3 ms·

Lots to comment on but this stood out: > “A lawsuit like this heightens the demand for Generative AI replacements.” Most generative AI corpora were arguably t

by kmoser 4mo ago

Lots to comment on but this stood out: > “A lawsuit like this heightens the demand for Generative AI replacements.” Most generative AI corpora were arguably trained on copyrighted material, making the output potentially infringing.

FanaHOVA 4mo ago
There is plenty of precedent being written here. It does not seem to be the case at all for the average use of this technology. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB10922 https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB10922
rectang 4mo ago
Even if the specific image being infringed were not in the corpus, it's possible that a court would return a judgment of copyright infringement. Consider the case where someone deliberately prompts the AI to build a facsimile image and the AI does a creditable job after some tweaking.
ralph84 4mo ago
Except everyone who has tried to argue that in court has lost.
- jagged-chisel 4mo ago
  Has this been argued? I'd love to read some actual court decisions.
  - akramachamarei 4mo ago
    Here are some cases (mined from Wikipedia sources): Tremblay v. OpenAI, Inc., No. 3:23-cv-03223 (N.D. Cal.) (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/3:2023cv03223/414822 https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/3:2023cv...) Andersen v. Stability AI Ltd., No. 3:23-cv-00201 (N.D. Cal.) (https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2023cv00201/407208/223/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/califor...) Authors Guild v. OpenAI, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-08292 (S.D.N.Y.) (https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2023cv08292/606655/100/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-yor...) Getty Images (US), Inc. v. Stability AI, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-00135 (D. Del.) (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/delaware/dedce/1:2023cv00135/81407 https://dockets.justia.com/docket/delaware/dedce/1:2023cv001...) The New York Times Co. v. Microsoft Corp., No. 1:23-cv-11195 (S.D.N.Y.) (https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2023cv11195/612697/514/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-yor...) Richard Kadrey et al. v. Meta (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25984135-richard-kadrey-et-al-v-meta-partial-summary-judgment/ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25984135-richard-kad...) Bartz v. Anthropic (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25982181-authors-v-anthropic-ruling/ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25982181-authors-v-a...) --- Further reading: "Generative AI Systems Tee Up Fair Use Fight" (Feb 2024) https://natlawreview.com/article/generative-ai-systems-tee-fair-use-fight https://natlawreview.com/article/generative-ai-systems-tee-f... "Meta’s AI copyright win comes with a warning about fair use The federal judge who ruled in Meta’s favor still isn’t convinced its use of copyrighted materials for AI training qualifies as fair use." (Jan 2025) https://www.theverge.com/news/693437/meta-ai-copyright-win-fair-use-warning https://www.theverge.com/news/693437/meta-ai-copyright-win-f... "Anthropic wins a major fair use victory for AI — but it’s still in trouble for stealing books Judge William Alsup determined that Anthropic training its AI models on purchased copies of books is fair use." (Jun 2025) https://www.theverge.com/news/692015/anthropic-wins-a-major-fair-use-victory-for-ai-but-its-still-in-trouble-for-stealing-books https://www.theverge.com/news/692015/anthropic-wins-a-major-... "Copyright Office Weighs in on AI and Fair Use Amid Major Leadership Shakeup" (May 2025) https://ipwatchdog.com/2025/05/12/copyright-office-weighs-ai-fair-use-amidst-major-leadership-shakeup/# https://ipwatchdog.com/2025/05/12/copyright-office-weighs-ai...
