AI tools like ChatGPT are built on mass copyright infringement(theglobeandmail.com)
theglobeandmail.com
AI tools like ChatGPT are built on mass copyright infringement
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-ai-programs-like-chatgpt-are-built-on-mass-copyright-infringement/
98 comments
If I listen to 1000 pop songs and then write my own that's different from all of them, that's not copyright infringement. If I listen to 1000 pop songs and then write one that's nearly exactly the same as one of them, that absolutely is copyright infringement and I would most likely lose a lawsuit. The fact that I listened to 999 other songs does not absolve me of the infringement.
Most modern neural nets, and certainly LLMs, are overparameterized, which means they are completely capable of regurgitating exact training instances. They can and do repeat copyrighted training data verbatim. It's absolutely copyright infringement when that happens.
I anticipate AI researchers will soon come up with a way to ensure that outputs are a sufficient distance from all training inputs -- to essentially "block" direct regurgitation as valid output, with a tunable "max similarity" set to a safe distance. At that point we can start being more confident that our AI output is genuinely transformative and safe from (valid!) lawsuit.
> The bitching from writers and musicians reflects not that they're being ripped off, but that they're being out-produced.
This comes across as quite heartless. It will be interesting to see whether your view on this changes when AI starts making obsolete whatever you have spent your life specializing in.
Most modern neural nets, and certainly LLMs, are overparameterized, which means they are completely capable of regurgitating exact training instances. They can and do repeat copyrighted training data verbatim. It's absolutely copyright infringement when that happens.
I anticipate AI researchers will soon come up with a way to ensure that outputs are a sufficient distance from all training inputs -- to essentially "block" direct regurgitation as valid output, with a tunable "max similarity" set to a safe distance. At that point we can start being more confident that our AI output is genuinely transformative and safe from (valid!) lawsuit.
> The bitching from writers and musicians reflects not that they're being ripped off, but that they're being out-produced.
This comes across as quite heartless. It will be interesting to see whether your view on this changes when AI starts making obsolete whatever you have spent your life specializing in.
I do not mind being made redundant by AI. I'll go become an electrician, general contractor, or something else you're not going to automate in my lifetime. The problem isn't the automation, its what happens if the usual Capital subjects capture all the gains vs them being distributed as excess across the populace.
EDIT: We should welcome automation and destruction of work where a machine can do it better. We fear it because of a broken socioeconomic system. Agree we should probably put breaks on anything so disruptive unless people impacted have some safeguards, because if you don't, what good is progress for progress' sake? It then becomes no different than bullshit jobs.
EDIT: We should welcome automation and destruction of work where a machine can do it better. We fear it because of a broken socioeconomic system. Agree we should probably put breaks on anything so disruptive unless people impacted have some safeguards, because if you don't, what good is progress for progress' sake? It then becomes no different than bullshit jobs.
This. My full-time job is automating myself out of a job. Arguably, that's one of the indicators of a quality software engineer versus one who can follow directions but not decrease the problem space.
The problem is not automation... Automation is great. It frees up people's time to do more activities. The problem is how we distribute the spoils of that freed time.
The problem is not automation... Automation is great. It frees up people's time to do more activities. The problem is how we distribute the spoils of that freed time.
This is a critical distinction. Like 'toomuchtodo, I can go pick up a nailer and build a house if the computery jobs go away. But I cannot effectively participate in the governance of the society of which I am in theory an equal member if the benefits of automation continue inexorably to accrue to a very small group.
(e: and his edit says it as eloquently as I can!)
(e: and his edit says it as eloquently as I can!)
Highest praise. Appreciate the kind words.
Your suggestion to someone whose multi-decade career was ended by AI is to play career whack-a-mole, try to guess which careers won't be next to be killed off, go back to school for several years, and pray?
Yes.
Telephone operators. Typing pools. Grooms. TV repair technicians. Weavers
To this list we may be adding law clerks. Drafters. Copy writers.
This is an ancient process. Some societies and cultures cope and maintain a civil society, some don't
So do not play "whack'a'mole", campaign for social change
Telephone operators. Typing pools. Grooms. TV repair technicians. Weavers
To this list we may be adding law clerks. Drafters. Copy writers.
This is an ancient process. Some societies and cultures cope and maintain a civil society, some don't
So do not play "whack'a'mole", campaign for social change
I guess we should get rid of bulldozers and give more people shovels.
While you're at it, take computers always from people. They automate way too much stuff.
Btw, I am in one of those careers that people think is at the risk of being automated away. I don't really care about it. If I become obsolete, maybe my skills were not that useful. I'll try working in something else.
And if all jobs are automated away, I'll just go starve with the rest of the peasantry. The last to starve will be the first to suffocate.
While you're at it, take computers always from people. They automate way too much stuff.
Btw, I am in one of those careers that people think is at the risk of being automated away. I don't really care about it. If I become obsolete, maybe my skills were not that useful. I'll try working in something else.
And if all jobs are automated away, I'll just go starve with the rest of the peasantry. The last to starve will be the first to suffocate.
[deleted]
> 1000 pop songs and then write one that's nearly exactly the same as one of them
Alright, but how do you define this when talking about most of modern "pop" music (using a broad definition that also includes things like techno or rock sub-genres)?
Maybe even only consider what's commercially relevant.
Copyright is famously about authorship as an ulterior value, governing and including other values such as monetization.
What about this aspect?
Creativity is also often about subtlety, e.g. polished songwriting and sound design.
