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US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired

(www.theregister.com)
451 points croes | 9 comments | 12 May 25 09:49 UTC | HN request time: 1.041s | source | bottom
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mattxxx ◴[12 May 25 13:58 UTC] No.43962976[source]▶
Well, firing someone for this is super weird. It seems like an attempt to censor an interpretation of the law that:

1. Criticizes a highly useful technology 2. Matches a potentially-outdated, strict interpretation of copyright law

My opinion: I think using copyrighted data to train models for sure seems classically illegal. Despite that, Humans can read a book, get inspiration, and write a new book and not be litigated against. When I look at the litany of derivative fantasy novels, it's obvious they're not all fully independent works.

Since AI is and will continue to be so useful and transformative, I think we just need to acknowledge that our laws did not accomodate this use-case, then we should change them.

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zelphirkalt ◴[12 May 25 15:11 UTC] No.43963943[source]▶
The law covers these cases pretty well, it is just that the law has very powerful extremely rich adversaries, whose greed has gotten the better of them again and again. They could use work released sufficiently long ago to be legally available, or they could take work released as creative commons, or they could run a lookup, to make sure to never output verbatim copies of input or outputs, that are within a certain string editing distance, depending on output length, or they could have paid people to reach out to all the people, whose work they are infringing upon. But they didn't do any of that, of course, because they think they are above the law.
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1. nadermx ◴[12 May 25 15:31 UTC] No.43964164[source]▶
I'm confused, so you're saying its illegal? Because last I checked it's still in the process of going through the courts. And need we forget that copyright's purpose is to advance the arts and sciences. Fair use is codified into law, which states each case is seen on a use by use basis, hence the litigation to determine if it is in fact, legal.
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2. mdhb ◴[12 May 25 15:48 UTC] No.43964357[source]▶
It’s so fucking obviously illegal when you think about it rationally for more than a few seconds. We aren’t even talking about “fair use” we are talking about how it works in practice which was Meta torrenting pirated books, never paying anyone a cent and straight up stealing the content at scale.
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3. Intralexical ◴[12 May 25 16:18 UTC] No.43964700[source]▶
A test to apply here: If you or I did this, would it be illegal? Would we even be having this conversation?

The law is supposed to be impartial. So if the answer is different, then it's not really a law problem we're talking about.

4. nadermx ◴[12 May 25 16:19 UTC] No.43964716[source]▶
The fact you are even using the word stealing, is telling to your lack of knowledge in this field. Copyright infringement is not stealing[0]. The propaganda of the copyright cartel has gotten to you.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowling_v._United_States_(1985...

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5. ◴[12 May 25 17:47 UTC] No.43965685{3}[source]▶
6. hulitu ◴[12 May 25 18:20 UTC] No.43966032{3}[source]▶
> The fact you are even using the word stealing, is telling to your lack of knowledge in this field.

I agree. If you can pay the judge, the congress or the president, it is definitely not stealing. It is (the best) democracy (money can buy). /s

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7. nadermx ◴[12 May 25 18:42 UTC] No.43966238{4}[source]▶
So when someone steals something from you, you no longer have it. Yet here they paid the judge(s) because the person who's been "robbed" still has their thing?
8. johnnyanmac ◴[13 May 25 02:00 UTC] No.43969091{3}[source]▶
> Copyright infringement is not stealing

If we can agree that taking away of your time is theft (wage theft, to be precise), we as those who rely on intellect in our careers should be able to agree that the taking of our ideas is also theft.

>moved to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where he argued that the goods he was distributing were not "stolen, converted or taken by fraud", according to the language of 18 U.S.C. 2314 - the interstate transportation statute under which he was convicted. The court disagreed, affirming the original decision and upholding the conviction. Dowling then took the case to the Supreme Court, which sided with his argument and reversed the convictions.

This just tells me that the definition is highly contentious. Having the supreme court reverse a federal ruling already shows misalignment.

9. zelphirkalt ◴[14 May 25 11:33 UTC] No.43983233{3}[source]▶
I still feel like the point is useless, because at the end of the day, if some normal person went ahead and did the same thing the tech giant did, they would long be moved to a less comfortable new home, that has high security against breaking in. At the end of the day, the situation now is, that some are more equal than others, and it is unacceptable, yet, due to the mountains of (also unethically acquired) cash they have, they can get away with something a normal person cannot. Even the law might be bent to their will, because if suing them fails, it creates precedence.

If we end up saying it is not illegal, then I demand, that it will not be illegal for everyone. No double standards please. Let us all launder copyrighted material this way, labeling it "AI".