zlacker

>>moose4+(OP)
Broadly summarizing.

This is OK and fair use: Training LLMs on copyrighted work, since it's transformative.

This is not OK and not fair use: pirating data, or creating a big repository of pirated data that isn't necessarily for AI training.

Overall seems like a pretty reasonable ruling?

>>3PS+V1
But those training the LLMs are still using the works, and not just to discuss them, which I think is the point of fair use doctrine. I guess I fail to see how it's any different from me using it in some other way? If I wanted to write a play very loosely inspired by Blood Meridian, it might be transformative, but that doesn't justify me pirating the book.

I tend to think copyright should be extremely limited compared to what it is now, but to me the logic of this ruling is illogical other than "it's ok for a corporation to use lots of works without permission but not for an individual to use a single work without permission." Maybe if they suddenly loosened copyright enforcement for everyone I might feel differently.

"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror." (An admittedly hyperbolic comparison, but similar idea.)

>>derbOa+H6
> But those training the LLMs are still using the works, and not just to discuss them, which I think is the point of fair use doctrine.

Worse, they’re using it for massive commercial gain, without paying a dime upstream to the supply chain that made it possible. If there is any purpose of copyright at all, it’s to prevent making money from someone’s else’s intellectual work. The entire thing is based on economic pragmatism, because just copying does obviously not deprive the creator of the work itself, so the only justification in the first place is to protect those who seek to sell immaterial goods, by allowing them to decide how it can be used.

Coming to the conclusion that you can ”fair use” yourself out of paying for the most critical part of your supply makes me upset for the victims of the biggest heist of the century. But in the long term it can have devastating chilling effects, where information silos will become the norm, and various forms of DRM will be even more draconian.

Plus, fair use bypasses any licensing, no? Meaning even if today you clearly specify in the license that your work cannot be used in training commercial AI, it isn’t legally enforceable?

>>klabb3+Wb
> Worse, they’re using it for massive commercial gain, without paying a dime upstream to the supply chain that made it possible. If there is any purpose of copyright at all, it’s to prevent making money from someone’s else’s intellectual work.

This makes no sense. If I buy and read a book on software engineering, and then use that knowledge to start a career, do I owe the author a percentage of my lifetime earnings?

Of course not. And yet I've made money with the help of someone else's intellectual work.

Copyright is actually pretty narrowly defined for _very good reason_.

>>growse+Cg
> If I buy and read a book on software engineering

You're comparing that you as an individual purchase one copy of a book to a multi-billion dollar company systematically ingesting them for profit without any compensation, let alone proportional?

> do I owe the author a percentage of my lifetime earnings?

No, but you are a human being. You have a completely different set of rights from a corporation, or a machine. For very good reason.