Already without AI, rent-seeking is prevalent in popular music, maybe it's even an integral part?
For a stupid example of reusing themes in pop music, take this especially spicy example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraft_400
Or listen to the radio maybe. As a 90s and 2000s dance music lover, there's plenty of rehashing old content, sometimes licensed, other times it's just what music is.
Songs are memes after all
Alright, but how do you define this when talking about most of modern "pop" music (using a broad definition that also includes things like techno or rock sub-genres)?
Maybe even only consider what's commercially relevant.
Copyright is famously about authorship as an ulterior value, governing and including other values such as monetization.
What about this aspect?
Creativity is also often about subtlety, e.g. polished songwriting and sound design.
Already without AI, rent-seeking is prevalent in popular music, maybe it's even an integral part?
For a stupid example of reusing themes in pop music, take this especially spicy example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraft_400
Or listen to the radio maybe. As a 90s and 2000s dance music lover, there's plenty of rehashing old content, sometimes licensed, other times it's just what music is.
Songs are memes after all
Actually, a lot of songs are incredibly similar to older songs (see ed sheeran v marvin gaye), and they're not infringing.
Things will look very similar because there are only so many things that sound good to the mass appeal.
> I anticipate AI researchers will soon come up with a way to ensure that outputs are a sufficient distance from all training inputs
This is already a thing.
Things will look very similar because there are only so many things that sound good to the mass appeal.
> I anticipate AI researchers will soon come up with a way to ensure that outputs are a sufficient distance from all training inputs
This is already a thing.
> a lot of songs are incredibly similar to older songs (see ed sheeran v marvin gaye), and they're not infringing
They're really not that similar. The Marvin Gaye family lawsuits are absolutely frivolous and a stain on his legacy. Suing over the same chord progression (ignoring tons of small variations that actually matter) would be like suing an author because they also had a character who was an angsty teenager with overbearing parents. Suing over a mostly-kinda-similar riff is like suing an author because they also used the sentence "Terrified, he ran." The songs only sound similar when you ignore all elements of the whole song and focus exactly on a few ways in which they overlap out of context.
They're nothing like GitHub CoPilot literally outputting comments that include copyright notifications from their original author. It's much more like suing someone who directly samples your song as a core element of their own (the Vanilla Ice example in the other comment).
They're really not that similar. The Marvin Gaye family lawsuits are absolutely frivolous and a stain on his legacy. Suing over the same chord progression (ignoring tons of small variations that actually matter) would be like suing an author because they also had a character who was an angsty teenager with overbearing parents. Suing over a mostly-kinda-similar riff is like suing an author because they also used the sentence "Terrified, he ran." The songs only sound similar when you ignore all elements of the whole song and focus exactly on a few ways in which they overlap out of context.
They're nothing like GitHub CoPilot literally outputting comments that include copyright notifications from their original author. It's much more like suing someone who directly samples your song as a core element of their own (the Vanilla Ice example in the other comment).
If you are basing your argument on a comparison between Ed Sheeran and Marvin Gaye, then you are talking about something completely different.
A better example is that Vanilla Ice had to pay royalties to Queen and David Bowie for using the bass hook from Under Pressure in Ice Ice Baby.
A better example is that Vanilla Ice had to pay royalties to Queen and David Bowie for using the bass hook from Under Pressure in Ice Ice Baby.
> Most modern neural nets, and certainly LLMs, are overparameterized, which means they are completely capable of regurgitating exact training instances.
No they're not.
GPT-3: Model size: 175 GB, training set size 300 billion tokens.
GPT-4: Not disclosed.
LLaMA: Model size: 65GB, training set size, 1 trillion tokens.
These things condense the data. They don't just index it, like a search engine.
[1] https://lambdalabs.com/blog/demystifying-gpt-3
No they're not.
GPT-3: Model size: 175 GB, training set size 300 billion tokens.
GPT-4: Not disclosed.
LLaMA: Model size: 65GB, training set size, 1 trillion tokens.
These things condense the data. They don't just index it, like a search engine.
[1] https://lambdalabs.com/blog/demystifying-gpt-3
Also, having the same number of parameters as the training set doesn't mean you can memorize it
Pop music is perhaps the worst example you could have chosen. It is highly derivative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpB_40hYjXU
> They can and do repeat copyrighted training data verbatim. It's absolutely copyright infringement when that happens.
My brain can do this too with music. In my 20's I used to be able to hear songs crystal clear in my head as if they were coming from the stereo itself.
Did my brain copy the song (yes!). Did it receive copyright approval from the artist (no!).
My brain can do this too with music. In my 20's I used to be able to hear songs crystal clear in my head as if they were coming from the stereo itself.
Did my brain copy the song (yes!). Did it receive copyright approval from the artist (no!).
If you put that information into a fixed medium of expression can you be found guilty of copyright infringement? (Yes!)
yeah, basically write an AI which would remove watermarks before training on data. Or after, if you've already trained (sarcasm).
Great programmatic solution indeed.
This is a bad take that doesn't account for the legal definition of copyright.
The first step of training an LLM, going from the source to a tokenized input array is creating a derivative work. Unless that's something that can be shown as fair use (the most likely exception, but there are others), then ingesting items into an GPT is probably a copyright violation.
https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106
106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107
107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use41
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
===
What will the courts decide? Who knows. It's probably going to be a fairly massive case regardless.
https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106
106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107
107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use41
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
===
What will the courts decide? Who knows. It's probably going to be a fairly massive case regardless.
