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If they don't rely on the original works why do they incorporate them in the training corpus? But they do, so it is a derivative work. When the industry favore

If they don't rely on the original works why do they incorporate them in the training corpus? But they do, so it is a derivative work. When the industry favored copyright, it made sure to do clean room implementations of software by competitors. Programmers who had even read a single line were disqualified. AI reads everything, so it is not a clean room implementation. The EFF knows this of course and still supports the industry (which is now of the side of theft, unless it is distilling).

hn_acker 8d ago
> If they don't rely on the original works Neither my words nor EFF's words suggested anything like that. > so it is a derivative work. Just because one work is derived from or relies on another does not implicate copyright. Copyright is not use-right or rely-right (nor should copyright be expanded to be them). (Contracts such as EULAs can go beyond the scope of copyright and may include use-restrictions.) If there is no substantial similarity (including obfuscated or mangled similarity) between the derivative work and the original work, then the derivative work does not infringe copyright. > AI reads everything, so it is not a clean room implementation. Very true, but substantial similarity matters. If there is no substantial similarity between the output and the original work, then an output is not an "implementation" of the original work. When I say output or Thing, I mean the output of an LLM or a human, not the LLM itself. If (if) a particular LLM itself infringes copyright, not every output of the LLM necessarily infringes copyright. If a particular output of an LLM infringes copyright, the LLM itself does not necessarily infringe copyright. (Maybe someone could, with Herculean difficulty, demonstrate that the particular LLM might as well be incapable of producing non-infringing output?) There's no guarantee that a non-clean-room implementation always constitutes copyright infringement, especially considering that for software in particular the functional aspects are not always separatable from the creative expression. Theoretically, both clean-room and non-clean-room implementations of a very optimized program designed for non-entertainment purposes would be unavoidably substantially similar to the original work. (Related reading: the merger doctrine [1].) Substantial similarity is necessary, but not sufficient, to copyright infringement. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea%E2%80%93expression_distinction#Merger_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea%E2%80%93expression_distin...

hn_acker 8d ago

> If they don't rely on the original works Neither my words nor EFF's words suggested anything like that. > so it is a derivative work. Just because one work is derived from or relies on another does not implicate copyright. Copyright is not use-right or rely-right (nor should copyright be expanded to be them). (Contracts such as EULAs can go beyond the scope of copyright and may include use-restrictions.) If there is no substantial similarity (including obfuscated or mangled similarity) between the derivative work and the original work, then the derivative work does not infringe copyright. > AI reads everything, so it is not a clean room implementation. Very true, but substantial similarity matters. If there is no substantial similarity between the output and the original work, then an output is not an "implementation" of the original work. When I say output or Thing, I mean the output of an LLM or a human, not the LLM itself. If (if) a particular LLM itself infringes copyright, not every output of the LLM necessarily infringes copyright. If a particular output of an LLM infringes copyright, the LLM itself does not necessarily infringe copyright. (Maybe someone could, with Herculean difficulty, demonstrate that the particular LLM might as well be incapable of producing non-infringing output?) There's no guarantee that a non-clean-room implementation always constitutes copyright infringement, especially considering that for software in particular the functional aspects are not always separatable from the creative expression. Theoretically, both clean-room and non-clean-room implementations of a very optimized program designed for non-entertainment purposes would be unavoidably substantially similar to the original work. (Related reading: the merger doctrine [1].) Substantial similarity is necessary, but not sufficient, to copyright infringement. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea%E2%80%93expression_distinction#Merger_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea%E2%80%93expression_distin...