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"By continuing, you agree that using any content from this site in training Generative AI grants the site-owner a perpetual, irrevocable, and royalty-free licen

by Terr_ 2y ago

"By continuing, you agree that using any content from this site in training Generative AI grants the site-owner a perpetual, irrevocable, and royalty-free license to use and re-license any and all output created by that Generative AI system, including but not limited to derivative works based on that output." Just just a GPL-esque idea I've been musing lately [0], I'd appreciate any feedback from actual IP lawyers. The idea is to add a poison-pill, and if a company "steals" your content for their own profit, you can strike back by making it very hard for them to actually monetize the results. Since it's a kind of contract, it doesn't rely on how much work seems to be surfacing in a particular output. So supposing ArtTheft Inc. snarfs up Jane Doe's paintings from her blog, she--or any similar victim--can declare that they grant the world an almost-public license to anything ArtTheft Inc. has made based on that model. If this happens ArtTheft Inc. could still make some money selling physical prints, but anyone else could undercut them with free or cheaper copies. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42582615 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42582615

amiantos 2y ago
That's cute, I'm going to put that at the start of any creative work I make so that anyone who sees it owes me a license to everything they ever made afterward because a nugget of their life experience legally belongs to me now and all their creative works are now tainted by that.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  I didn't expect you to admit you were a computer program so readily. :p Do you have any more-substantive critique? It sounds like you're trying to argue that the terms will be found to be unconscionable. However it's not asking for any payment, or even any effort-taking action: it's just saying that the site-owner provides content on the condition that if you incorporate that content into a generative product, the site-owner gets to use the results too. Clearly the people hoovering up training-data believe my work has some economic value to themselves, or they wouldn't be running a giant web crawler hitting every page of the blog--it's not as if they're arriving out of boredom, or because they followed some opaque hyperlink in curiosity.
protocolture 2y ago
I dont think you can exclaim away fair use protections. Otherwise everyone already would.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > I dont think you can exclaim away fair use protections. "Copyright doesn't stop me from X" is different from "copyright lets me do X even though I agreed to a contract saying I wouldn't." (I have many problems with modern click/shrink-wrap, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms and I'm just trying to "fight fire with fire" here.) If the average ToS has no force, then HN is currently infringing on my copyright by showing this post to you.
  - protocolture 2y ago
    Theres no valid TOS provided to a human to read when I am scraping the entire internet. I dont think wget can sign a contract? Has anyone managed to hit Google or Yahoo with a TOS violation?
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      Unclear. There was hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn but that focused on whether it was unauthorized access under the CFAA. In X Corp. v. Bright Data Ltd., a quick skim suggests ExTwitter's ToS lost because (A) it wasn't really the owner of the content and (B) they couldn't easily show harm. IANAL again, but for personal blog, (A) is unlikely to apply, and (B) could be shown if ArtTheft Inc. starts causing legal fees by threatening the blogger for exercising the re-licensing in the ToS.

by Terr_ 2y ago

amiantos 2y ago

That's cute, I'm going to put that at the start of any creative work I make so that anyone who sees it owes me a license to everything they ever made afterward because a nugget of their life experience legally belongs to me now and all their creative works are now tainted by that.

Terr_ 2y ago
I didn't expect you to admit you were a computer program so readily. :p Do you have any more-substantive critique? It sounds like you're trying to argue that the terms will be found to be unconscionable. However it's not asking for any payment, or even any effort-taking action: it's just saying that the site-owner provides content on the condition that if you incorporate that content into a generative product, the site-owner gets to use the results too. Clearly the people hoovering up training-data believe my work has some economic value to themselves, or they wouldn't be running a giant web crawler hitting every page of the blog--it's not as if they're arriving out of boredom, or because they followed some opaque hyperlink in curiosity.

protocolture 2y ago

I dont think you can exclaim away fair use protections. Otherwise everyone already would.

Terr_ 2y ago
> I dont think you can exclaim away fair use protections. "Copyright doesn't stop me from X" is different from "copyright lets me do X even though I agreed to a contract saying I wouldn't." (I have many problems with modern click/shrink-wrap, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms and I'm just trying to "fight fire with fire" here.) If the average ToS has no force, then HN is currently infringing on my copyright by showing this post to you.
- protocolture 2y ago
  Theres no valid TOS provided to a human to read when I am scraping the entire internet. I dont think wget can sign a contract? Has anyone managed to hit Google or Yahoo with a TOS violation?
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    Unclear. There was hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn but that focused on whether it was unauthorized access under the CFAA. In X Corp. v. Bright Data Ltd., a quick skim suggests ExTwitter's ToS lost because (A) it wasn't really the owner of the content and (B) they couldn't easily show harm. IANAL again, but for personal blog, (A) is unlikely to apply, and (B) could be shown if ArtTheft Inc. starts causing legal fees by threatening the blogger for exercising the re-licensing in the ToS.