>ingesting items into an GPT is probably a copyright violation.
Copyright violation is generally on the output side of things, not the input. It's not a copyright violation to watch a movie.
I also would nit pick that a model is not BASED UPON a copywritten work, just because consuming the copywritten work changed the models parameters slightly. The model itself is not a derivative of any specific work. If one work represented over 50% of a model, it might be a different story. People are getting a little over focused on the word derivative and ignoring the rest of the sentence.
Copyright violation is generally on the output side of things, not the input. It's not a copyright violation to watch a movie.
I also would nit pick that a model is not BASED UPON a copywritten work, just because consuming the copywritten work changed the models parameters slightly. The model itself is not a derivative of any specific work. If one work represented over 50% of a model, it might be a different story. People are getting a little over focused on the word derivative and ignoring the rest of the sentence.
> Copyright violation is generally on the output side of things, not the input. It's not a copyright violation to watch a movie.
Copyright infringement is doing anything that violates a exclusive right of a copyright holder[1]. There are a bunch of exclusive rights one of which involves the output side. The Southern District of New York Federal court just sided with publishers against the Internet Archive specifically in deciding that scanning books was a copyright violation. [2]. Particularly of note is page 14 of the decision [3]
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> The Publishers have established a prima facie case of copyright infringement. First, the Publishers hold exclusive publishing rights in the Works in Suit pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 106, and the Works were timely registered with the Copyright Office. Pls.’ 56.1 ¶¶ 210-214. Second, IA copied the entire Works in Suit without the Publishers’ permission. See id. ¶¶ 242-245. Specifically, IA does not dispute that it violated the Publishers’ reproduction rights, by creating copies of the Works in Suit, 17 U.S.C. § 106(1); the Publishers’ rights to prepare derivative works, by “recasting” the Publishers’ print books into ebooks, id. § 106(2); the Publishers’ distribution rights, by distributing ebook copies of the Works in Suit to IA’s users, id. § 106(3); the Publishers’ public performance rights, through the “read aloud” function on IA’s Website, id. § 106(4); and the Publishers’ display rights, by showing the Works in Suit to users through IA’s in-browser viewer, id. § 106(5).5
---
The generation of the model literally requires a step which converts the source material into tokens. That step is infringing. It's no different to taking photocopies of a photo, or whipping my phone out during a movie at the theater to record. Whether it's infringing is not the issue. It is. It's whether the act is fair use that is the problem.
I guess what you're trying to argue here is that using the resulting model is non-infringing. That's a whole 'nother thing I guess.
---
[1]: https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachette_v._Internet_Archive
[3]: https://www.eff.org/files/2023/03/29/188_opinion.pdf
Copyright infringement is doing anything that violates a exclusive right of a copyright holder[1]. There are a bunch of exclusive rights one of which involves the output side. The Southern District of New York Federal court just sided with publishers against the Internet Archive specifically in deciding that scanning books was a copyright violation. [2]. Particularly of note is page 14 of the decision [3]
---
> The Publishers have established a prima facie case of copyright infringement. First, the Publishers hold exclusive publishing rights in the Works in Suit pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 106, and the Works were timely registered with the Copyright Office. Pls.’ 56.1 ¶¶ 210-214. Second, IA copied the entire Works in Suit without the Publishers’ permission. See id. ¶¶ 242-245. Specifically, IA does not dispute that it violated the Publishers’ reproduction rights, by creating copies of the Works in Suit, 17 U.S.C. § 106(1); the Publishers’ rights to prepare derivative works, by “recasting” the Publishers’ print books into ebooks, id. § 106(2); the Publishers’ distribution rights, by distributing ebook copies of the Works in Suit to IA’s users, id. § 106(3); the Publishers’ public performance rights, through the “read aloud” function on IA’s Website, id. § 106(4); and the Publishers’ display rights, by showing the Works in Suit to users through IA’s in-browser viewer, id. § 106(5).5
---
The generation of the model literally requires a step which converts the source material into tokens. That step is infringing. It's no different to taking photocopies of a photo, or whipping my phone out during a movie at the theater to record. Whether it's infringing is not the issue. It is. It's whether the act is fair use that is the problem.
I guess what you're trying to argue here is that using the resulting model is non-infringing. That's a whole 'nother thing I guess.
---
[1]: https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachette_v._Internet_Archive
[3]: https://www.eff.org/files/2023/03/29/188_opinion.pdf
The internet archive case was about distributing the copies. The output side.
Had they archived the books and not lent out unlimited copies, nothing would have come of the case.
Had they archived the books and not lent out unlimited copies, nothing would have come of the case.
Probably yes. It still holds the book inside the model (or parts).
For generative art it spits out watermarks, for example.
If it was just some code, included into a compiled EXE, without permission - it would be a major violation. But including books inside of an AI model - it is different (not really).
If it was just some code, included into a compiled EXE, without permission - it would be a major violation. But including books inside of an AI model - it is different (not really).
Copyright infringement is when you take copyrighted work and distribute it directly, or so close to directly that it can't be said to be "transformative".
Obviously LLM outputs are transformative, so this argument falls completely flat. As the writer is a copyright lawyer, it's hard to conclude anything other than they are knowingly lying, or at minimum wishcasting what they want the law to say instead of what it does say.
I think the misconception stems from the laymen understanding of copyright clipping off the last part of that sentence so it's just "Copyright infringement is when you take copyrighted work".
Proof of the success of industry campaigns to vilify things like taping broadcast television.
