The Irony of 'You Wouldn't Download a Car' Making a Comeback in AI Debates
The Irony of 'You Wouldn't Download a Car' Making a Comeback in AI Debates
Those claiming AI training on copyrighted works is "theft" misunderstand key aspects of copyright law and AI technology. Copyright protects specific expressions of ideas, not the ideas themselves. When AI systems ingest copyrighted works, they're extracting general patterns and concepts - the "Bob Dylan-ness" or "Hemingway-ness" - not copying specific text or images.
This process is akin to how humans learn by reading widely and absorbing styles and techniques, rather than memorizing and reproducing exact passages. The AI discards the original text, keeping only abstract representations in "vector space". When generating new content, the AI isn't recreating copyrighted works, but producing new expressions inspired by the concepts it's learned.
This is fundamentally different from copying a book or song. It's more like the long-standing artistic tradition of being influenced by others' work. The law has always recognized that ideas themselves can't be owned - only particular expressions of them.
Moreover, there's precedent for this kind of use being considered "transformative" and thus fair use. The Google Books project, which scanned millions of books to create a searchable index, was ruled legal despite protests from authors and publishers. AI training is arguably even more transformative.
While it's understandable that creators feel uneasy about this new technology, labeling it "theft" is both legally and technically inaccurate. We may need new ways to support and compensate creators in the AI age, but that doesn't make the current use of copyrighted works for AI training illegal or unethical.
For those interested, this argument is nicely laid out by Damien Riehl in FLOSS Weekly episode 744. https://twit.tv/shows/floss-weekly/episodes/744
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Those claiming AI training on copyrighted works is "theft" misunderstand key aspects of copyright law and AI technology. Copyright protects specific expressions of ideas, not the ideas themselves.
Sure.
When AI systems ingest copyrighted works, they're extracting general patterns and concepts - the "Bob Dylan-ness" or "Hemingway-ness" - not copying specific text or images.
Not really. Sure, they take input and garble it up and it is "transformative" - but so is a human watching a TV series on a pirate site, for example. Hell, it's eduactional is treated as a copyright violation.
This process is akin to how humans learn by reading widely and absorbing styles and techniques, rather than memorizing and reproducing exact passages.
Perhaps. (Not an AI expert). But, as the law currently stands, only living and breathing persons can be educated, so the "educational" fair use protection doesn't stand.
The AI discards the original text, keeping only abstract representations in "vector space". When generating new content, the AI isn't recreating copyrighted works, but producing new expressions inspired by the concepts it's learned.
It does and it doesn't discard the original. It isn't impossible to recreate the original (since all the data it gobbled up gets stored somewhere in some shape or form and can be truthfully recreated, at least judging by a few comments bellow and news reports). So AI can and does recreate (duplicate or distribute, perhaps) copyrighted works.
Besides, for a copyright violation, "substantial similarity" is needed, not one-for-one reproduction.
This is fundamentally different from copying a book or song.
Again, not really.
It's more like the long-standing artistic tradition of being influenced by others' work.
Sure. Except when it isn't and the AI pumps out the original or something close enoigh to it.
The law has always recognized that ideas themselves can't be owned - only particular expressions of them.
I'd be careful with the "always" part. There was a famous case involving Katy Perry where a single chord was sued over as copyright infringement. The case was thrown out on appeal, but I do not doubt that some pretty wild cases have been upheld as copyright violations (see "patent troll").
Moreover, there's precedent for this kind of use being considered "transformative" and thus fair use. The Google Books project, which scanned millions of books to create a searchable index, was ruled legal despite protests from authors and publishers. AI training is arguably even more transformative.
The problem is that Google books only lets you search some phrase and have it pop up as beibg from source xy. It doesn't have the capability of reproducing it (other than maybe the page it was on perhaps) - well, it does have the capability since it's in the index somewhere, but there are checks in place to make sure it doesn't happen, which seem to be yet unachieved in AI.
While it's understandable that creators feel uneasy about this new technology, labeling it "theft" is both legally and technically inaccurate.
Yes. Just as labeling piracy as theft is.
We may need new ways to support and compensate creators in the AI age, but that doesn't make the current use of copyrighted works for AI training illegal or
Yes, new legislation will made to either let "Big AI" do as it pleases, or prevent it from doing so. Or, as usual, it'll be somewhere inbetween and vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
However,
that doesn't make the current use of copyrighted works for AI training illegal or unethical.
this doesn't really stand. Sure, morals are debatable and while I'd say it is more unethical as private piracy (so no distribution) since distribution and disemination is involved, you do not seem to feel the same.
However, the law is clear. Private piracy (as in recording a song off of radio, a TV broadcast, screen recording a Netflix movie, etc. are all legal. As is digitizing books and lending the digital (as long as you have a physical copy that isn't lended out as the same time representing the legal "original"). I think breaking DRM also isn't illegal (but someone please correct me if I'm wrong).
