10 ms·

AI and Copyright: Expanding copyright hurts everyone

39 points by mooreds 1y ago

mwkaufma 1y ago
"Here's What to Do Instead" misleading title, no alternatives suggested. Just hand-wavey GenAI agitprop.
- rapjr9 1y ago
  These are their alternatives: What neither Big Tech nor Big Media will say is that stronger antitrust rules and enforcement would be a much better solution. What’s more, looking beyond copyright future-proofs the protections. Stronger environmental protections, comprehensive privacy laws, worker protections, and media literacy will create an ecosystem where we will have defenses against any new technology that might cause harm in those areas, not just generative AI.
  - bgwalter 1y ago
    None of their alternatives will work or solve the problems that creatives face or the problem that people cannot think for themselves any longer (as seen by the downvoting in this submission).
    - doormatt 1y ago
      >the problem that people cannot think for themselves any longer (as seen by the downvoting in this submission). Quite an interesting take to assume that everyone who disagrees with you cannot think for themselves.
      - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        I read that as the problem that people are relying on LLMs to do things for them rather than actually learning the thing themselves. Which is real but it's unclear what it has to do with copyright.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
freejazz 1y ago
How do they get to the conclusion that AI uses are protected under the fair use doctrine and anything otherwise would be an "expansion" of copyright? Fairly telling IMO
- zrm 1y ago
  AI training and the thing search engines do to make a search index are essentially the same thing. Hasn't the latter generally been regarded as fair use, or else how do search engines exist?
  - Kye 1y ago
    There was a relatively tiny but otherwise identical uproar over Google even before they added infoboxes that reduced the number of people who clicked through.
    - tpmoney 1y ago
      There was also the lawsuit against google for the Google Scholar project, which is not only very similar to how AI use ingest copyright material, but even more than AI actually reproduced word for word (intentionally so) snippets of those works. Google Scholar is also fair use.
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      > There was a relatively tiny but otherwise identical uproar over Google even before they added infoboxes that reduced the number of people who clicked through. But is that because it isn't fair use or because of the virulent rabies epidemic among media company lawyers?
      - Kye 1y ago
        This was normal people, as much as bloggers on the pre-social media early web could be considered normal.
        1y ago
free_bip 1y ago
One of the few times I vehemently disagree with the EFF. The problem is this article seems to make absolutely no effort to differentiate legitimate uses of GenAI (things like scientific and medical research) from the completely illegitimate uses of GenAI (things like stealing the work of every single artist, living and dead, for the sole purpose of making a profit) One of those is fair use. The other is clearly not.
- Calavar 1y ago
  What happens when a researcher makes a generative art model and publicly releases the weights? Anyone can download the weights and use it to turn a quick profit. Should the original research use be considered legitimate fair use? Does the legitimacy get 'poisoned' along the way when a third party uses the same model for profit? Is there any difference between a mom-and-pop restaurant who uses the model to make a design for their menu versus a multi-billion dollar corp that's planning on laying off all their in house graphic designers? If so, where in between those two extremes should the line be drawn?
  - free_bip 1y ago
    I'm not a copyright attorney in any country, so the answer (assuming you're asking me personally) is "I don't know and it probably depends heavily on the specific facts of the case." If you're asking for my personal opinion, I can weigh in on my personal take for some fair use factors. - Research into generative art models (the kind which is done by e.g. OpenAI, Stable Diffusion) is only possible due to funding. That funding mainly comes from VC firms who are looking to get ROI by replacing artists with AI[0], and then debt financing from major banks on top of that. This drives both the market effect factor and the purpose/character of use factor, and not in their favor. If the research has limited market impact and is not done for the express purpose of replacing artists, then I think it would likely be fair use (an example could be background removal/replacement). - I don't know if there are any legal implications of a large vs. small corporation using a product of copyright infringement to produce profit. Maybe it violates some other law, maybe it doesn't. All I know is that the end product of a GenAI model is not copyrightable, which to my understanding means their profit potential is limited as literally anyone else can use it for free. [0]: https://harlem.capital/generative-ai-the-vc-landscape/ https://harlem.capital/generative-ai-the-vc-landscape/
bgwalter 1y ago
EFF is bought and paid for. Not once does this piece mention that "AI" and humans are different and that a digital combine harvester mowing down and ingesting the commons does not need the same rights as a human. It is not fair use when the entire output is made of chopped up quotes from all of humanity. It is not fair use when only a couple of oligarchs have the money and grifting ability to build the required data centers. This is a another in the long lists of institutions that have been subverted. ACLU and OSI are other examples.
- OkayPhysicist 1y ago
  What definition of "sufficiently transformative" doesn't include "a book about wizards" by some process being used to make "a machine that spits out text"? A magazine publisher has a more legitimate claim against the person making a ransom letter: at least the fonts are copied verbatim. There are legitimate arguments to be made about whether or not AI training should be allowed, but it should take the form of new legislation, not wild reinterpretations of copyright law. Copyright law is already overreaching, just imagine how goddawful companies could be if they're given more power to screw you for ever having interacted with their "creative works".
  - bgwalter 1y ago
    We did have that. In some EU countries, during the cassette tape and Sony Walkman era, private individuals were allowed to make around 5 copies for friends from a legitimate source. Companies were not allowed to make 5 trillion copies.
    - warkdarrior 1y ago
      I am pretty sure companies keep one copy of each item.
- nickthegreek 1y ago
  > EFF is bought and paid for. by whom?
- 1y ago
drivebyhooting 1y ago
Let’s play out what the successful story looks like, for example in music generation: * thousands of composers and musicians “contribute” their works for free to OpenAI and their ilk. * models are trained and can produce movie scores, personalized sound tracks, etc * the market for composers dwindles to a small sliver. Few if any choose to pursue it. * OpenAI et al have a de facto monopoly on music creation. * Soon the art of composition is lost. There are a few who can make a living as composers by selling their persona rather than their music. They actually just use OpenAI to write it for them. Is that the future we want? Inevitable.
- fragmede 1y ago
  http://Suno.ai http://Suno.ai is already there.
  - drivebyhooting 1y ago
    Might be a skill issue but my prompt was not followed.
  - Msurrow 1y ago
    Koda, the danish music copyright organisation just sued Suno.ai [1] calling it the “biggest music theft in history”. Apparently suno can almost completely reproduce some “big” songs made by danish bands eg D-A-D, Aqua. Edit- and from the article it seems they are doing what they can to make it a political/legislation issue. [1]: https://koda.dk/om-koda/nyheder/koda-sagsoeger-ai-tjenesten-suno https://koda.dk/om-koda/nyheder/koda-sagsoeger-ai-tjenesten-...
    - drivebyhooting 1y ago
      This could establish precedent for LLMs being infringing on authors.
- glimshe 1y ago
  Keep in mind that professional composers are a tiny minority of people who make great music. And very few professional musicians actually live off royalties. I'm sure that music will do just fine without draconian copyright laws, as it has done for literally thousands of years.