Obviously LLM outputs are transformative, so this argument falls completely flat. As the writer is a copyright lawyer, it's hard to conclude anything other than they are knowingly lying, or at minimum wishcasting what they want the law to say instead of what it does say.
I think the misconception stems from the laymen understanding of copyright clipping off the last part of that sentence so it's just "Copyright infringement is when you take copyrighted work".
Proof of the success of industry campaigns to vilify things like taping broadcast television.
"You wouldn't send an http GET request to a car"
... well, DELETE is more fun.
Thats true
> Copyright infringement is when you take copyrighted work and distribute it directly, or so close to directly that it can't be said to be "transformative".
“Transformative” is one consideration in one of four factors for fair use, so that's not right on the exception, and infringement happens when any exclusive right (literal copying, creating a derivative work, public performance, etc) is done with neither permission nor an exception such as Fair Use, not just at distribution.
“Transformative” is one consideration in one of four factors for fair use, so that's not right on the exception, and infringement happens when any exclusive right (literal copying, creating a derivative work, public performance, etc) is done with neither permission nor an exception such as Fair Use, not just at distribution.
> Copyright infringement is when you take copyrighted work and distribute it directly
It goes much further. Loading copyrighted work into a computer's memory, for example, is copying and can infringe. There are 30 years of precedent here. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAI_Systems_Corp._v._Peak_Comp....
It goes much further. Loading copyrighted work into a computer's memory, for example, is copying and can infringe. There are 30 years of precedent here. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAI_Systems_Corp._v._Peak_Comp....
> Copyright infringement is when you take copyrighted work and distribute it directly, or so close to directly that it can't be said to be "transformative".
Distribution isn't necessarily a required element of infringement. Just the creation of a derivative work can be enough.
Distribution isn't necessarily a required element of infringement. Just the creation of a derivative work can be enough.
LLMs are just a novel compression algorithm.
Imagine someone built a 100 trillion parameter model, Greg, who is a personal assistant. Greg had a context length of a billion tokens, and he can search the web and tell you what he's found. His memory is so good that he can quote verbatim the full text of anything he's read. It's not even compression, it's just straight up storage. Should you have to pay royalties to everyone whose content you ask Greg to look at?
What if Greg isn't an llm and he's your browser cache? Are you still infringing copyright?
What if Greg isn't an llm and he's your browser cache? Are you still infringing copyright?
What if Greg is an online repository, crawling the web and storing and distributing copyrighted materials verbatim? Stripping out attribution? With ads and/or a paid subscription fee?
> Should you have to pay royalties to everyone whose content you ask Greg to look at?
If Greg talks so fast that he's distributing millions of these copies around the world, for money, then yes, of course he's infringing.
> What if Greg isn't an llm and he's your browser cache?
My browser cache is not a distribution mechanism. It's for my personal use. I'm not infringing on copyright if I keep books in my personal library. I am if I'm copying them millions of times and giving others access to that library for money. If I downloaded a bunch of paywalled content and then uploaded my browser cache to SomePirateSite.com, for money, then yes, I'm infringing.
Why do you think these are "gotcha" questions? This is pretty straightforward stuff, and nowhere does it prove that LLMs are not infringing.
> Should you have to pay royalties to everyone whose content you ask Greg to look at?
If Greg talks so fast that he's distributing millions of these copies around the world, for money, then yes, of course he's infringing.
> What if Greg isn't an llm and he's your browser cache?
My browser cache is not a distribution mechanism. It's for my personal use. I'm not infringing on copyright if I keep books in my personal library. I am if I'm copying them millions of times and giving others access to that library for money. If I downloaded a bunch of paywalled content and then uploaded my browser cache to SomePirateSite.com, for money, then yes, I'm infringing.
Why do you think these are "gotcha" questions? This is pretty straightforward stuff, and nowhere does it prove that LLMs are not infringing.
You are definitely infringing by making a copy of a book and keeping it in your personal library.
> What if Greg is an online repository, crawling the web and storing and distributing copyrighted materials verbatim? Stripping out attribution? With ads and/or a paid subscription fee?
So you mean Google, right?
So you mean Google, right?
Yes. Google preventing page-clicks by showing their half-assed, confidently wrong summaries that they scraped directly from the top results? Yes, that's copyright infringement. Simply linking to the site with a short preview is not.
Your browser cache doesn’t repurpose the content it stores to create derivative works. LLMs do so by definition.
Or what if Greg is a human with eidetic memory?
Humans and software are not the same. Humans get a pass on regurgitating some stuff because our memories are fuzzy and more importantly we are not eternal, distributable entities that scale based on GPUs available.
Kim Peek is Greg and the difference between him and and AI is the text above.
Kim Peek is Greg and the difference between him and and AI is the text above.
Isn't this called Google search?
In the sense that the big model _effectively_ stores a lot more information than it directly contains? Of course it doesnt actually store it, it just has lots of logic that can generate it.
Thats an interesting notion but isnt this just as true of any generative logic, provided the size of the set of results is larger than the code size? Like a random number generator. Can you compress infinity?
Thats an interesting notion but isnt this just as true of any generative logic, provided the size of the set of results is larger than the code size? Like a random number generator. Can you compress infinity?
Humans are just novel compression algorithms, our education systems reflect this! :)
A compilation step.
Basically, google search to complete your code.
And after "why you've copied this code? idk, it is not me, it is the model :(". :D
In the US, Copyright is not viewed as a natural property right but a contingent property interest for the limited purpose of promoting “the progress of science and useful arts”.
