I’ve generally been against giving AI works copyright, but this article presented what I felt were compelling arguments for why I might be wrong. What do you think?

    • FlowVoid@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      No, it doesn’t.

      It defends web scraping (downloading copyrighted works) as legal if necessary for fair use. But fair use is not a foregone conclusion.

      In fact, there was a recent case in which a company was sued for scraping images and texts from Facebook users. Their goal was to analyze them and create a database of advertising trackers, in competition with Facebook. The case settled, but not before the judge noted that the web scraper was not fair use and very likely infringing IP.

        • FlowVoid@midwest.social
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          1 year ago

          Yes, it absolutely hinges on fair use. That’s why the very first page of the lawsuit alleges:

          “Defendants’ LLMs endanger fiction writers’ ability to make a living, in that the LLMs allow anyone to generate—automatically and freely (or very cheaply)—texts that they would otherwise pay writers to create”

          If the court agrees with that claim, it will basically kill the fair use defense.

          • Even_Adder@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            First of all, fair use is not simple or as clear-cut a concept that can be applied uniformly to all cases than you make it out to be. It’s flexible and context-dependent on careful analysis of four factors: the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used, and the effect of the use upon the potential market. No one factor is more important than the others, and it is possible to have a fair use defense even if you do not meet all the criteria of fair use.

            Generative models create new and original works based on their weights, such as poems, stories, code, essays, songs, images, video, celebrity parodies, and more. These works may have their own artistic merit and value, and may be considered transformative uses that add new expression or meaning to the original works. Allowing people to generate text that they would otherwise pay writers to create that isn’t making the original redundant nor isn’t reproducing the original is likely fair use. Stopping people from cheaply producing non-infringing text doesn’t seem like something the courts would agree should be stopped just 'cause someone wants to get paid instead.

            I think you’re being too narrow and rigid with your interpretation of fair use, and I don’t think you understand the doctrine that well.

            • FlowVoid@midwest.social
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              1 year ago

              the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used, and the effect of the use upon the potential market.

              Yes, and I named three of those factors:

              the key questions are often whether the use of the work (a) is commercial, or (b) may substitute for the original work. Furthermore, the amount of the work copied is also considered.

              And while you don’t need to meet all the criteria, the odds are pretty long when you fail three of the four (commercial nature, copying complete work rather than a portion, and negative effect on the market for the original).

              Think of it this way: if it were legal to download books in order to train an AI, then it would also be legal to download books in order to train a human student. After all, why would a human have fewer rights than an AI?

              Do you really think courts are going to decide that it’s ok to download books from The Pirate Bay or Z-Library, provided they are being read by the next generation of writers?

              • Even_Adder@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                1 year ago

                I haven’t seen anyone that has been able to reproduce complete works from an LLM. Open AI also actively stops people from even trying to reproduce anything that resembles copyrighted materials. Signaling their commercial purpose isn’t to substitute for the plaintiff’s works. Filing suit doesn’t make their claims true, you should hold off on hasty judgements.

                • FlowVoid@midwest.social
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                  1 year ago

                  Again, it’s not a question of reproducing books in an LLM. The allegation is that the openAI developers downloaded books illegally to train their AI.

                  You need to pay for your copy of a book. That’s true if you are a student teaching yourself to write, and it’s also true if you are an AI developer training an AI to write. In the latter case, you might also need to pay for a special license.

                  Is it possible that the openAI developers can bring the receipts showing they paid for each and every book and/or license they needed to train their AI? Sure, it’s possible. If so, the lawyers who brought the suit would look pretty silly for not even bother to check.

                  But openAI used a whole lot of books, which cost a whole lot of money. So I wouldn’t hold my breath.

                  • Even_Adder@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    1 year ago

                    To quote again:

                    When an act potentially implicates copyright but is a necessary step in enabling noninfringing uses, it frequently qualifies as a fair use itself.

                    Yeah, I think they’ve got a chance. You also definitely don’t need to pay to use books. You can just receive it for free from someone. That’s why college course books make all those revisions and bundle in software to stop people from sharing.