39 points by mooreds 1y ago

mwkaufma 1y ago

"Here's What to Do Instead" misleading title, no alternatives suggested. Just hand-wavey GenAI agitprop.

rapjr9 1y ago
These are their alternatives: What neither Big Tech nor Big Media will say is that stronger antitrust rules and enforcement would be a much better solution. What’s more, looking beyond copyright future-proofs the protections. Stronger environmental protections, comprehensive privacy laws, worker protections, and media literacy will create an ecosystem where we will have defenses against any new technology that might cause harm in those areas, not just generative AI.
- bgwalter 1y ago
  None of their alternatives will work or solve the problems that creatives face or the problem that people cannot think for themselves any longer (as seen by the downvoting in this submission).
  - doormatt 1y ago
    >the problem that people cannot think for themselves any longer (as seen by the downvoting in this submission). Quite an interesting take to assume that everyone who disagrees with you cannot think for themselves.
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      I read that as the problem that people are relying on LLMs to do things for them rather than actually learning the thing themselves. Which is real but it's unclear what it has to do with copyright.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

freejazz 1y ago

How do they get to the conclusion that AI uses are protected under the fair use doctrine and anything otherwise would be an "expansion" of copyright? Fairly telling IMO

zrm 1y ago
AI training and the thing search engines do to make a search index are essentially the same thing. Hasn't the latter generally been regarded as fair use, or else how do search engines exist?
- Kye 1y ago
  There was a relatively tiny but otherwise identical uproar over Google even before they added infoboxes that reduced the number of people who clicked through.
  - tpmoney 1y ago
    There was also the lawsuit against google for the Google Scholar project, which is not only very similar to how AI use ingest copyright material, but even more than AI actually reproduced word for word (intentionally so) snippets of those works. Google Scholar is also fair use.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    > There was a relatively tiny but otherwise identical uproar over Google even before they added infoboxes that reduced the number of people who clicked through. But is that because it isn't fair use or because of the virulent rabies epidemic among media company lawyers?
    - Kye 1y ago
      This was normal people, as much as bloggers on the pre-social media early web could be considered normal.
      - 1y ago

free_bip 1y ago

One of the few times I vehemently disagree with the EFF. The problem is this article seems to make absolutely no effort to differentiate legitimate uses of GenAI (things like scientific and medical research) from the completely illegitimate uses of GenAI (things like stealing the work of every single artist, living and dead, for the sole purpose of making a profit) One of those is fair use. The other is clearly not.