Pointing out that a major advancement would be foreclosed by a proposed interpretation of the scope of copyright law is an argument that that interpretation is either an incorrect interpretation of the statute or an area where the statute conflicts with its Constitutional purpose.
Of course, the Globe and Mail is Canadian, but, is Canadian law the applicable governing law here?
Pointing out that a major advancement would be foreclosed by a proposed interpretation of the scope of copyright law is an argument that that interpretation is either an incorrect interpretation of the statute or an area where the statute conflicts with its Constitutional purpose.
Of course, the Globe and Mail is Canadian, but, is Canadian law the applicable governing law here?
I don't take it as a given that it's necessary to use copyrighted works without permission to get most of the benefit of LLMs and other AI. There are many options:
1. The benefactors of these models can offer to pay a small fee to the copyright holders for inclusion of their work in the training set. Given that these models have the potential to be literally the most monetarily valuable products ever created in the history of mankind, paying the people who allowed them to exist doesn't seem like an unreasonable ask to me. Obviously people who refused would not have their works included.
2. The model can be trained on public works. Sometimes this is plenty, sometimes not.
3. Hordes of human beings can be paid to contribute to the training data set, Mechanical-Turk-style or just via direct employment. This is already necessary to curate and polish the input data.
None of these seem like outlandish requests for something that will eventually be worth trillions of dollars per year.
Consider the opposite: we give an exception to giant corporations and say "yeah feel free to just take whatever copyrighted work and use it however with no compensation." Artists and authors are being replaced by these outputs. What motivation do they have to create, knowing that their work will be immediately stolen by giant corporations for use in building the tool that makes them obsolete? How is that promoting “the progress of science and useful arts”?
I would like to see more high-speed railway exist. By your argument, land ownership is problematic because it prevents cool things like high-speed rail, and therefore we should just plow on through everyone's land for the greater good without compensation. I say: Eminent Domain is a useful last resort to make cool things happen, but at least compensate the people you're trampling on.
1. The benefactors of these models can offer to pay a small fee to the copyright holders for inclusion of their work in the training set. Given that these models have the potential to be literally the most monetarily valuable products ever created in the history of mankind, paying the people who allowed them to exist doesn't seem like an unreasonable ask to me. Obviously people who refused would not have their works included.
2. The model can be trained on public works. Sometimes this is plenty, sometimes not.
3. Hordes of human beings can be paid to contribute to the training data set, Mechanical-Turk-style or just via direct employment. This is already necessary to curate and polish the input data.
None of these seem like outlandish requests for something that will eventually be worth trillions of dollars per year.
Consider the opposite: we give an exception to giant corporations and say "yeah feel free to just take whatever copyrighted work and use it however with no compensation." Artists and authors are being replaced by these outputs. What motivation do they have to create, knowing that their work will be immediately stolen by giant corporations for use in building the tool that makes them obsolete? How is that promoting “the progress of science and useful arts”?
I would like to see more high-speed railway exist. By your argument, land ownership is problematic because it prevents cool things like high-speed rail, and therefore we should just plow on through everyone's land for the greater good without compensation. I say: Eminent Domain is a useful last resort to make cool things happen, but at least compensate the people you're trampling on.
> The benefactors of these models can offer to pay a small fee to the copyright holders for inclusion of their work in the training se
I do not understand. How can you justify that for publicly available text (like this?)
Why is a LLM learning from text a misuse yet you learning from text not? (See my assumption?)
There is no evidence (?) that these LLMs are trained on anything other than public Internet.
The "land ownership " analogy is unhelpful. Physical objects are entirely different from intellectual objects
I do not understand. How can you justify that for publicly available text (like this?)
Why is a LLM learning from text a misuse yet you learning from text not? (See my assumption?)
There is no evidence (?) that these LLMs are trained on anything other than public Internet.
The "land ownership " analogy is unhelpful. Physical objects are entirely different from intellectual objects
The time for copyright has long passed anyway. It's not clear to me that any infringement actually takes place in training AI, and I think we've all seen the arguments. But even if it did, it just means that "infringement" is a stupid construct that needs to be done away with. Intellectual property as a whole is a failed experiment that doesn't actually spur creation, which the the argued point for why the rest of us give up natural rights.
FWIW, the author appears to be the founder or former founder of Licensy - you can guess what it's about, so I wouldn't take the article as a neutral legal opinion anyway.
FWIW, the author appears to be the founder or former founder of Licensy - you can guess what it's about, so I wouldn't take the article as a neutral legal opinion anyway.
How many blockbuster movies do you expect would be created if copyright infringement were "done away with"? How many songs would be created? Books authored?
Copyright's current state might be excessive, but doing away with it entirely is almost surely not the answer.
Copyright's current state might be excessive, but doing away with it entirely is almost surely not the answer.
I don't belive the richness of culture would diminish in any way, and I can see a case that it would increase. Imagine that all the effort that goes to milking tired movie and song copyrights to extract value went into new stuff. Things might look slightly different, but I don't see that they could be worse.
In order for your argument to be true - you either believe that:
a) a copyright holder’s ability to monetize their work would not be impacted, or
b) that all the people that currently make their living creating copyrighted works, would continue to invest their time and money to produce their works regardless of their ability to be compensated
I personally find both premises to be unsupportable.
a) a copyright holder’s ability to monetize their work would not be impacted, or
b) that all the people that currently make their living creating copyrighted works, would continue to invest their time and money to produce their works regardless of their ability to be compensated
I personally find both premises to be unsupportable.