    - AnimalMuppet 4mo ago
      I respect Alsup on tech issues. But aren't all of these initial decisions? That is, I don't expect that this is decided until there's a Supreme Court decision. There's still two levels of appeal to go before we get there.
      - akramachamarei 4mo ago
        I guess that depends on whether these cases are being appealed or if there is a "circuit split." Which is to say, those are the conditions I'm aware of under which a lower court decision does not constitute a decision decision. As always, IANAL, but I do listen to their podcasts often (IANALBIDLTTPO)
      - qingcharles 4mo ago
        Certainly the first five above all look to be trial court decisions which generally aren't citable law, but can be informative. It will almost certainly get to the Supreme Court at some point, it's too big an issue; until then we'll (probably) have a couple of different appellate court opinions to wait for.
CrimsonRain 4mo ago
same goes for anything you output :)
jterrys 4mo ago
Ye olde double edged sword On one hand aggressively punitive copyright claims stifle creativity and innovation in transformative art. On the other hand, generative AI reopens that transformative creativity.
- tadfisher 4mo ago
  Reminder that the original copyright term was 14 years, with a single 14-year extension. If this were still the norm, it would feel crazy that blockbuster movie studios are still recycling comic book characters from the 1950s.
  - jterrys 4mo ago
    Agreed.
  - slyall 4mo ago
    If copyright was shorter blockbuster movies could still recycle comic book characters from the 50s. It just means that any filmmaker could do it rather than just who can afford to pay Marvel/DC
bawolff 4mo ago
> Most generative AI corpora were arguably trained on copyrighted material, making the output potentially infringing. Training is not neccesarily sufficient for it to be a derrivative work, just like if you learned to draw based on famous drawings doesn't mean every single drawing you ever made is infringing. Obviously there are cases where it could be infringing, its going to depend how close the output is to the original. I guess it depends on how you read the post, is it saying use gen-AI to intentionally recreate the photo, something that sounds danger-zone, or are they saying use gen-ai to make some other photo suitable for purpose?
- ghaff 4mo ago
  I'm largely out of this space now but my understanding is that some copyright cases around model training are winding through courts but I haven't seen anything definitive come out. The IP lawyers I know are skeptical but we'll see.
  - p_l 4mo ago
    EU AI Act is moving towards genAI output being non-copyrightable and that you'd need to actually prove derivative character from a specific copyrighted work(s) to claim infringement. AFAIK american law is going towards similar setup.
    - ghaff 4mo ago
      IANAL but, yes, with US/UK (i.e. common law regimes) that's something along my understanding as well. Which I generally agree with even if some/many readers here probably do not. Of course, output being copyrightable and copyright infringement on the inputs are two different things.
      - p_l 4mo ago
        An important point in copyright infringement is that it generally applies on distribution to other parties. So the process of acquiring inputs may or may not be an infringement, but with at least proposed EU rules it does not matter to created model itself. The exception being that output it produces is judged similar to infringement as human output without any "transformative work" credit to model - so similar to how a human could learn a book or painting to memory and close enough reproduction from memory would be infringement, but not generally using the ideas taken from them