Calavar 1y ago
What happens when a researcher makes a generative art model and publicly releases the weights? Anyone can download the weights and use it to turn a quick profit. Should the original research use be considered legitimate fair use? Does the legitimacy get 'poisoned' along the way when a third party uses the same model for profit? Is there any difference between a mom-and-pop restaurant who uses the model to make a design for their menu versus a multi-billion dollar corp that's planning on laying off all their in house graphic designers? If so, where in between those two extremes should the line be drawn?
- free_bip 1y ago
  I'm not a copyright attorney in any country, so the answer (assuming you're asking me personally) is "I don't know and it probably depends heavily on the specific facts of the case." If you're asking for my personal opinion, I can weigh in on my personal take for some fair use factors. - Research into generative art models (the kind which is done by e.g. OpenAI, Stable Diffusion) is only possible due to funding. That funding mainly comes from VC firms who are looking to get ROI by replacing artists with AI[0], and then debt financing from major banks on top of that. This drives both the market effect factor and the purpose/character of use factor, and not in their favor. If the research has limited market impact and is not done for the express purpose of replacing artists, then I think it would likely be fair use (an example could be background removal/replacement). - I don't know if there are any legal implications of a large vs. small corporation using a product of copyright infringement to produce profit. Maybe it violates some other law, maybe it doesn't. All I know is that the end product of a GenAI model is not copyrightable, which to my understanding means their profit potential is limited as literally anyone else can use it for free. [0]: https://harlem.capital/generative-ai-the-vc-landscape/ https://harlem.capital/generative-ai-the-vc-landscape/

bgwalter 1y ago

EFF is bought and paid for. Not once does this piece mention that "AI" and humans are different and that a digital combine harvester mowing down and ingesting the commons does not need the same rights as a human. It is not fair use when the entire output is made of chopped up quotes from all of humanity. It is not fair use when only a couple of oligarchs have the money and grifting ability to build the required data centers. This is a another in the long lists of institutions that have been subverted. ACLU and OSI are other examples.

OkayPhysicist 1y ago
What definition of "sufficiently transformative" doesn't include "a book about wizards" by some process being used to make "a machine that spits out text"? A magazine publisher has a more legitimate claim against the person making a ransom letter: at least the fonts are copied verbatim. There are legitimate arguments to be made about whether or not AI training should be allowed, but it should take the form of new legislation, not wild reinterpretations of copyright law. Copyright law is already overreaching, just imagine how goddawful companies could be if they're given more power to screw you for ever having interacted with their "creative works".
- bgwalter 1y ago
  We did have that. In some EU countries, during the cassette tape and Sony Walkman era, private individuals were allowed to make around 5 copies for friends from a legitimate source. Companies were not allowed to make 5 trillion copies.
  - warkdarrior 1y ago
    I am pretty sure companies keep one copy of each item.
nickthegreek 1y ago
> EFF is bought and paid for. by whom?
1y ago

drivebyhooting 1y ago

Let’s play out what the successful story looks like, for example in music generation: * thousands of composers and musicians “contribute” their works for free to OpenAI and their ilk. * models are trained and can produce movie scores, personalized sound tracks, etc * the market for composers dwindles to a small sliver. Few if any choose to pursue it. * OpenAI et al have a de facto monopoly on music creation. * Soon the art of composition is lost. There are a few who can make a living as composers by selling their persona rather than their music. They actually just use OpenAI to write it for them. Is that the future we want? Inevitable.

fragmede 1y ago
http://Suno.ai http://Suno.ai is already there.
- drivebyhooting 1y ago
  Might be a skill issue but my prompt was not followed.
- Msurrow 1y ago
  Koda, the danish music copyright organisation just sued Suno.ai [1] calling it the “biggest music theft in history”. Apparently suno can almost completely reproduce some “big” songs made by danish bands eg D-A-D, Aqua. Edit- and from the article it seems they are doing what they can to make it a political/legislation issue. [1]: https://koda.dk/om-koda/nyheder/koda-sagsoeger-ai-tjenesten-suno https://koda.dk/om-koda/nyheder/koda-sagsoeger-ai-tjenesten-...
  - drivebyhooting 1y ago
    This could establish precedent for LLMs being infringing on authors.
glimshe 1y ago
Keep in mind that professional composers are a tiny minority of people who make great music. And very few professional musicians actually live off royalties. I'm sure that music will do just fine without draconian copyright laws, as it has done for literally thousands of years.