agressive tax dodge or not. If you create some fake IP, and license it from some shell company in a low tax regime to nuke your profits in the country you are actually doing business in - let's not pretend we all can't see what you doing there - you are taking the piss. Same goes for what some tech companies are doing right now - every reasonable person can see they are taking the piss - and high paid lawyers arguing technicalities isn't going to change that.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Terr_ 2y ago
If they aren't a violation of copyright, then I want to see what happens when people are trading around models and "prompts" that describe recently released movies and music sufficiently that it competes with the original. Not necessarily because I like either "we monetize public work" or "copyright robber-barons", but I'd like at least one of them to clearly lose so that the rest of us have clear and fair rules to work with.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]