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

(www.theregister.com)
451 points croes | 4 comments | 12 May 25 09:49 UTC | HN request time: 0.837s | source
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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 Matches a potentially-outdated, strict interpretation of copyright law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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palmotea[dead post] ◴[12 May 25 14:14 UTC] No.43963168[source]▶
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Suppafly ◴[12 May 25 21:05 UTC] No.43967443[source]▶
>The fatal flaw in your reasoning: machines aren't humans.

I don't see how that affects the argument. The machines are being used by humans. Your argument then boils down to the idea that you can do something manually but it becomes illegal if you use a tool to do it efficiently.

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1. const_cast ◴[12 May 25 21:15 UTC] No.43967533[source]▶
It's not about the tool, how you use it, or even how it works. It's about the end result.

I can go through and manually compress "Revenge of the Sith" and then post it online. Or, I can use a compression program like handbrake. Regardless, it is copyright infringement.

Can AI reproduce almost* the same things that exist in it's training data? Sometimes, so sometimes it's copyright infringement. Doesn't help that it's explicitly for-profit and seeks to obsolesce and siphon value from it's training material.

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2. Suppafly ◴[12 May 25 21:29 UTC] No.43967637[source]▶
>Sometimes, so sometimes it's copyright infringement.

So in those cases, the original authors might have a case. Generally you don't see these LLM doing that though.

>Doesn't help that it's explicitly for-profit and seeks to obsolesce and siphon value from it's training material.

Doesn't hurt either. That's a reason to be butthurt, but that's not a legal argument.

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3. const_cast ◴[12 May 25 21:40 UTC] No.43967723[source]▶
> That's a reason to be butthurt, but that's not a legal argument.

It is a legal argument, fair use specifically takes into account the intention. Just using it for commercial ventures makes the water hotter.

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4. Suppafly ◴[13 May 25 18:47 UTC] No.43976273{3}[source]▶
>It is a legal argument

Not a very good one then.