Like the record labels sued every music sharing platform in the early days. Adapt. They’re all afraid of new things but in the end nobody can stop it. Think, learn, work with it, not against it.
I think it’s valid. This isn’t about the tech, but the sources of your work.
Of course it’s valid. And the misuse of AI has to be fight. Nevertheless we have to think differently in the face of something we cannot stop in the long run. You cannot create a powerful tool and only misuse it. I miscommunicated here, should’ve explained myself, I got no excuses, maybe one: I sat on the shitter and wanted to make things short.
Personally I find this stupid. If we have robots walking around, are they going to be sued every time they see something that’s copywrited?
It’s this what will stop progress that could save us from environmental collapse? That a robot could summarize your shitty comedy?
Copywrite is already a disgusting mess, and still nobody cares about models being created specifically to manipulate people en mass. “What if it learned from MY creations” asks every self obsessed egoist in the world.
Doesn’t matter how many people this tech could save after another decade of development. Somebody think of the [lucky few artists that had the connections and luck to make a lot of money despite living in our soul crushing machine of a world]
All of the children growing up abused and in pain with no escape don’t matter at all. People who are sick or starving or homeless do no matter. Making progress to save the world from immanent environmental disaster doesn’t matter. Let Canada burn more and more every year. As long as copywrite is protected, all is well.
This won’t even stop LLMs, ones from countries that don’t respect copyright will simply advance past the ones that are. Like a Chinese tech company could simply ignore all that, and what, is Sarah Silverman going to sue Tencent in China? Good Luck. Tiktok uses copyrighted music constantly without permission, yet YouTube Shorts had to set up a system with the publishers. All that copyright laws in their current form do is hamper basically everyone for the sake of a few large companies.
How do you figure that AI is the answer to environmental collapse? Don’t get me wrong, copyright law is stupid, but I guess I just don’t buy into all of the AI hype to the extent that others are.
I believe it will require a level and pace of informational processing that is far beyond what humans will accomplish alone. just having a system that can efficiently sift through the excess existing papers, and find correlations or contradictions would be amazing for development of new technology. if you are paying attention to any environmental sciences right now, it’s terrifying in an extremely real and tangible way. we will not outpace the collapse without an intense increase in technological development.
if we bridge the gap of analogical comprehension in these systems, they could also start introducing or suggesting technologies that could help slow down or reverse the collapse. i think this is much more important than making sure sarah silverman doesn’t have her work paraphrased.
I disagree with your assessment that the climate crisis calls for a technical or scientific solution. We already have the technology and scientific information needed to fix the problem. The reason we haven’t yet is actually for political and economic reasons. I can’t envision a scenario where AI is able to fix the broken economic system that refuses to stop plundering our planet. I can’t see AI fixing our politicians or PACs that manufacture lies and propaganda, keeping people oblivious to what’s happening.
In evidence for the suit against OpenAI, the plaintiffs claim ChatGPT violates copyright law by producing a “derivative” version of copyrighted work when prompted to summarize the source.
Both filings make a broader case against AI, claiming that by definition, the models are a risk to the Copyright Act because they are trained on huge datasets that contain potentially copyrighted information
They’ve got a point.
If you ask AI to summarize something, it needs to know what it’s summarizing. Reading other summaries might be legal, but then why not just read those summaries first?
If the AI “reads” the work first, then it would have needed to pay for it. And how do you deal with that? Is a chatbot treated like one user? Or does it need to pay for a copy for each human that asks for a summary?
I think if they’d have paid for a single ebbok Library subscription they’d be fine. However the article says they used pirate libraries so it could read anything on the fly.
Pointing an AI at pirated media is going to be hard to defend in court. And a class action full of authors and celebrities isn’t going to be a cakewalk. They’ve got a lot of money to fight, and have lots of contacts for copyright laws. I’m sure all the publishers are pissed too.
Everyone is going after AI money these days, this seems like the rare case where it’s justified
If the AI “reads” the work first, then it would have needed to pay for it
That’s not actually true. Copyright applies to distribution, not consumption. You violate no law when I create an unauthorized copy of a work, and you read that copy. Copyright law prohibits you from distributing further copies, but it does not prohibit you from possessing the copy I provided you, nor are you prohibited from speaking about the copy you have acquired.
Unless the AI is regurgitating substantial parts of the original work, it’s output is a “transformative derivation”, which is not subject to the protections of the original copyright. The AI is doing what English teachers ask of every school-age child: create a book report.
Copyright applies to distribution, not consumption. You violate no law when I create an unauthorized copy of a work
This is completely untrue. Making any unauthorised copy is an infringement of copyright. Hell, the UK determined that merely loading a pirated game into RAM was unauthorised copying, making the act of playing a pirated game unlawful - thankfully this is ruling only the case in the UK, however the basic principles of copyright are the same all over the world.
