zlacker

I would assert (with no legal backing, since this is the first suit that actually attempts to address the issue either way) that the trained model is a copyright infringement in itself. It is a novel kind of copyright infringement, to be sure, but I believe that use of copyrighted material in a neural net's training set without the creator's permission should be considered copyright infringement without any further act required to make it so.

>>danari+(OP)
I think that is a very fair argument. It may win in court it may lose. I’m excited for the precedent either way.

That’s said, it does raise the question, “should this precedent be extended to humans?”

i.e. Can humans be taught something based on copyrighted materials in the training set/curriculum?

>>yazadd+lF
I think this is a reasonable question for the uninitiated—those for whom "training a neural network" seems like it would be a lot like "teaching a human"—but for those with deeper understanding (tbh, I would only describe my knowledge in both these areas as that of an interested amateur), it is a) a poor analogy, and b) already a settled question in law.

To address (b) first: Fair Use has long held that educational purposes are a valid reason for using copyrighted materials without express permission—for instance, showing a whole class a VHS or DVD, which would technically require a separate release otherwise.

For (a): I don't know anything about your background in ML, so pardon if this is all obvious, but at least current neural nets and other ML programs are not "AI" in anything like the kind of sense where "teaching" is an apt word to describe the process of creating the model. Certainly the reasoning behind the Fair Use exception for educating humans does not apply—there is no mind there to better; no person to improve the life, understanding, or skills of.