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| title | tags | date | draft | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Why Generative AI is Just Copyright Infringement In a Trench Coat |
|
2023-11-04 | true |
[!info] I’m looking for discourse! Critique my points and make your own arguments. That’s what the comments section is for.
Quick reiteration: This site contains my own opinion in a personal capacity, and is not legal advice, nor is it representative of anyone else's opinion.
I've seen a few news articles and opinion pieces recently that support training generative AI and LLMs on the broader internet as well as more traditional copyrighted works, without respect to the copyright holders for all of the above. There are some common themes I'd like to address right now, but I'll add more in future.
Prerequisite: why these arguments are popping up
Prerequisite: existing precedent
Fair warning, this section is going to be the most law-heavy. The field is notoriously paywalled, but I'll try to link to publicly available versions of my sources whenever possible.
Don't criticize my sources in this section unless a case has been overruled or a statute has been repealed (ie, I can't rely on it). This is my interpretation of what's here (also again not legal advice or a professional opinion).
My opinion here boils down to three main points:
- Training a generative AI model on copyrightable subject matter without authorization is copyright infringement (and the proprietors of the model should be responsible);
- Using a generative AI to generate something where the weights used to determine what the AI outputs were based on copyrightable subject matter trained on without authorization is copyright infringement (and the proprietors and users of the model should be jointly responsible); and
- Fair use is not a defense to either of the above infringements.
For all of the below analysis, assume that the hypothetical model in question has been trained on some work which has a US copyright registered with the original author.
Training
Generation
Fair Use
This section invalidates a lot of different arguments, but some have other nuances that are more reflective of potential shifts in the law and what enforcing law on the internet really means. Policy debates are always good, so I'll still go into those.
The First Amendment and the "Right to Read"
WIP
Putting your work "out there" on the internet
WIP
Detour: plagiarism
There's also the problem of correctly sourcing information used in forming an opinion.
One proposed "solution" to AI use of copyrighted works is interestingly to attribute that those works were used in the first place.
The enforcement problem
WIP
Mini-arguments
A list of little statements that would cast doubt on the