When you buy something, you get a limited license to make copies for the purpose of viewing the material. That license does not extend to making backup copies. However, in a practical sense, it is very unlikely you will be prosecuted for most kinds of infringement like this - particularly when no money is involved. It’s still infringement, though.
Edit: I will say though: you violate no law when you view a copy I create. However I would still be infringing for making and showing you the copy.
In the case of making a book report, that is educational, and thus fair use. ChatGPT is not educational - you might use it for education, but ChatGPT’s use of copyrighted material is for commercial enterprise.
The uploader is the person creating the copy. Downloading is not creating a copy; downloading is receiving a copy.
I would love to see a citation on that UK precedent, but as you said: “thankfully this is only the case in the UK” and does not apply in the rest of the world.
Making any unauthorised copy is an infringement of copyright.
The exceptions to that are so numerous that the statement is closer to false than truth. “Fair Use” blows the absolute nature of that statement out of the water.
There has never been a successful prosecution for downloading only.
They get people torrenting movies by saying you seed while you leach…
So if they torrented them in mass, they broke it.
Exactly: seeding is uploading, and uploading can be infringement. So, if your torrent client seeded any part of the work to anyone, that could be considered infringement.
But, there is no evidence that ChatGPT received the works in question via torrent, and even if there was, there is no evidence that they actually seeded anything back to the swarm. Hell, there’s no evidence that ChatGPT even actually possesses the works in question.
There was still copyright infringement because the company probably downloaded the text (which created another copy) and modified it (alteration is also protected by copyright) before using it as training data. If you write an original novel and admit that you had pirated a bunch of novels to use for reference, those novels were still downloaded illegally even if you’ve deleted them by now. The AI isn’t copyright infringement itself, it’s proof that copyright infringement has happened.
But personally I don’t think the actual laws will matter so much as which side has the better case for why they will lead to more innovation and growth for the economy.
There was still copyright infringement because the company probably downloaded the text (which created another copy)
Sure, someone likely infringed on copyright for that copy to be created, but the person/entity committing that infringement is the sender, not the receiver. The uploader is the infringing party, not the downloader.
If you write an original novel and admit that you had pirated a bunch of novels to use for reference, those novels were still downloaded illegally even if you’ve deleted them by now.
They were uploaded illegally. The people who distributed those copies to me have infringed on copyright, sure. My receiving those copies does not constitute infringement. Uploading is the illegal act, not downloading.
My work does not violate copyright, unless I use a substantial part of the other works. But, if I used substantial parts of those works, my work would be some sort of “derivation” and not the “original novel” you declared it. (Many types of derivation fall within “fair use” and do not constitute infringement.)
Whether I delete the works or not is entirely irrelevant. I am prohibited from creating and distributing additional copies, but I am not prohibited from receiving, possessing, or consuming an unauthorized copy.
The US copyright office says this on their website
Uploading or downloading works protected by copyright without the authority of the copyright owner is an infringement of the copyright owner’s exclusive rights of reproduction and/or distribution.
If the company downloaded books without buying them to train their AI, that’s copyright infringement
The US copyright office says this on their website
Their website has zero legal precedence. It is an oversimplification that does not stand up to scrutiny.
The combined act of transmitting the work from uploader to downloader is infringing, but only the uploader’s actions conflict with copyright law. The downloader’s actions do not.
It depends on if the summary is an infringing derivative work, doesn’t it? Wikipedia is full of summaries, for example, and it’s not violating copyright.
If they illegally downloaded the works, that feels like a standalone issue to me, not having anything to do with AI.
Wikipedia is a non profit whose primary purpose is education. ChatGPT is a business venture.
A book review published in a newspaper is a commercial venture for the purpose of selling ads. The commercial aspect doesn’t make the review an infringement.
A summary is a “Transformative Derivation”. It is a related work, created for a fundamentally different purpose. It is a discussion about the work, not a copy of the work. Transformative derivations are not infringements, even where they are specifically intended to be used for commercial purposes.
Can the sources where ChatGPT got it’s information from be traced? What if it got the information from other summaries?
I think the hardest thing for these companies will be validating the information their AI is using. I can see an encyclopedia-like industry popping up over the next couple years.
Btw I know very little about this topic but I find it fascinating
Yes! They publish the data sources and where they got everything from. Diffusers (stable diffusion/midjoirny etc) and GPT both use tons of data that was taken in ways that likely violate that data’s usage agreement.
Imo they deserve whatever lawsuits they have coming.
likely violate that data’s usage agreement.