> that all the people that currently make their living creating copyrighted works,
Who are you talking about? What is their living like? From what I can see writer's and musicians mostly live in poverty unless they are hobbyists. Like me.
I produce audio art (eg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jrAAPbg81ks). No thought, ever, to copyright.
Who are you talking about? What is their living like? From what I can see writer's and musicians mostly live in poverty unless they are hobbyists. Like me.
I produce audio art (eg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jrAAPbg81ks). No thought, ever, to copyright.
Umm the millions of people that are employed by/earn their living from video game companies, movie and tv, magazines and newspapers, publishing houses, and musing labels. Not to mention all the royalties paid to individual artists etc. (I.e. ~$36b in US book sales, assume a ~15% royalty is ~$6b paid to creators).
And yes plenty of people try unsuccessfully to make a career from their art or just do it for fun as a hobby.
And yes plenty of people try unsuccessfully to make a career from their art or just do it for fun as a hobby.
You made up two things I didn't say and then disagreed with them? That's an interesting discussion style.
So you do believe that creators' ability to monetize would be impacted, and they won't be investing as much time/money into their creations.
But you also believe that the richness of culture would not diminish in any way.
I wish you'd explain what you think would happen.
(I can say that if copyright stopped existing my business would also immediately stop existing and I'd have to find a new career or a new country).
But you also believe that the richness of culture would not diminish in any way.
I wish you'd explain what you think would happen.
(I can say that if copyright stopped existing my business would also immediately stop existing and I'd have to find a new career or a new country).
Well certain premises must be true to support the argument that you put forth. Those are the principal ones I could come up with, but by all means enlighten us as to the mechanism that will make creators want to create more rather than less under no copyright?
One seldom-mentioned aspect of copyright - for better or worse - is that it helps to keep old works (especially popular ones) off the shelves. If anyone could distribute old works, at lower or no cost, they'd be strong competition for new works (with living creators, publishing staff, and servers to pay).
Agreed that 'current state' is excessive. It's a shame that long out-of-print works (which are direct evidence of little or no commercial value to authors/publishers) have not become freely available since digitization came along. (Paying $35 for a digital copy of an ancient, but important science paper, for example.) OOP-status is pretty damned easy to verify today.
Agreed that 'current state' is excessive. It's a shame that long out-of-print works (which are direct evidence of little or no commercial value to authors/publishers) have not become freely available since digitization came along. (Paying $35 for a digital copy of an ancient, but important science paper, for example.) OOP-status is pretty damned easy to verify today.
Motte and Bailey, broad claim is all copyright is destroyed and no production will be done, narrow claim is it’s disruptive economically that the AI gets to look at webpages.
> How many blockbuster movies do you expect would be created if copyright infringement were "done away with"?
Zero
What a good idea!
Some more space for new art, rather than the warmed up recycled shirt we get now
Zero
What a good idea!
Some more space for new art, rather than the warmed up recycled shirt we get now
If it weren't for our dumb copyright laws, we could train AI on all the world's books and scientific papers instead of whatever's available online, and take the next great leap in human progress.
The problem with stuff that isn’t available online isn’t copyright laws (online training is done on copyright-protected work on the theory that such training is not a copyright violation for various reasons, notably, in the US, Fair Use, all of which would apply equally to books.)
The problem with stuff that isn’t available online is the cost of getting it into a form that can be ingested.
The problem with stuff that isn’t available online is the cost of getting it into a form that can be ingested.
Google Books already has a massive archive of the world's books which aren't otherwise accessible. The work was already done and the copyright lobby won.
And thus eliminate the reason many (if not most) of these books and webpages existed in the first place.
This may be fair in the short term, but on a longer timescale, it leaves us worse off unless LLMs master reasoning about and being creative with things not in their training set. Possible, but a crapshoot right now.
This may be fair in the short term, but on a longer timescale, it leaves us worse off unless LLMs master reasoning about and being creative with things not in their training set. Possible, but a crapshoot right now.
Keep in mind that success at this endeavor means that UBI becomes possible. With UBI we can expect to see more human creativity, not less, as humans are no longer forced to do a robot's job.
Copyright law cannot be allowed to stand in the way of this. If it does, break it. It's that important.
Copyright law cannot be allowed to stand in the way of this. If it does, break it. It's that important.
In absolutely no way, no way at all, does any of this imply that UBI will exist. It is no more reasonable to expect a society structurally against the idea that suffering should be avoided because we can avoid it to adopt UBI because of large language models than any other reason. Penury (for others) is a feature, not a bug, here.
Couple "the cruelty is the point" with figuring out exactly who will be giving up resources for UBI, and you have a very long road to hoe to make that a reality.
Couple "the cruelty is the point" with figuring out exactly who will be giving up resources for UBI, and you have a very long road to hoe to make that a reality.
> Keep in mind that success at this endeavor means that UBI becomes possible
UBI is already technologically possible. Yes, as automation becomes even more powerful and abundant, the feasible payouts from UBI will increase. That's never been the problem. The problem is that hundreds of millions of Americans (and a significant portion of everyone else in the world) would rather live in poverty as indentured servants to their rich masters than ever see those people benefit even a tiny bit from any government policy. Cruelty and suffering is literally what they want in the world; they fight tooth and nail to prevent anything that might uplift all of humanity (themselves included). They are deeply disturbed, horrible, irredeemable pieces of shit, and they're the majority.
