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As far as I'm concerned, the courts are wrong, and training on ill gotten copyrighted material is not fair use. Given the clear value of highly trained LLMs, th
by smolder 3mo ago
As far as I'm concerned, the courts are wrong, and training on ill gotten copyrighted material is not fair use. Given the clear value of highly trained LLMs, the investment they have taken on, and the amount of disruption to the existing economy they stand to make, in a just world, the people who created the training data deserve some level of compensation. I think, in the US, they are very afraid of falling behind China, who doesn't give a shit about intellectual property, but that doesn't mean we aren't crossing an ethical boundary, acting like them.
- davidguetta 3mo agocopyright is bullshit
- aetherspawn 3mo agoCopyright is what stops someone from copy+pasting a book that took years to write, then selling it $1 cheaper than the original author on Amazon or whatever and making a margin 1 million percent higher than the original author. Imagine a society without copyright… only physically intensive jobs could make money because everything else would be pirated, ripped-off or free. Thus, only those who are financially independent could afford to publish. Because the world really needs more rich class propaganda…
- smolder 3mo agoRight, it's about incentivising intellectual work. While I have big issues with the copyright system, like all the extensions lobbied for by Disney and friends, it did enable a lot of good work to happen.
- skinfaxi 3mo ago> it did enable a lot of good work to happen. How do we know that when we don't have a copy of the world without this regime? How much more and greater works could have been produced without such a repressive system? A really successful work becomes part of the culture, and remixing, derivatives and other modes of integrating cultural artifacts are prohibited. Why should we allow corporations to own our culture?
- andsoitis 3mo agoYou’re arguing that freely remixing original work will give rise to greatness that’s even better than original work?
- skinfaxi 3mo agoIsn't most creative work synthesis rather than unique whole-cloth creation? Look at what happens with software when it is open sourced and allowed to be remixed freely. Are we better or worse off because of it?
- andsoitis 3mo agoThere's nothing that prevents people from remixing things that are not copyrighted and create something amazing that others are interested in or of cultural value. With open source, I should note, its remixing is in fact governed by copyright.
- satvikpendem 3mo agoWhat things are not copyrighted? Anything someone makes is immediately copyrighted. If you mean take a couple hundred years old content to remix, well, I don't find that very useful and certainly not how human history has worked all this time.
- andsoitis 3mo agoYou are right that in most countries (including the US) copyright protects a work automatically the moment it’s fixed in a tangible form. I think we’ve veered a little off the original thesis where we started which is an argument that copyright is limiting the rate or breadth or level of cultural artifacts. I have to say that I find it hard to imagine a meaningfully higher volume or level than we already see today. I mean are you worried that we’re stifling creativity? I think it is abundant and the evidence is all around us.
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- Morromist 3mo agoThat's oversimplifying things. Copyright doesn't actually stop me from pirating a book or an mp3 right now. Heck, I'll just download a book right now. Bam. Done. Some things are so difficult to keep from being pirated, such a photographs, that saying the copyright system protects photographers strikes me as a bit silly. It does protect some commercial photographers if a magazine wants to sell their photo sometimes, but that's a very very small slice of all the photos in copyright that are being shared online right now. Also there are other systems that might protect an author's financials. Off the top of my head I imagine you could do a netflix model where every citizen pays some taxes to consume intellectual property like a utility. Then the goverment finds a way to measure what is being consumed and gives each author a share based on the rate of consumption. In fact the "intellegence is a ultility" ramblings of Sam Altmen sort-of point in this direction. But that's just one idea thought up early in the morning when its too hot to sleep properly. I'm sure there are many others.
- Jensson 3mo ago> It does protect some commercial photographers if a magazine wants to sell their photo sometimes, but that's a very very small slice of all the photos in copyright that are being shared online right now. That is a very small slice thanks to copyrights. Without copyrights then corporations stealing from the small guy like this would be the majority of it.
- account42 3mo ago> Also there are other systems that might protect an author's financials. Off the top of my head I imagine you could do a netflix model where every citizen pays some taxes to consume intellectual property like a utility. Then the goverment finds a way to measure what is being consumed and gives each author a share based on the rate of consumption. We already have these - CD taxes, government grants funded by general taxes, GEMA in Germany, even TV licenses. They all universally suck and are extremely unfair in who gets paid by them.
- skinfaxi 3mo ago> Thus, only those who are financially independent could afford to publish. Because the world really needs more rich class propaganda… Yes, all the rich class propaganda being pushed by open source developers working on software in their free time.
