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So can humans? I can ask a human to draw Mickey Mouse or Superman, and they can! Or recite a poem. Some humans have much better memories and can do this with a

So can humans? I can ask a human to draw Mickey Mouse or Superman, and they can! Or recite a poem. Some humans have much better memories and can do this with a far greater degree of fidelity too, just like an LLM vs an average human. If you ask OpenAI to generate an image of your dog as Superman, it will often start to do so, and then it will realize it is copyrighted, and stop. This seems sensible to me. Isn’t it the ultimate creative result that is copyright infringement, and not merely that a model was trained to understand something very well?

jrm4 1y ago
Copyright infringement is the act of creating/using an copy in an unauthorized way. Remember, we can only target humans. So we're not likely to target your guy; but we ARE likely to target "the guy that definitely fed a complete unauthorized copy of the thing into the LLM."
- regularfry 1y ago
  I just don't get the legal theory here. If I download harry_potter_goblet_fire.txt off some dodgy site, then let's assume that owner of that site has infringed copyright by distributing it. If I upload it again to some other dodgy site, I would also infringe copyright in a similar same way. But that would be naughty so I'm not going to do that. Let's say instead that I feed it into a bunch of janky pytorch scripts with a bunch of other text files, and out pops a bunch of weights. Twice. The first model I build is a classifier. Its output is binary: is this text about wizards, yes/no. The second model I build is an LLM. Its output is text, and (as in the article) you can get imperfect reproductions of parts of the training file out of it with the right prompts. Now, I upload both those sets of weights to HuggingFace. How many times am I supposed to have infringed copyright? Is it: A) Twice (at least), because the act of doing anything whatsoever with harry_potter_goblet_fire.txt without permission is verboten; B) Once, because only one of the models is capable of reproducing the original (even if only approximately); C) Zero, because neither model is capable of a reproduction that would compete with the original; or D) Zero, because I'm not the distributor of the file, and merely processing it - "format shifted" from the book, if you like - is not problematic in itself. Logically I can see justifications for any of B) (tenuously), C), or D). Obviously publishers would want us to think that A) is right, but based on what? I see a lot of moral outrage, but very little actual argument. That makes me think there's nothing there.
  - bodhi 1y ago
    I’ll preface with IANACL, but you seem to be making a moral argument yourself about A), that it is not reasonable. You have, I assume, a licensed copy of Harry Potter. That license restricts you from doing certain activities, like making (distributing? Lets go with distributing) derived works. Your models are derived works. Thus when you distribute your models, you’re violating the licence terms you “agreed” to when you acquired your copy of Harry Potter. This is no judgement by me about whether that’s reasonable or not, just my understanding of the mechanics.
    - perching_aix 1y ago
      Rather than a moral argument, I think they're more just disagreeing that the spirit behind copyright law is being violated in that case. So while yes, there may be a rule in there that you may have agreed to, they disagree that such a rule is within the spirit of the law, and may reckon that it should not be a part of it even if it presently is. Like they explicitly mention how they're reflecting on the idea behind it all, rather than producing a legal analysis. Or at least that's how I read it. I'm sure GP will clarify shortly.
      - fc417fc802 1y ago
        More precisely, the reasoning hinges on the assertion that "Your models are derived works." which I doubt is so cut and dry. There are many processes that take external information as input. That alone clearly can't be sufficient to established that something is unambiguously a derived work.
      - SubiculumCode 1y ago
        I read a copyrighted book, it is lossy encoded into the weights of my brain. Am I a derivative work now? No. If that book inspires me to write another book in its genre, it will also not be a derivative work unless it adheres too closely to the original book.
    - CaptainFever 1y ago
      Nitpick: Can a license restrict you? I thought it only gave you additional rights, should you choose to accept it, but can't take away rights you have (e.g. the ability to make parodies from it). The restriction comes from IP laws themselves.
MengerSponge 1y ago
[flagged]
- nick__m 1y ago
  Powerful tools that would not exist otherwise !
  - michaelt 1y ago
    It might seem hypocritical, but you can take the tool and still support throwing the creator in jail. Rockets? Pretty cool. Wernher von Braun? Not cool.
    - fc417fc802 1y ago
      In this case IP law is clearly extremely broken. Rather than "carrying OpenAI's water" how about "advocating for fixing broken things"? The alternative is carrying Mickey Mouse's water and I've certainly no motivation to do that.
bandrami 1y ago
Public performance of a written work has different rules than reproducing text or images. But me drawing Superman would absolutely be violating DC's copyright. They probably wouldn't care since my drawing would suck, but that's not the legal issue.