And the very tiny minority of people who could ever do anything about this are exactly the ones who are poised to take all the benefits from automation and AI. I'm not scared of AI. I'm scared of humans. And very soon, the humans who already own everything are going to have no need for the rest of us.
UBI is already technologically possible. Yes, as automation becomes even more powerful and abundant, the feasible payouts from UBI will increase. That's never been the problem. The problem is that hundreds of millions of Americans (and a significant portion of everyone else in the world) would rather live in poverty as indentured servants to their rich masters than ever see those people benefit even a tiny bit from any government policy. Cruelty and suffering is literally what they want in the world; they fight tooth and nail to prevent anything that might uplift all of humanity (themselves included). They are deeply disturbed, horrible, irredeemable pieces of shit, and they're the majority.
And the very tiny minority of people who could ever do anything about this are exactly the ones who are poised to take all the benefits from automation and AI. I'm not scared of AI. I'm scared of humans. And very soon, the humans who already own everything are going to have no need for the rest of us.
> Keep in mind that success at this endeavor means that UBI becomes possible.
UBI is always possible. The achievable minimum support level might be higher with this, but also, with this occurring without UBI existing first, so will the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of entrenched interests who would want to prevent UBI (since it would be redistributing resources outward from them.)
UBI is always possible. The achievable minimum support level might be higher with this, but also, with this occurring without UBI existing first, so will the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of entrenched interests who would want to prevent UBI (since it would be redistributing resources outward from them.)
If copyright were at least set back to 14 years, people would still write books.
After that we could explore other economic models that make sense in a world of internet and AI, instead of blindly sticking with the system we designed for the world of the printing press.
After that we could explore other economic models that make sense in a world of internet and AI, instead of blindly sticking with the system we designed for the world of the printing press.
Or alternatively AI companies could license the copyrighted work like everyone else if they want to use it…
There are two ways to end up with a similar artwork:
1. Create enough art in the same restricted domain, and some works will happen to look similar to others.
2. Use aspects of a work in the process of creating another. Without enough process, the result will resemble the original.
LLMs pretend to do #1: They first model a collection of works - called the training corpus - to implicitly generate a domain. Everything that is "hallucinated" by that model is restricted to that domain.
The entire goal of an LLM is to resemble the training corpus. The only interesting part is "in what way" that resemblance appears.
For example, an infamous paper illustrated that after being trained against valid Othello games (written as sequential piece positions), GPT can hallucinate a valid Othello game move. Does this mean that the game moves are novel art? Of course not! They are the result of the training corpus being modeled through a transformer. This is method #2 masquerading as method #1.
1. Create enough art in the same restricted domain, and some works will happen to look similar to others.
2. Use aspects of a work in the process of creating another. Without enough process, the result will resemble the original.
LLMs pretend to do #1: They first model a collection of works - called the training corpus - to implicitly generate a domain. Everything that is "hallucinated" by that model is restricted to that domain.
The entire goal of an LLM is to resemble the training corpus. The only interesting part is "in what way" that resemblance appears.
For example, an infamous paper illustrated that after being trained against valid Othello games (written as sequential piece positions), GPT can hallucinate a valid Othello game move. Does this mean that the game moves are novel art? Of course not! They are the result of the training corpus being modeled through a transformer. This is method #2 masquerading as method #1.
Lukewarm take: Copyright is based on mass freedom infringement. If you publish something, you should be prepared for others to reproduce it and take it without credit. This is particularly true on mediums like the internet, where the net cost of copying data is effectively nothing.
I'll entertain arguments from either side of the infringement debate, but this opinion piece reads more like a reactionary defense of copyright rather than a measured response. These damages are... not that significant. It feels like Big Tech swooping in to defend Open Source not because they care about freedom, but because without it they would have no software. But instead of copyleft, it's copyright. Hmm.
I'll entertain arguments from either side of the infringement debate, but this opinion piece reads more like a reactionary defense of copyright rather than a measured response. These damages are... not that significant. It feels like Big Tech swooping in to defend Open Source not because they care about freedom, but because without it they would have no software. But instead of copyleft, it's copyright. Hmm.
> If you publish something, you should be prepared for others to reproduce it and take it without credit.
> the net cost of copying data is effectively nothing.
Since the cost of including the author and the link to original work is so cheap I dont see why not have the courtesy of adding that info. They're are already doing the work for free, recognition is the least you could pay in respect for it.
Granted, sometimes things are a complex tree of authorship transformations and it's an interesting question of how far back you d go for that but sometimes its pretty cut and dry too.
> the net cost of copying data is effectively nothing.
Since the cost of including the author and the link to original work is so cheap I dont see why not have the courtesy of adding that info. They're are already doing the work for free, recognition is the least you could pay in respect for it.
Granted, sometimes things are a complex tree of authorship transformations and it's an interesting question of how far back you d go for that but sometimes its pretty cut and dry too.
Yes, I have a similar attitude myself, to ignore copyright law for personal non-commercial usage. But if I want to do anything commercial, then I've got to respect it. That's my compromise stance on it.
Facebook was exactly built on the same premise: stealing massive databases from others (i.e., women profiles and photos hosted in student associations and sororities websites).
Look how justice responded when MZ was sued: first, by his university, then by the justice system. None did anything.
I'll let you just imagine what would have happened if MZ was of another ethnicity. Well, not only ethnicity but the other factor is a taboo even here.
Look how justice responded when MZ was sued: first, by his university, then by the justice system. None did anything.
I'll let you just imagine what would have happened if MZ was of another ethnicity. Well, not only ethnicity but the other factor is a taboo even here.
