7 ms·

Do you not understand that "fair use" is not some copyright free-for-all which lets you use works wholesale without attribution as if they were suddenly public

Do you not understand that "fair use" is not some copyright free-for-all which lets you use works wholesale without attribution as if they were suddenly public domain? To make fair use of a book's passage, you have to cite it. The except has to be reasonably small. Without fair use, it would not be possible to write essays and book reviews that give quotes from books. That's what it's for. Not for having a machine read the whole book so it can regurgitate mashups of any part of it without attribution. Making a parody is a kind of fair use, but parodies are original expression based on a certain structure of the work.

danaris 2y ago
> To make fair use of a book's passage, you have to cite it. That's not true. That's what's required for something not to be plagiarism, not for something not to be copyright infringement. Fair use is not at all the same as academic integrity, and while academic use is one of the fair use exceptions, it's only one. The most you would have to do with any of the other fair use exceptions is credit where you got the material (not cite individual passages), because you're not necessarily even using those passages verbatim.
- kazinator 2y ago
  If your "fair use" is - of a commercial nature; - plagiarism; - substantially large (e.g. whole work); you're not on good legal footing.
  - danaris 2y ago
    I mean...sure? But that's not what you were saying. You said, as a blanket statement, that fair use requires citing the passage, which is not true. Fair use and plagiarism are related, but they are two separate things. Especially when talking about the legalities of things, as we are here, it's vital to be clear and accurate about what specific legal issues are under discussion. Facebook isn't claiming fair use to write academic papers about the books they're taking parts from. They're claiming fair use to feed them into LLM training. If that is a usage that is deemed to fall under fair use, then it won't require specific citation, even if it requires attribution in the more general sense (ie, crediting all the works you fed into your word-chipper), any more than you're required to cite specific passages when you're making a wholesale parody of a copyrighted work (also fair use) or writing a fanfic based on it (also fair use).
    - kazinator 2y ago
      Sure; say someone comes up with a great proverb in their book, or a nice phrase, and it catches on. People don't have to cite where it came from in order to use it. What if someone copies a half page paragraph? They are in a gray area where it will likely be in their favor if they can avoid the accusation of plagiarism, if they intend to use a fair use defense. Anyway, the organizations behind popular LLMS are perpetrating massive copyright infringement and plagiarism. A fair use defense is rationally not possible. Firstly, to claim fair use while you are making commercial use of the material is going to be difficult right off the bat. Fair use claims are bolstered by non-commercial use. Small size of excerpts favors fair use claims. Can't do that here. Transformative use? Not really; LLMs spit out the information verbatim if prompted in the right ways. Exploitative uses will probably not be viewed as transformative by the court.

danaris 2y ago

> To make fair use of a book's passage, you have to cite it. That's not true. That's what's required for something not to be plagiarism, not for something not to be copyright infringement. Fair use is not at all the same as academic integrity, and while academic use is one of the fair use exceptions, it's only one. The most you would have to do with any of the other fair use exceptions is credit where you got the material (not cite individual passages), because you're not necessarily even using those passages verbatim.

kazinator 2y ago
If your "fair use" is - of a commercial nature; - plagiarism; - substantially large (e.g. whole work); you're not on good legal footing.
- danaris 2y ago
  I mean...sure? But that's not what you were saying. You said, as a blanket statement, that fair use requires citing the passage, which is not true. Fair use and plagiarism are related, but they are two separate things. Especially when talking about the legalities of things, as we are here, it's vital to be clear and accurate about what specific legal issues are under discussion. Facebook isn't claiming fair use to write academic papers about the books they're taking parts from. They're claiming fair use to feed them into LLM training. If that is a usage that is deemed to fall under fair use, then it won't require specific citation, even if it requires attribution in the more general sense (ie, crediting all the works you fed into your word-chipper), any more than you're required to cite specific passages when you're making a wholesale parody of a copyrighted work (also fair use) or writing a fanfic based on it (also fair use).
  - kazinator 2y ago
    Sure; say someone comes up with a great proverb in their book, or a nice phrase, and it catches on. People don't have to cite where it came from in order to use it. What if someone copies a half page paragraph? They are in a gray area where it will likely be in their favor if they can avoid the accusation of plagiarism, if they intend to use a fair use defense. Anyway, the organizations behind popular LLMS are perpetrating massive copyright infringement and plagiarism. A fair use defense is rationally not possible. Firstly, to claim fair use while you are making commercial use of the material is going to be difficult right off the bat. Fair use claims are bolstered by non-commercial use. Small size of excerpts favors fair use claims. Can't do that here. Transformative use? Not really; LLMs spit out the information verbatim if prompted in the right ways. Exploitative uses will probably not be viewed as transformative by the court.