It doesn’t seem to be too common for books to include specific clauses or EULAs that prohibit their use as data in machine learning systems. I’m curious if there are really any aspects that cover this without it being explicitly mentioned. I guess we’ll find out.
I can’t really take seriously any accusations coming from Sarah Silverman after that whole wage gap bs she tried to pull.
Seems like she isn’t afraid to manipulate a trending social outcry to collect a paycheck.
I feel like when confronted about a “stolen comedy bit” a lot of these people complaining would also argue that “no work is entirely unique, everyone borrows from what already existed before.” But now they’re all coming out of the woodwork for a payday or something… It’s kinda frustrating especially if they kill any private use too…
The issue isn’t that people are using others works for ‘derivative’ content.
The issue is that, for a person to ‘derive’ comedy from Sarah Silverman the ‘analogue’ way, you have to get her works legally, be that streaming her comedy specials, or watching movies/shows she’s written for.
With chat GPT and other AI, its been ‘trained’ on her work (and, presumably as many other’s works as possible) once, and now there’s no ‘views’, or even sources given, to those properties.
And like a lot of digital work, its reach and speed is unprecedented. Like, previously, yeah, of course you could still ‘derive’ from people’s works indirectly, like from a friend that watched it and recounted the ‘good bits’, or through general ‘cultural osmosis’. But that was still limited by the speed of humans, and of culture. With AI, it can happen a functionally infinite number of times, nearly instantly.
Is all that to say Silverman is 100% right here? Probably not. But I do think that, the legality of ChatGPT, and other AI that can ‘copy’ artist’s work, is worth questioning. But its a sticky enough issue that I’m genuinely not sure what the best route is. Certainly, I think current AI writing and image generation ought to be ineligible for commercial use until the issue has at least been addressed.
The issue is that, for a person to ‘derive’ comedy from Sarah Silverman the ‘analogue’ way, you have to get her works legally, be that streaming her comedy specials, or watching movies/shows she’s written for.
Damn did they already start implanting DRM bio-chips in people?
And like a lot of digital work, its reach and speed is unprecedented. Like, previously, yeah, of course you could still ‘derive’ from people’s works indirectly, like from a friend that watched it and recounted the ‘good bits’, or through general ‘cultural osmosis’.
Please explain why you cannot download a movie/episode/ebook illegally and then directly derive from it.
Please explain why you cannot download a movie/episode/ebook illegally and then directly derive from it.
The law does not prohibit the receiving of an unauthorized copy. The law prohibits the distribution of the unauthorized copy. It is possible to send/transmit/upload a movie/episode/ebook illegally, but the act of receiving/downloading that unauthorized copy is not prohibited and not illegal.
You can’t illegally download a movie/episode/ebook for the same reason that you can’t illegally park your car in your own garage: there is no law making it illegal.
Even if ChatGPT possesses an unauthorized copy of the work, it would only violate copyright law if it created and distributed a new copy of that work. A summary of the work would be considered a “transformative derivation”, and would fall well within the boundaries of fair-use.
I mean, you can do that, but that’s a crime.
Which is exactly what Sarah Silverman is claiming ChatGPT is doing.
And, beyond a individual crime of a person reading a pirated book, again, we’re talking about ChatGPT and other AI magnifying reach and speed, beyond what an individual person ever could do even if they did nothing but read pirated material all day, not unlike websites like The Pirate Bay. Y’know, how those website constantly get taken down and have to move around the globe to areas where they’re beyond the reach of the law, due to the crimes they’re doing.
I’m not like, anti-piracy or anything. But also, I don’t think companies should be using pirated software, and my big concern about LLMs aren’t really for private use, but for corporate use.
The issue is that, for a person to ‘derive’ comedy from Sarah Silverman the ‘analogue’ way, you have to get her works legally,
That is not actually true.
I would violate copyright by making an unauthorized copy and providing it to you, but you do not violate copyright for simply viewing that unauthorized copy. Sarah can come after me for creating the cop[y|ies], but she can’t come after the people to whom I send them, even if they admit to having willingly viewed a copy they knew to be unauthorized.
Copyright applies to distribution, not consumption.
The issue is that, for a person to ‘derive’ comedy from Sarah Silverman the ‘analogue’ way, you have to get her works legally, be that streaming her comedy specials, or watching movies/shows she’s written for.
I can also talk to a guy in a bar rambling about her work. That guy’s name? ChatGPT.
I’m a teacher and the last half of this school year was a comedy of my colleagues trying to “ban” chat GPT. I’m not so much worried about students using chat GPT to do work. A simple two minute conversation with a student who creates an excellent (but suspected) piece of writing will tell you whether they wrote it themselves or not. What worries me is exactly those moments where you’re asking for a summary or a synopsis of something. You really have no idea what data is being used to create that summary.