- Lerc 3mo agoHow many times were hugely popular books rejected before a publisher decided they were worthy? Copyright far more protects the wealthy than the good. They don't need to sell your book, they just need to own the book that people are buying right now. Giving your book a chance to sell would dectract from those sales. If there were no copyright anyone trying to sell the book $1 cheaper would be undercut by someone selling $1 cheaper them them, and so on. The financial incentive to do that goes away. People then choose to distribute based on different incentives, like the fact that they have seen something worthy that others should see. We have almost completely lost that today because the financial incentive doesn't care what it is as long as you buy it. That might lead to a world dominated by an optimisation for whatever it takes to get you engaged, or worse, addicted. That world might really suck. There needs to be a way to support the creation of art. Copyright lets a few corporations decide the subset of available art is seen enough and available to pay for (in the hope that maybe some of the patment gets to the creator). It is not a system that works in the modern world.
- freejazz 3mo agoWell, there is nothing to distribute if the author is not incentivized to write... which you seemed to skip past.
- Lerc 3mo agoIndeed, perhaps I should have said There needs to be a way to support the creation of art.
- deaton 3mo agoGreat, that way is called copyright. The author has the right to control who has the rights to distribute their work, and can require compensation in exchange for that right; what economists refer to as "selling".
- satvikpendem 3mo agoPeople have been paid artists before copyright even existed, what some might call patronage.
- WarmWash 3mo agoI can't tell if this comment is satire or not. You're speaking to the generation of pirates. What? Suddenly everyone is hanging up their high seas hat to capture the virtue signals of current sentiment?
- aetherspawn 3mo agoam I? Most guys on this forum would be younger than me and I definitely find streaming services easier and more convenient than pirating and wondering if I’m gonna catch computer AIDS.
- satvikpendem 3mo agoIt's funny because copyright only benefits the rich now. Record labels hold all the copyright to songs, same with publishers for books, Disney made sure it lasts over a hundred years. The days of copyright being held by individuals in any real sense is long gone.
- account42 3mo ago> Imagine a society without copyright We don't need to imagine, this is how human society has worked for most of the run we have had.
- klabb3 3mo agoThis reminds me of this argument with libertarians/ancaps: A: rich people pay less % in taxes than wage workers, we should close the loopholes B: but taxes are immoral to begin with A: ok, but can we do something now about the unequal enforcement? Unrealized gains, tax havens, trusts, fake charities, etc? B: well a society based on property rights… ackhully you should read this book by Mises/Rothbard/Rand
- economistbob 3mo agoNever really understood how libertarians expect to have someone making guns for their fiefdoms when there is no one to enforce property rights for said gun elements and manufactories.
- oblio 3mo agoLibertarianism is not a philosophy. It's selfishness taken to extremes and trying to find ways to justify it at a societal level. The only reason we're the top species is because we're ultra social and have culture, which is inherently a social trait (don't eat those red berries, they're poisonous). Libertarianism want all the benefits of working together with no actual thought into how that working together happens in real life, including punishment for bad behavior.
- Jensson 3mo agoYeah its wrong in very very similar ways to communism.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- economistbob 3mo agoWhat very very similar ways would that be?
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- zelphirkalt 3mo agoI would be fine with abandoning copyright ... If it is done for everyone equally, and not just tech giants and VC money businesses get a free pass, while everyone else still has to follow the copyright laws. Lets go ahead and usher in an age of free information and experiencing all forms of human expression for everyone. But lets also come up with a way, to compensate our creative minds and our educators and artists. How about that UBI? We stand much to gain as humanity.
- reactordev 3mo agoThis. Copyright is a flawed system. There can be alternatives that allow more than 1 player to play and not create monopolies. For example. I invent a new method of power washing. I start a power washing business using new tech. I file the tech for patent and copyright-equivalent use. This is then made available to other power wash companies that wish to use the tech and be certified in it so long as a small portion of their revenue goes back to the inventor for a set amount per volume, or something similar of a metric that has a cutoff after a point. This will breed new industries, create new jobs, introduce new innovations, and allow the markets to move on from being strangled by one giant corporation.
- satvikpendem 3mo agoIsn't that just...patent licensing? But I agree that it should be a forced outcome so everyone can use it rather than waiting a ridiculous 20 years.
- account42 3mo agocopyright used against schmucks like you and me but ignored when inconvenient for bigcorp is even more bullshit
- satvikpendem 3mo agoIn that case AI should just be open source/weight. I don't agree with copyright in general but I see where you're coming from.
