6 ms·

OpenAI is taking the position similar to that if you sell a cook book, people are not allowed to teach the recipes to their kids, or make better versions of the

by leobg 2y ago

OpenAI is taking the position similar to that if you sell a cook book, people are not allowed to teach the recipes to their kids, or make better versions of them. That is absurd. Copyright law is designed to strike a balance between two issues. One the one hand, the creator’s personality that’s baked into the specific form of expression. And on the other hand, society’s interest in ideas being circulated, improved and combined for the common good. OpenAI built on the shoulders of almost every person that wrote text on a website, authored a book, or shared a video online. Now others build on the shoulders of OpenAI. How should the former be legal but not the latter? Can’t have it both ways, Sam. (IAAL, for what it’s worth.)

otterley 2y ago
As another attorney, I would impart some more wisdom: "Karma's a bitch, ain't it."
- chris_wot 2y ago
  I quite agree. The NY Times must be feeling a lot of schadenfreude right now.
hintymad 2y ago
Just to play devil's advocate, OAI can argue that they spent great effort creating and procuring annotated data. Such datasets are indeed their secret, and now DS gets them for free by distilling OAI's output. Besides, OAI's EULA explicitly forbids users from using the output of their API for model training. I'm not saying that OAI is right, of course. Just to present OAI's point of view.
- 9dev 2y ago
  So a bank robber that manages to steal from Fort Knox gets to keep the gold bars because it was a very complicated job?
  - codehalo 2y ago
    If the Fort Knox gold was originally stolen from the Incas
- mcmcmc 2y ago
  They aren’t actually getting the dataset though.
- kragen 2y ago
  Feist comprehensively rejected that argument under US copyright law, and the attempts in the late 90s to pass a law in response establishing a sui generis prohibition on copying databases also failed in the US. The EU did adopt a directive to that effect, which may be why there are no significant European search engines. However, OpenAI and Google are far more politically influential than the lobbyists in the 90s, so it is likely to succeed.
- addicted 2y ago
  This is an incomplete version of OpenAI’s point of view. OpenAI has a legally submitted point of view that they believe the benefits of AI to humanity are so great that anyone creating AI should be allowed to trample all over copyright laws, Terms of Use, EULAs, etc. But OpenAI’s version of benefit to humanity is that they should be allowed to trample over those laws so they can benefit humanity by closely guarding the output of trampling those laws and charging humanity an access fee. Even if we accept all of OpenAI’s criticisms of DeepSeek, they’re arguing that DeepSeek doing the exact same thing, but releasing the output for free for anyone to use is somehow less beneficial to humanity.
  - hintymad 2y ago
    This goes back to my previous criticism of OAI: Stratechery said that Altman's greatest crime is to seek regulatory capture. I think it's spot on. Altman portrays himself as a visionary leader, a messiah of the AI age. Yet when the company was so small and that the progress in AI just got started, his strategic move was to suffocate innovation in the name of AI safety. For that, I question his vision, motive, and leadership.
dkjaudyeqooe 2y ago
You can't copyright AI generated works. OpenAI are barking up the wrong tree.
- washadjeffmad 2y ago
  They're not making a legal claim, they're trying to establish provenance over Deepseek in the public eye.
  - __loam 2y ago
    If this is their goal, R1 is on par with the $200 a month model. Most people don't give a shit.
    - Dalewyn 2y ago
      >Most people don't give a shit. I think it's more accurate to say most people can't (and don't) care about big monetary figures. As far as Joe Average is concerned, ChatGPT cost $OoomphaDuuumpha and Deepseek cost $RuuunphaBuuunpha. The only thing Joe Average will care is the bill he gets after using it himself.
      - __loam 2y ago
        That's what I mean, Joe average is going to go with free over $2400 a year.
  - xsmasher 2y ago
    Yes; and trying to justify their own valuation by pointing out that Deepseek cost more than advertised to create if you count in the cost of creating OpenAI's model.
    - actsasbuffoon 2y ago
      Though I also think it’s extremely bad for OpenAI’s valuation. If you give me $500B to train the best model in the world, and then a couple people at a hedge fund in China can use my API to train a model that’s almost equal for a tiny fraction of what I paid, then it appears to be outrageously foolish to build new frontier models. The only financial move that makes sense is to wait for someone else to burn hundreds of billions building a better model, and then clone it. OpenAI primarily exists to do one of the most foolish things you can possibly do with money. Seems like a really bad deal for investors.
wzdd 2y ago
The stuff about copyright seems irrelevant. OpenAI's future investments -- billions -- were just threatened to be undercut by several orders of magnitude by a competitor. It's in their best interests to cast doubt on that competitor's achievements. If they can do so by implying that OpenAI are in fact the source of most of the DeepSeek's performance then all the better. It doesn't matter whether there's a compelling legal argument around copyright, or even if it's true that they actually copied. It just needs to be plausible enough that OpenAI can make a reasonable case for continuing investment at the levels it's historically attained. And plausibility is something they've handily achieved with this announcement -- the sentiment on HN at least is that it is indeed plausible that DeepSeek trained on OpenAI. Which means there's now doubt that a DeepSeek-level model could be trained without making use of OpenAI's substantial levels of investment. Which is the only thing that OpenAI should be caring about.
- tylerchilds 2y ago
  I’d take this argument more seriously if there weren’t billboards advocating hiring AI employees instead of human employees. Sure, Open AI invested billions banking on the livelihood of every day people being replaced, or as Sam says, “A renegotiation of the social contract” so as an engineer that is being targeted by meta and sales force under the “not hiring engineers plan” all o have to say to Open AI is “welcome to the social contract renegotiation table”
- thayne 2y ago
  Even if that narrative is true, they were still undercut by DeepSeek. Maybe DeepSeek couldn't have succeeded without o1, but then it should have been even easier for OpenAI to do what DeepSeek did, since they have better access to o1.
  - karaterobot 2y ago
    This argument would excuse many kinds of intellectual property theft. "The person whose work I stole didn't deserve to have it protected, because I took their first draft and made a better second draft. Why didn't they just skip right to the second draft, like me?"
gerdesj 2y ago
I am not a lawyer (I'm UK based) You are a lawyer (probably local). My understanding is that legal positions and arguments (within Common Law) need not be consistent across "cases" - they are considered in isolation with regards the body of law extant at the time. I think that Sam can quite happily argue two differing points of view to two courts. Until a judgement is made, those arguments are simply arguments and not "binding" or even "influential elsewhere" or whatever the correct terms are. I think he can legitimately argue both ways but may not have it both ways.
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago
  > I think he can legitimately argue both ways It would be very sensible that if a trial comes up, all these arguments that Sam Altman made for the other side score against him and OpenAI.
cscurmudgeon 2y ago
OpenAI is taking the position similar to that if you sell a cook book, people are not allowed to copy the recipes into their own book and claim they did it all on their own.
- leobg 2y ago
  Nobody is copying their model parameters or inference code. What people “suck out” of their API are the general ideas. And they do it specifically so they can reassemble them in their own way. It’s like reading all the Jack Reacher novels and then creating your own hero living through similar situations, but with a different name. You’ll read it and you’ll say, dang, that situation/metaphor/expression/character reminds me of that Reacher novel. But there’s nothing Lee Child can do about it. And that’s perfectly fine. Because he himself took many of his ideas from others, like Le Carré. It’s the Eternal Tao.
Spooky23 2y ago
Seriously. OpenAI consciously stole The NY Times for almost all news content. Everything about the company is shady. Sam should focus on the product instead of trying to out-jerk Elon and his buddies.
randombits0 2y ago
Recipes, that is, lists of ingredients and preparation instructions, are specifically uncopyrightable. Perhaps that’s why they used it as an example.

