<story><title>AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law</title><url>https://heathermeeker.com/2023/01/19/is-copyright-eating-ai/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>avianlyric</author><text>&amp;gt; Do you ask for permission when you train your mind on copyrighted books? Or observe paintings? Or listen to music?&lt;p&gt;Yes, that’s exactly what happens when you buy a book, or pay for a music subscription. The work is in the public domain, then global permission to observe and copy the work is already granted.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Do you ask for permission when you get new ideas from HN that aren&amp;#x27;t your own?&lt;p&gt;You don’t need to. It’s implicitly assumed, by virtue of publishing in a public forum, that the author is providing permission for people read their comments and ideas, and remix them as they wish. That permission doesn’t include exact replication, but reading and understanding is assumed, otherwise why did the author publish it?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Humans are constantly ingesting gobs of &amp;quot;copyrighted&amp;quot; insights that they eventually remix into their own creations without necessarily reimbursing the original source(s) of their creativity.&lt;p&gt;Correct. Literally everything produced by a human is automatically copyrighted. But the manner in which work is published creates implicit licenses for the public to consume those works. You publish in public, you automatically grate licenses for the public to consume and transform it.&lt;p&gt;If a human transforms an idea, it automatically becomes a new idea with its own copyright. The same doesn’t apply to AI because they’re not human, and thus the law generally doesn’t recognise them an having ability to create or transform ideas. If you believe AI can create and transform ideas, then you need lobby for the law to recognise that ability, but right now, only natural humans have that ability according to the law</text></item><item><author>kirse</author><text>&lt;i&gt;AI companies can ask for permission if they want to train their models on other people&amp;#x27;s works&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do you ask for permission when you train your mind on copyrighted books?  Or observe paintings?  Or listen to music?  Do you ask for permission when you get new ideas from HN that aren&amp;#x27;t your own?&lt;p&gt;Humans are constantly ingesting gobs of &amp;quot;copyrighted&amp;quot; insights that they eventually remix into their own creations without necessarily reimbursing the original source(s) of their creativity.&lt;p&gt;Time to put the horse back in the barn, cars and trains are here.</text></item><item><author>jeroenhd</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s no part of AI that is being swallowed up by copyright. AI companies can ask for permission if they want to train their models on other people&amp;#x27;s works. It&amp;#x27;s not that hard, various image hosting sites have already added an opt-in&amp;#x2F;opt-out toggle to their services. Sites might even get away with using this stuff as compensation for free hosting.&lt;p&gt;The fact of the matter is that the AI companies don&amp;#x27;t want to ask for permission, because people will say no. Or worse, ask for attribution or even payment. There is plenty of copyright free&amp;#x2F;public domain material out there, but what the customers of AI people want isn&amp;#x27;t available under those terms.&lt;p&gt;The code to train an AI is not enough to make a product and these people have nothing to add themselves, so they take what others made and use that to make a profit. They can make or pay for their own paintings, their own pictures, their own music, but that would require putting in too much work or paying too much money.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s very possible that a judge will rule that AI models do not violate copyright. If that is the case, I hope new legislation will correct that oversight very quickly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>williamcotton</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;gt; Do you ask for permission when you train your mind on copyrighted books? Or observe paintings? Or listen to music?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Yes, that’s exactly what happens when you buy a book, or pay for a music subscription. The work is in the public domain, then global permission to observe and copy the work is already granted.&lt;p&gt;You can buy a book, read it, sell the book, and then write and sell another book based on the ideas contained in the first book (Baker v Seldon). This is the cornerstone of contemporary copyright law. Or read the book on a shelf of a bookstore where the clerk is asleep. Or borrow the book from the library or any other manner where direct compensation of the author is nowhere to be seen.&lt;p&gt;Copyright is consistently interpreted in alignment with the needs of public learning, both by protecting the authorial incentive as well as protecting the public need for knowledge.</text></comment>
