zlacker

>>ssgodd+(OP)
I hope this results in Fair Use being expanded to cover AI training. This is way more important to humanity's future than any single media outlet. If the NYT goes under, a dozen similar outlets can replace them overnight. If we lose AI to stupid IP battles in its infancy, we end up handicapping probably the single most important development in human history just to protect some ancient newspaper. Then another country is going to do it anyway, and still the NYT is going to get eaten.

>>solard+Aj
> I hope this results in Fair Use being expanded to cover AI training.

Couldn't disagree more strongly, and I hope the outcome is the exact opposite. I think we've already started to see the severe negative consequences when the lion's share of the profits get sucked up by very, very few entities (e.g. we used to have tons of local papers and other entities that made money through advertising, now Google and Facebook, and to a smaller extent Amazon, suck up the majority of that revenue). The idea that everyone else gets to toil to make the content but all the profits flow to the companies with the best AI tech is not a future that's going to end with the utopia vision AI boosters think it will.

>>hn_thr+AB
Trying to prohibit this usage of information would not help prevent centralization of power and profit.

All it would do is momentarily slow AI progress (which is fine), and allow OpenAI et al to pull the ladder up behind them (which fuels centralization of power and profit).

By what mechanism do you think your desired outcome would prevent centralization of profit to the players who are already the largest?

>>whichf+jF
I'm not saying copyright is without problems (e.g. there is no reason I think its protection should be as long as it is), but I think the opposite, where the incentive to create new content (especially in the case of news reporting) is completely killed because someone else gets to vacuum up all the profits, is worse. I mean, existing copyright does protect tons of independent writers, artists, etc. and prevents all of the profits from their output from being "sucked up" by a few entities.

More critically, while fair use decisions are famously a judgement call, I think OpenAI will lose this based on the "effect of the fair use on the potential market" of the original content test. From https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/ :

> Another important fair use factor is whether your use deprives the copyright owner of income or undermines a new or potential market for the copyrighted work. Depriving a copyright owner of income is very likely to trigger a lawsuit. This is true even if you are not competing directly with the original work.

> For example, in one case an artist used a copyrighted photograph without permission as the basis for wood sculptures, copying all elements of the photo. The artist earned several hundred thousand dollars selling the sculptures. When the photographer sued, the artist claimed his sculptures were a fair use because the photographer would never have considered making sculptures. The court disagreed, stating that it did not matter whether the photographer had considered making sculptures; what mattered was that a potential market for sculptures of the photograph existed. (Rogers v. Koons, 960 F.2d 301 (2d Cir. 1992).)

and especially

> “The economic effect of a parody with which we are concerned is not its potential to destroy or diminish the market for the original—any bad review can have that effect—but whether it fulfills the demand for the original.” (Fisher v. Dees, 794 F.2d 432 (9th Cir. 1986).)

The "whether it fulfills the demand of the original" is clearly where NYTimes has the best argument.