by leobg 2y ago

otterley 2y ago

As another attorney, I would impart some more wisdom: "Karma's a bitch, ain't it."

chris_wot 2y ago
I quite agree. The NY Times must be feeling a lot of schadenfreude right now.

hintymad 2y ago

Just to play devil's advocate, OAI can argue that they spent great effort creating and procuring annotated data. Such datasets are indeed their secret, and now DS gets them for free by distilling OAI's output. Besides, OAI's EULA explicitly forbids users from using the output of their API for model training. I'm not saying that OAI is right, of course. Just to present OAI's point of view.

9dev 2y ago
So a bank robber that manages to steal from Fort Knox gets to keep the gold bars because it was a very complicated job?
- codehalo 2y ago
  If the Fort Knox gold was originally stolen from the Incas
mcmcmc 2y ago
They aren’t actually getting the dataset though.
kragen 2y ago
Feist comprehensively rejected that argument under US copyright law, and the attempts in the late 90s to pass a law in response establishing a sui generis prohibition on copying databases also failed in the US. The EU did adopt a directive to that effect, which may be why there are no significant European search engines. However, OpenAI and Google are far more politically influential than the lobbyists in the 90s, so it is likely to succeed.
addicted 2y ago
This is an incomplete version of OpenAI’s point of view. OpenAI has a legally submitted point of view that they believe the benefits of AI to humanity are so great that anyone creating AI should be allowed to trample all over copyright laws, Terms of Use, EULAs, etc. But OpenAI’s version of benefit to humanity is that they should be allowed to trample over those laws so they can benefit humanity by closely guarding the output of trampling those laws and charging humanity an access fee. Even if we accept all of OpenAI’s criticisms of DeepSeek, they’re arguing that DeepSeek doing the exact same thing, but releasing the output for free for anyone to use is somehow less beneficial to humanity.
- hintymad 2y ago
  This goes back to my previous criticism of OAI: Stratechery said that Altman's greatest crime is to seek regulatory capture. I think it's spot on. Altman portrays himself as a visionary leader, a messiah of the AI age. Yet when the company was so small and that the progress in AI just got started, his strategic move was to suffocate innovation in the name of AI safety. For that, I question his vision, motive, and leadership.