<story><title>AI is in danger of being swallowed up by copyright law</title><url>https://heathermeeker.com/2023/01/19/is-copyright-eating-ai/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>avianlyric</author><text>&amp;gt; Do you ask for permission when you train your mind on copyrighted books? Or observe paintings? Or listen to music?&lt;p&gt;Yes, that’s exactly what happens when you buy a book, or pay for a music subscription. The work is in the public domain, then global permission to observe and copy the work is already granted.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Do you ask for permission when you get new ideas from HN that aren&amp;#x27;t your own?&lt;p&gt;You don’t need to. It’s implicitly assumed, by virtue of publishing in a public forum, that the author is providing permission for people read their comments and ideas, and remix them as they wish. That permission doesn’t include exact replication, but reading and understanding is assumed, otherwise why did the author publish it?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Humans are constantly ingesting gobs of &amp;quot;copyrighted&amp;quot; insights that they eventually remix into their own creations without necessarily reimbursing the original source(s) of their creativity.&lt;p&gt;Correct. Literally everything produced by a human is automatically copyrighted. But the manner in which work is published creates implicit licenses for the public to consume those works. You publish in public, you automatically grate licenses for the public to consume and transform it.&lt;p&gt;If a human transforms an idea, it automatically becomes a new idea with its own copyright. The same doesn’t apply to AI because they’re not human, and thus the law generally doesn’t recognise them an having ability to create or transform ideas. If you believe AI can create and transform ideas, then you need lobby for the law to recognise that ability, but right now, only natural humans have that ability according to the law</text></item><item><author>kirse</author><text>&lt;i&gt;AI companies can ask for permission if they want to train their models on other people&amp;#x27;s works&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do you ask for permission when you train your mind on copyrighted books?  Or observe paintings?  Or listen to music?  Do you ask for permission when you get new ideas from HN that aren&amp;#x27;t your own?&lt;p&gt;Humans are constantly ingesting gobs of &amp;quot;copyrighted&amp;quot; insights that they eventually remix into their own creations without necessarily reimbursing the original source(s) of their creativity.&lt;p&gt;Time to put the horse back in the barn, cars and trains are here.</text></item><item><author>jeroenhd</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s no part of AI that is being swallowed up by copyright. AI companies can ask for permission if they want to train their models on other people&amp;#x27;s works. It&amp;#x27;s not that hard, various image hosting sites have already added an opt-in&amp;#x2F;opt-out toggle to their services. Sites might even get away with using this stuff as compensation for free hosting.&lt;p&gt;The fact of the matter is that the AI companies don&amp;#x27;t want to ask for permission, because people will say no. Or worse, ask for attribution or even payment. There is plenty of copyright free&amp;#x2F;public domain material out there, but what the customers of AI people want isn&amp;#x27;t available under those terms.&lt;p&gt;The code to train an AI is not enough to make a product and these people have nothing to add themselves, so they take what others made and use that to make a profit. They can make or pay for their own paintings, their own pictures, their own music, but that would require putting in too much work or paying too much money.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s very possible that a judge will rule that AI models do not violate copyright. If that is the case, I hope new legislation will correct that oversight very quickly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sircastor</author><text>&amp;gt;Yes, that’s exactly what happens when you buy a book, or pay for a music subscription. The work is in the public domain, then global permission to observe and copy the work is already granted.&lt;p&gt;When you buy a book, you’re not paying a licensing fee. You’re exchanging for goods. You’re granted very few rights to own a copy of the work. But they’re almost all to do with distribution. None of those rights is the right to read it.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;You publish in public, you automatically grate licenses for the public to consume and transform it.&lt;p&gt;By this interpretation, all the artists upset by stable diffusion have given tacit permission for their works to be used as they are published in the public. Even though those works are posted to websites, the artist has not granted any rights to the viewer of the work.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; only natural humans have that ability according to the law&lt;p&gt;The law is not explicit about this, and we have case law that describes non-human entities as having rights associated historically with personhood. This is definitely  &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; clear, nor is it obvious.</text></comment>