jrm4 1y ago

Copyright infringement is the act of creating/using an copy in an unauthorized way. Remember, we can only target humans. So we're not likely to target your guy; but we ARE likely to target "the guy that definitely fed a complete unauthorized copy of the thing into the LLM."

regularfry 1y ago
I just don't get the legal theory here. If I download harry_potter_goblet_fire.txt off some dodgy site, then let's assume that owner of that site has infringed copyright by distributing it. If I upload it again to some other dodgy site, I would also infringe copyright in a similar same way. But that would be naughty so I'm not going to do that. Let's say instead that I feed it into a bunch of janky pytorch scripts with a bunch of other text files, and out pops a bunch of weights. Twice. The first model I build is a classifier. Its output is binary: is this text about wizards, yes/no. The second model I build is an LLM. Its output is text, and (as in the article) you can get imperfect reproductions of parts of the training file out of it with the right prompts. Now, I upload both those sets of weights to HuggingFace. How many times am I supposed to have infringed copyright? Is it: A) Twice (at least), because the act of doing anything whatsoever with harry_potter_goblet_fire.txt without permission is verboten; B) Once, because only one of the models is capable of reproducing the original (even if only approximately); C) Zero, because neither model is capable of a reproduction that would compete with the original; or D) Zero, because I'm not the distributor of the file, and merely processing it - "format shifted" from the book, if you like - is not problematic in itself. Logically I can see justifications for any of B) (tenuously), C), or D). Obviously publishers would want us to think that A) is right, but based on what? I see a lot of moral outrage, but very little actual argument. That makes me think there's nothing there.
- bodhi 1y ago
  I’ll preface with IANACL, but you seem to be making a moral argument yourself about A), that it is not reasonable. You have, I assume, a licensed copy of Harry Potter. That license restricts you from doing certain activities, like making (distributing? Lets go with distributing) derived works. Your models are derived works. Thus when you distribute your models, you’re violating the licence terms you “agreed” to when you acquired your copy of Harry Potter. This is no judgement by me about whether that’s reasonable or not, just my understanding of the mechanics.
  - perching_aix 1y ago
    Rather than a moral argument, I think they're more just disagreeing that the spirit behind copyright law is being violated in that case. So while yes, there may be a rule in there that you may have agreed to, they disagree that such a rule is within the spirit of the law, and may reckon that it should not be a part of it even if it presently is. Like they explicitly mention how they're reflecting on the idea behind it all, rather than producing a legal analysis. Or at least that's how I read it. I'm sure GP will clarify shortly.
    - fc417fc802 1y ago
      More precisely, the reasoning hinges on the assertion that "Your models are derived works." which I doubt is so cut and dry. There are many processes that take external information as input. That alone clearly can't be sufficient to established that something is unambiguously a derived work.
    - SubiculumCode 1y ago
      I read a copyrighted book, it is lossy encoded into the weights of my brain. Am I a derivative work now? No. If that book inspires me to write another book in its genre, it will also not be a derivative work unless it adheres too closely to the original book.
  - CaptainFever 1y ago
    Nitpick: Can a license restrict you? I thought it only gave you additional rights, should you choose to accept it, but can't take away rights you have (e.g. the ability to make parodies from it). The restriction comes from IP laws themselves.

MengerSponge 1y ago

[flagged]

nick__m 1y ago
Powerful tools that would not exist otherwise !
- michaelt 1y ago
  It might seem hypocritical, but you can take the tool and still support throwing the creator in jail. Rockets? Pretty cool. Wernher von Braun? Not cool.
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    In this case IP law is clearly extremely broken. Rather than "carrying OpenAI's water" how about "advocating for fixing broken things"? The alternative is carrying Mickey Mouse's water and I've certainly no motivation to do that.

bandrami 1y ago

Public performance of a written work has different rules than reproducing text or images. But me drawing Superman would absolutely be violating DC's copyright. They probably wouldn't care since my drawing would suck, but that's not the legal issue.