dkjaudyeqooe 2y ago

You can't copyright AI generated works. OpenAI are barking up the wrong tree.

washadjeffmad 2y ago
They're not making a legal claim, they're trying to establish provenance over Deepseek in the public eye.
- __loam 2y ago
  If this is their goal, R1 is on par with the $200 a month model. Most people don't give a shit.
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    >Most people don't give a shit. I think it's more accurate to say most people can't (and don't) care about big monetary figures. As far as Joe Average is concerned, ChatGPT cost $OoomphaDuuumpha and Deepseek cost $RuuunphaBuuunpha. The only thing Joe Average will care is the bill he gets after using it himself.
    - __loam 2y ago
      That's what I mean, Joe average is going to go with free over $2400 a year.
- xsmasher 2y ago
  Yes; and trying to justify their own valuation by pointing out that Deepseek cost more than advertised to create if you count in the cost of creating OpenAI's model.
  - actsasbuffoon 2y ago
    Though I also think it’s extremely bad for OpenAI’s valuation. If you give me $500B to train the best model in the world, and then a couple people at a hedge fund in China can use my API to train a model that’s almost equal for a tiny fraction of what I paid, then it appears to be outrageously foolish to build new frontier models. The only financial move that makes sense is to wait for someone else to burn hundreds of billions building a better model, and then clone it. OpenAI primarily exists to do one of the most foolish things you can possibly do with money. Seems like a really bad deal for investors.

wzdd 2y ago

The stuff about copyright seems irrelevant. OpenAI's future investments -- billions -- were just threatened to be undercut by several orders of magnitude by a competitor. It's in their best interests to cast doubt on that competitor's achievements. If they can do so by implying that OpenAI are in fact the source of most of the DeepSeek's performance then all the better. It doesn't matter whether there's a compelling legal argument around copyright, or even if it's true that they actually copied. It just needs to be plausible enough that OpenAI can make a reasonable case for continuing investment at the levels it's historically attained. And plausibility is something they've handily achieved with this announcement -- the sentiment on HN at least is that it is indeed plausible that DeepSeek trained on OpenAI. Which means there's now doubt that a DeepSeek-level model could be trained without making use of OpenAI's substantial levels of investment. Which is the only thing that OpenAI should be caring about.

tylerchilds 2y ago
I’d take this argument more seriously if there weren’t billboards advocating hiring AI employees instead of human employees. Sure, Open AI invested billions banking on the livelihood of every day people being replaced, or as Sam says, “A renegotiation of the social contract” so as an engineer that is being targeted by meta and sales force under the “not hiring engineers plan” all o have to say to Open AI is “welcome to the social contract renegotiation table”
thayne 2y ago
Even if that narrative is true, they were still undercut by DeepSeek. Maybe DeepSeek couldn't have succeeded without o1, but then it should have been even easier for OpenAI to do what DeepSeek did, since they have better access to o1.
- karaterobot 2y ago
  This argument would excuse many kinds of intellectual property theft. "The person whose work I stole didn't deserve to have it protected, because I took their first draft and made a better second draft. Why didn't they just skip right to the second draft, like me?"

gerdesj 2y ago

I am not a lawyer (I'm UK based) You are a lawyer (probably local). My understanding is that legal positions and arguments (within Common Law) need not be consistent across "cases" - they are considered in isolation with regards the body of law extant at the time. I think that Sam can quite happily argue two differing points of view to two courts. Until a judgement is made, those arguments are simply arguments and not "binding" or even "influential elsewhere" or whatever the correct terms are. I think he can legitimately argue both ways but may not have it both ways.

aleph_minus_one 2y ago
> I think he can legitimately argue both ways It would be very sensible that if a trial comes up, all these arguments that Sam Altman made for the other side score against him and OpenAI.

cscurmudgeon 2y ago

OpenAI is taking the position similar to that if you sell a cook book, people are not allowed to copy the recipes into their own book and claim they did it all on their own.

leobg 2y ago
Nobody is copying their model parameters or inference code. What people “suck out” of their API are the general ideas. And they do it specifically so they can reassemble them in their own way. It’s like reading all the Jack Reacher novels and then creating your own hero living through similar situations, but with a different name. You’ll read it and you’ll say, dang, that situation/metaphor/expression/character reminds me of that Reacher novel. But there’s nothing Lee Child can do about it. And that’s perfectly fine. Because he himself took many of his ideas from others, like Le Carré. It’s the Eternal Tao.

Spooky23 2y ago

Seriously. OpenAI consciously stole The NY Times for almost all news content. Everything about the company is shady. Sam should focus on the product instead of trying to out-jerk Elon and his buddies.

randombits0 2y ago

Recipes, that is, lists of ingredients and preparation instructions, are specifically uncopyrightable. Perhaps that’s why they used it as an example.