If it's a useful technology, no amount of lawyering will stop it.
If you don't have it, your competitors will, and your people will use the competitors software anyway.
If you don't have it, your competitors will, and your people will use the competitors software anyway.
seems more like AI tools should be (if they're not) built on the [insert best argument here for fair use]. then you'll know you're safe.
What distinguishes a transformation function like a human (20+ years of education with different input->output) vs a transformation function of a computer? (20k hours of training->output)
What about musician training? Movie directors?
What about musician training? Movie directors?
I strongly doubt anyone will care about how many years you've trained as an author if you blatantly rip off Harry Potter and sell it. Who cares? Why would that even come up at trial? That has nothing to do with anything. It's just:
(a) is it so similar to the original as to be considered derivative?
(b) did the author have any exposure at all to the original?
Movies, music, books: it doesn't matter. Lots of people are focusing on lots of red herrings in this thread. If the AI outputs its own copyrighted training data verbatim, it's copyright infringement, full stop.
(a) is it so similar to the original as to be considered derivative?
(b) did the author have any exposure at all to the original?
Movies, music, books: it doesn't matter. Lots of people are focusing on lots of red herrings in this thread. If the AI outputs its own copyrighted training data verbatim, it's copyright infringement, full stop.
Humans aren’t software and laws were designed around humans for the benefit of other humans.
Or at least the last time I checked nobody had forked my brain on GitHub or uploaded me to Sourceforge.
Or at least the last time I checked nobody had forked my brain on GitHub or uploaded me to Sourceforge.
Probably the biggest copyright infringement is related to open licenses. Is the kind of code easier to scrape, but which licenses have some restrictions on how it can be used, like including the license file or that the code that you based on it must have the same freedoms as the original code (I.e. not using it in closed source commercial programs).
Probably the same goes for open content licenses.
Probably the same goes for open content licenses.
They output the most likely token (unless I'm mistaking) which means tools like ChatGPT are the ultimate prior art machines. They answer what is the most parallel amongst similar sources.For example, when I ask ChatGPT to build a state machine, the state machine it attempts to build is the sum of all prior art not any one specific copyrighted machine.
I find it somewhat problematic that the author does not disclose that she built her career not just around intellectual property, but specifically the business of licensing content.
On one hand, that makes her an expert in the legal aspects of this case. On the other hand, generated content presents a substantial threat to her current income stream.
On one hand, that makes her an expert in the legal aspects of this case. On the other hand, generated content presents a substantial threat to her current income stream.
"As a former copyright startup founder equipped with a law degree and a long-standing career at the intersection of intellectual property (IP) law, media and tech..."
Seems like the author was pretty clear to me about their history.
Seems like the author was pretty clear to me about their history.
Nah, the same description (minus the startup) could apply to Micheal Geist who would have a very different perspective and would fall much closer to what most would consider a neutral student of technology and copyright law.
Cynical prediction: this will end up with copyright laws for words even dumber than the ones for music, where putting three notes in sequence can become EXCLUSIVE CORPORATE PROPERTY if you have enough lawyers.
Now here's an opinion I don't care about.
YouTube built an audience on mass copyright infringement over a decade ago, I think the cat is out of the bag.
If so, this proves that copyright as we know it today hinders progress of the arts and sciences.
The purpose of copyright is to incentivize the creation of art by fairly compensating the creators. If creators cannot be compensated fairly, then artists cannot devote their full efforts to being creative, and thus art and innovation stagnates.
The problem is that under current copyright law, having to purchase a distribution license for everything an AI learns in its training data would be cost prohibitive, to say the least, which also stagnates art and innovation.
I imagine a future where much of human effort is ultimately directed towards creating ground-truth data for a generative AI, whether that be text, pictures, art, or other media. I have a writer friend for whom this is happening already. We need to somehow incentivize ground-truth collection, and we don't have a way to do that right now apart from wages, which IMO is not sufficient.
To me, the question is not whether or not AI violates copyright, because we're clearly in new territory here. The question is, how do we properly compensate folks who are creating that ground-truth data? Do we need to restructure our economy from the ground up, or is there a path from the current capitalist economic model to doing this?
The problem is that under current copyright law, having to purchase a distribution license for everything an AI learns in its training data would be cost prohibitive, to say the least, which also stagnates art and innovation.
I imagine a future where much of human effort is ultimately directed towards creating ground-truth data for a generative AI, whether that be text, pictures, art, or other media. I have a writer friend for whom this is happening already. We need to somehow incentivize ground-truth collection, and we don't have a way to do that right now apart from wages, which IMO is not sufficient.
To me, the question is not whether or not AI violates copyright, because we're clearly in new territory here. The question is, how do we properly compensate folks who are creating that ground-truth data? Do we need to restructure our economy from the ground up, or is there a path from the current capitalist economic model to doing this?
This is why all of this AI stuff needs to be open source and in public domain.
There's no reproduction, it's just reading the text.
Time for copyright laws to be rewritten then.
Artists making copies of famous pictures is a standard part of artist training. Tribute bands are a thing. Elvis impersonators are a mini-industry. The lawsuits so far tend to involve "passing off" new work as someone else's work, as with that ML-generated popular song passed off as a new work by a major artist. That's not a copyright issue. That's ordinary fraud.
The bitching from writers and musicians reflects not that they're being ripped off, but that they're being out-produced. Authors didn't expect to be in the position of John Henry vs. the steam hammer. Now they are.