- 7952 3mo agoI think this posture is hugely beneficial to China if they can commoditise the hardware.
- roysting 3mo agoSo will you owe life long compensation for all the knowledge you got from books too? How about all the pirated books, music, movies, etc you consumed? When will you set up a life long payment plan to corporations that own these rights, because I have a bridge to sell you if you think any of this settlement will go to any of the people who created anything. I’m guessing you have some kind of imagined idea of some small author being compensated handsomely for his book and all future earnings that could have come from it. Reality though is that between the attorneys that will run away with some high triple digit millions and the corporations that own the rights to the subject works, there will be measly “checks” for any actual person that created anything, i.e., an artist or author. In an odd way, this whole case is really just “capitalism” cannibalizing itself, i.e., publishers greedily and also in a terrified manner trying to steal away as much capital from the technological shift to AI as possible in order to either create a buffer or fund their transformation to adapt to what AI means to the very nature of writing itself, let alone publishing. I suspect human writing could survive, but I don’t see any room for publishers.
- skinfaxi 3mo ago> So will you owe life long compensation for all the knowledge you got from books too? No because we are people and the laws differ for people, corporations, and machines.
- insanitybit 3mo agoI think people forget that laws are perfectly capable of carving out exceptions, leaving purposeful ambiguity, expressing intent, etc. Yes, humans can have special rules, and very obviously should since laws exist to improve human lives.
- roysting 3mo agoI am actually not settled on either side of the matter and I have not forgotten that, but I think what we are really looking at is a rather more complex matter than people want to make it out to be. We are holding several but at the very least contradictory positions and they are incompatible. Either it is theft or not theft. Why would you stealing from me deserve an exception, but when a group of people in an organization you may refer to as a corporation steal from me, you want them to pay me? Do as I say, not as I do or something like that? Of course exceptions can be carved out, but they cannot be just, inherently. The problem is that we have allowed our ruling maniacs to create a fiction that organizations are people, which not only have more rights, and less responsibilities, and even less consequences/penalties; but also confers upon the individuals that make up the corporate person rather extreme super powers like being able to commit crimes up to outright murder, and there not only are effectively zero consequences for or to them but in most cases today they immensely profit from it and then shield that money from the victims seeking justice. The underlying issue, why I am not settled on this matter, is that it is inherently contradictory because the facts and underlying assumptions are all so distorted and perverted that there is no good answer to be had and it's really just a matter of rule of power, feigning rule of law.
- dghlsakjg 3mo ago> As far as I'm concerned, the courts are wrong, and training on ill gotten copyrighted material is not fair use. It’s important to remember that a court’s job is to apply law to a situation. When a court gets something wrong it’s a misinterpretation of the law and will, by definition, be overturnable on appeal. I suspect that your objection isn’t that the court is wrong, it’s that the law is wrong.
- freejazz 3mo agoIt's not a settled area of law and there is a SDNY judge that has a completely different application of the fair use analysis in the same exact context and came to a completely different conclusion (that it is not fair use).
- budsniffer952 3mo agoWhat do you know, you can get someone to support any message or arguments you want. Lesson in there about experts and politics.
- consensus1 3mo agoI would like to see a citation on that b/c I am unaware of it. The only case I see in SDNY is the NYT v OpenAI case which has not been ruled on yet. https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/copyright-law-2025-courts-begin-draw-lines-around-ai-training-piracy-market-harm--pracin-2026-03-16/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/copyright-law-20...
- WarmWash 3mo ago"I haven't loaded an advertisement in 20 years, I have 6TB of movies, 2TB of music, and seemingly endless file trees of mangas, all acquired for free over the years. Now having not said that, I beg you enforce copyright on these AI labs, so I can get a cut of their revenue for my years of writing well researched comments on the internet" The internet, in true internet fashion, still has the general logic level of a 15 year old.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- thayne 3mo agoIMO, using copyrighted works to train models should only be "fair use", if the models are then released as (at least) open weight, so that the public can benefit from it. (Although as noted by a sibling, this would require a law change, not action by the court).
- sashank_1509 3mo agoI’m not sure if that’s enough but it would be a great start.
- inlined 3mo agoAdobe’s ereaders had a disclaimer that their books cannot be read aloud. There’s clearly precedent that this sort of transformation was disallowed by publishers at the time. Interestingly, at least the audiobook of the latest dungeon crawler Carl has a disclaimer that it can’t be used to train AI
- rileymat2 3mo ago> training on ill gotten copyrighted material is not fair use. Ill gotten copyrighted material is illegal. What can be done with it after is a completely separate issue.