by kmoser 4mo ago

FanaHOVA 4mo ago

There is plenty of precedent being written here. It does not seem to be the case at all for the average use of this technology. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB10922 https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB10922

rectang 4mo ago

Even if the specific image being infringed were not in the corpus, it's possible that a court would return a judgment of copyright infringement. Consider the case where someone deliberately prompts the AI to build a facsimile image and the AI does a creditable job after some tweaking.

ralph84 4mo ago

Except everyone who has tried to argue that in court has lost.

jagged-chisel 4mo ago
Has this been argued? I'd love to read some actual court decisions.
- akramachamarei 4mo ago
  Here are some cases (mined from Wikipedia sources): Tremblay v. OpenAI, Inc., No. 3:23-cv-03223 (N.D. Cal.) (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/3:2023cv03223/414822 https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/3:2023cv...) Andersen v. Stability AI Ltd., No. 3:23-cv-00201 (N.D. Cal.) (https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2023cv00201/407208/223/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/califor...) Authors Guild v. OpenAI, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-08292 (S.D.N.Y.) (https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2023cv08292/606655/100/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-yor...) Getty Images (US), Inc. v. Stability AI, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-00135 (D. Del.) (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/delaware/dedce/1:2023cv00135/81407 https://dockets.justia.com/docket/delaware/dedce/1:2023cv001...) The New York Times Co. v. Microsoft Corp., No. 1:23-cv-11195 (S.D.N.Y.) (https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2023cv11195/612697/514/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-yor...) Richard Kadrey et al. v. Meta (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25984135-richard-kadrey-et-al-v-meta-partial-summary-judgment/ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25984135-richard-kad...) Bartz v. Anthropic (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25982181-authors-v-anthropic-ruling/ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25982181-authors-v-a...) --- Further reading: "Generative AI Systems Tee Up Fair Use Fight" (Feb 2024) https://natlawreview.com/article/generative-ai-systems-tee-fair-use-fight https://natlawreview.com/article/generative-ai-systems-tee-f... "Meta’s AI copyright win comes with a warning about fair use The federal judge who ruled in Meta’s favor still isn’t convinced its use of copyrighted materials for AI training qualifies as fair use." (Jan 2025) https://www.theverge.com/news/693437/meta-ai-copyright-win-fair-use-warning https://www.theverge.com/news/693437/meta-ai-copyright-win-f... "Anthropic wins a major fair use victory for AI — but it’s still in trouble for stealing books Judge William Alsup determined that Anthropic training its AI models on purchased copies of books is fair use." (Jun 2025) https://www.theverge.com/news/692015/anthropic-wins-a-major-fair-use-victory-for-ai-but-its-still-in-trouble-for-stealing-books https://www.theverge.com/news/692015/anthropic-wins-a-major-... "Copyright Office Weighs in on AI and Fair Use Amid Major Leadership Shakeup" (May 2025) https://ipwatchdog.com/2025/05/12/copyright-office-weighs-ai-fair-use-amidst-major-leadership-shakeup/# https://ipwatchdog.com/2025/05/12/copyright-office-weighs-ai...
  - AnimalMuppet 4mo ago
    I respect Alsup on tech issues. But aren't all of these initial decisions? That is, I don't expect that this is decided until there's a Supreme Court decision. There's still two levels of appeal to go before we get there.
    - akramachamarei 4mo ago
      I guess that depends on whether these cases are being appealed or if there is a "circuit split." Which is to say, those are the conditions I'm aware of under which a lower court decision does not constitute a decision decision. As always, IANAL, but I do listen to their podcasts often (IANALBIDLTTPO)
    - qingcharles 4mo ago
      Certainly the first five above all look to be trial court decisions which generally aren't citable law, but can be informative. It will almost certainly get to the Supreme Court at some point, it's too big an issue; until then we'll (probably) have a couple of different appellate court opinions to wait for.

CrimsonRain 4mo ago

same goes for anything you output :)

jterrys 4mo ago

Ye olde double edged sword On one hand aggressively punitive copyright claims stifle creativity and innovation in transformative art. On the other hand, generative AI reopens that transformative creativity.

tadfisher 4mo ago
Reminder that the original copyright term was 14 years, with a single 14-year extension. If this were still the norm, it would feel crazy that blockbuster movie studios are still recycling comic book characters from the 1950s.
- jterrys 4mo ago
  Agreed.
- slyall 4mo ago
  If copyright was shorter blockbuster movies could still recycle comic book characters from the 50s. It just means that any filmmaker could do it rather than just who can afford to pay Marvel/DC

bawolff 4mo ago

> Most generative AI corpora were arguably trained on copyrighted material, making the output potentially infringing. Training is not neccesarily sufficient for it to be a derrivative work, just like if you learned to draw based on famous drawings doesn't mean every single drawing you ever made is infringing. Obviously there are cases where it could be infringing, its going to depend how close the output is to the original. I guess it depends on how you read the post, is it saying use gen-AI to intentionally recreate the photo, something that sounds danger-zone, or are they saying use gen-ai to make some other photo suitable for purpose?

ghaff 4mo ago
I'm largely out of this space now but my understanding is that some copyright cases around model training are winding through courts but I haven't seen anything definitive come out. The IP lawyers I know are skeptical but we'll see.
- p_l 4mo ago
  EU AI Act is moving towards genAI output being non-copyrightable and that you'd need to actually prove derivative character from a specific copyrighted work(s) to claim infringement. AFAIK american law is going towards similar setup.
  - ghaff 4mo ago
    IANAL but, yes, with US/UK (i.e. common law regimes) that's something along my understanding as well. Which I generally agree with even if some/many readers here probably do not. Of course, output being copyrightable and copyright infringement on the inputs are two different things.
    - p_l 4mo ago
      An important point in copyright infringement is that it generally applies on distribution to other parties. So the process of acquiring inputs may or may not be an infringement, but with at least proposed EU rules it does not matter to created model itself. The exception being that output it produces is judged similar to infringement as human output without any "transformative work" credit to model - so similar to how a human could learn a book or painting to memory and close enough reproduction from memory would be infringement, but not generally using the ideas taken from them