The problems arises when the pirated content is copied and distributed in an uncontrolled manner, which AI seems to be capable of, making the AI owner as liable of piracy if the AI reproduced not even the same, but "substantially similar" output, just as much as hosts of "classic" pirated content distributed on the Web.
Obligatory IANAL and as far as the law goes, I focused on US law since the default country on here is the US. Similar or different laws are on the books in other places, although most are in fact substantially similar. Also, what the legislators cone up with will definately vary from place to place, even more so than copyright law since copyright law is partially harmonised (see Berne convention).
You made a lot of points here. Many I agree with, some I don't, but I specifically want to address this because it seems to be such a common misconception.
It does and it doesn't discard the original. It isn't impossible to recreate the original (since all the data it gobbled up gets stored somewhere in some shape or form and can be truthfully recreated, at least judging by a few comments bellow and news reports). So AI can and does recreate (duplicate or distribute, perhaps) copyrighted works.
AI stores original works like a dictionary does. All the words are there, but the order and meaning is completely gone. An original work is possible to recreate by randomly selecting words from the dictionary, but it's unlikely.
The thing that makes AI useful is that it understands the patterns words are typically used in. It orders words in the right way far more often than random chance. It knows "It was the best of" has a lot of likely options for the next word, but if it selects "times" as the next word, it's far more likely to continue with, "it was the worst of times." Because that sequence of words is so ubiquitous due to references to the classic story. But over the course of following these word patterns, it will quickly glom onto a different pattern and create a wholly new work from the original "prompt."
There are only two cases in which an original work should be duplicated: either the training data is far too small and the model is overtrained on that particular work, or the work is the most derivative text imaginable lacking any flair or originality.
Adding more training data makes it less likely to recreate any original works.
I am aware of examples where it was claimed an LLM reproduced entirely code functions including original comments. That is either a case of overtraining, or far too many people were already copying that code verbatim into their own, thus making that work very over represented in the training data (same thing, but it was infringing developers who poisoned the data, not researchers using bad training data).
Bottom line: when created with enough data, no original works are stored in any way that allows faithful reproduction other than by chance so random that it's similar to rolling dice over a dictionary.
None of this means AI can do no wrong, I just don't find the copyright claim compelling.
It's funny you mention the Katy Perry chord case, because Damien Riehl, who made the argument I referenced in my original post, actually talked about this exact case in the podcast I mentioned. He noted that Katy Perry was initially sued and a jury awarded $2.8 million over a very simple melody that appeared over 8,000 times in Riehl's dataset of generated melodies. However, after Riehl gave his TED talk about his "All the Music" project in early 2020, the judge reversed the jury verdict, saying the melody was unoriginal and therefore uncopyrightable.
Agreed.
I didn't listen to the podcast so I wouldn't know, but honestly, she was lucky. She's popular and her publishers had an interest in the case (they'd lose out on profits if she lost). And she initially did lose. It was only because of the publicity of the case that it was overruled (although money did help as well).
Unfortunately, this could've happened to any smaller artist, and it routinely happens with patent trolls I pointed to. Unfortunately, I don't have a lawsuit I can point to, but given the volume, one surely exists.
Also, it's not as if I approve of the current state of copyright in the US (or EU for that matter).
Originally copyright was meant to protect rights of the author, but in time it was bastardised into the concept we have today where artist sign off their rights to publishers.
So my proposal is - if corporations like copyright, let them have it. I won't watch Disney movies outside of Disney+ ors the system we've got and have to live with, why not let the corporatios feel it as well?
Why would Google, which makes loads of money from those demonetizations on one side of the law now be allowed to use copyrighted works of others for profit, while Internet users in the US get a fine or their service cut for alleged copright infringement while those in Germany get a stern letter with a big fake fine?
Big Tech shouldn't get to profit both from the false copyright infringement claims as well as getting to use the actual copyrighted content to generate a profit.
This whole AI copyright situation is just a symptom of an ailing global copyright policy that needs to be fixed, and slapping an AI-free-for-all band-aid on top isn't a fix.
My train of thought is this: If we don't let a simple AI exceotion into the books, either training AI on copyrighted content stays illegal, or the entire system gets a reimagining.
If it stays the same, this will not mean much. Piracy sites and torrenting exists despite the current state of copyright law. I don't see why AI could't exist in this way. This has the huge plus of keeping AI outside the hands of Big Tech. Hopefully this also means it's harder for harmful uses of AI to be legal.
Alternatively, we get a better copyright system for everyone, assuming it isn't made to only benefit the corporations.
I'd be careful with the "always" part. There was a famous case involving Katy Perry where a single chord was sued over as copyright infringement. The case was thrown out on appeal, but I do not doubt that some pretty wild cases have been upheld as copyright violations (see "patent troll").
Are you really trying to argue against a point by providing evidence supporting it?
Half of your argument is just saying, "nu-uh" over and over again without any valid counterpoints.