Comment on The Irony of 'You Wouldn't Download a Car' Making a Comeback in AI Debates

• Wiz@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Better system for WHOM? Tech-bros that want to steal my content as their own?

  I’m a writer, performing artist, designer, and illustrator. I have thought about copyright quite a bit. I have released some of my stuff into the public domain, as well as the Creative Commons. If you want to use my work, you may - according to the licenses that I provide.

  I also think copyright law is way out of whack. It should go back to - at most - life of author. This “life of author plus 95 years” is ridiculous. I lament that so much great work is being lost or forgotten because of the oppressive copyright laws - especially in the area of computer software.

  But tech-bros that want my work to train their LLMs - they can fuck right off. There are legal thresholds that constitute “fair use” - Is it used for an academic purpose? Is it used for a non-profit use? Is the portion that is being used a small part or the whole thing? LLM software fail all of these tests.

  They can slurp up the entirety of Wikipedia, and they do. But they are not satisfied with the free stuff. But they want my artistic creations, too, without asking. And they want to sell something based on my work, making money off of my work, without asking.

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  • masterspace@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    But tech-bros that want my work to train their LLMs - they can fuck right off. There are legal thresholds that constitute “fair use” - Is it used for an academic purpose? Is it used for a non-profit use? Is the portion that is being used a small part or the whole thing? LLM software fail all of these tests.

    No. It doesn’t.

    They can literally pass all of those tests.

    You are confusing OpenAI keeping their LLM closed source and charging access to it, with LLMs in general. The open source models that Microsoft and Meta publish for instance, pass literally all of the criteria you just stated.

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    • Eccitaze@yiffit.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      They literally do not pass the criteria. LLMs use the entirety of a copyrighted work for their training, which fails the “amount and substantiality” factor. By their very nature, LLMs would significantly devalue the work of every artist, author, journalist, and publishing organization, on an industry-wide scale, which fails the “Effect upon work’s value” factor.

      Those two alone would be enough for any sane judge to rule that training LLMs would not qualify as fair use, but then you also have OpenAI and other commercial AI companies offering the use of these models for commercial, for-profit purposes, which also fails the “Purpose and character of the use” factor. You could maybe argue that training LLMs is transformative, but the commercial, widespread nature of this infringement would weigh heavily against that. So that’s at least two, and arguably three out of four factors where it falls short.

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      • masterspace@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        LLMs use the entirety of a copyrighted work for their training, which fails the “amount and substantiality” factor.

        That factor is relative to what is reproduced, not to what is ingested. A company is allowed to scrape the web all they want as long as they don’t republish it.

        By their very nature, LLMs would significantly devalue the work of every artist, author, journalist, and publishing organization, on an industry-wide scale, which fails the “Effect upon work’s value” factor.

        I would argue that LLMs devalue the author, not the original work they were trained on, but I see your point.

        Those two alone would be enough for any sane judge to rule that training LLMs would not qualify as fair use, but then you also have OpenAI and other commercial AI companies offering the use of these models for commercial, for-profit purposes, which also fails the “Purpose and character of the use” factor.

        Again, that’s the practice of OpenAI, but not inherent to LLMs.

        You could maybe argue that training LLMs is transformative,

        It’s honestly absurd to try and argue that they’re not transformative.

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