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

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 Matches a potentially-outdated, strict interpretation of copyright law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.

Doing a cover song requires permission, and doing it without that permission can be illegal. Being inspired by a song to write your own is very legal.

AI is fine as long as the work it generates is substantially new and transformative. If it breaks and starts spitting out other peoples work verbatim (or nearly verbatim) there is a problem.

Yes, I'm aware that machines aren't people and can't be "inspired", but if the functional results are the same the law should be the same. Vaguely defined ideas like your soul or "inspiration" aren't real. The output is real, measurable, and quantifiable and that's how it should be judged.

> Doing a cover song requires permission, and doing it without that permission can be illegal.

I believe cover song licensing is available mechanically; you don't need permission, you just need to follow the procedures including sending the licensing fees to a rights clearing house. Music has a lot of mechanical licenses and clearing houses, as opposed to other categories of works.

> you don't need permission, you just need to follow the procedures

Those procedures are how you ask for permission. As you say, it usually involves a fee but doesn't have to.

(in the US) Mechanical licenses are compulsory; you don't need permission, you can just follow the forms and pay the fees set by the Copyright Royalty Board (appointed by the Librarian of Congress). You can ask the rightsholder to negotiate a lower fee, but there's no need for consent of the rightsholder if you notify as required (within 30 days of recording and before distribution) and pay the set fees.

Thanks for clarifying. Sometimes I forget that HN has a lot experts floating around who take things in a very literal and legalistic way. I was speaking in more general terms, and missed that you were being very precise with your language.

Compulsory licenses are interesting aren't they? It just feels wrong. If Metallica doesn't want me to butcher their songs, why should the be forced to allow it?