German court: ChatGPT violated copyright law by ‘learning’ from song lyrics

Comments

• HansSlonzok@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  ofcourse the “artists” never learned writing lyrics on lyrics of others? LOL

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• termaxima@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I have been thinking of adding a license clause to everything I make (code especially) that makes any AI trained on it my sole exclusive property, but I don’t know how defensible that would be in court ?

  Or an other sort of trap clause. But again, I don’t know how to word it.

  I am not a lawyer, not even slightly…

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• CosmoNova@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I mean every German who ever heard of GEMA knew this was inevitable all the way back in 2022. They threatened entire cities to the point some of them don‘t play music on Christmas markets anymore. You can‘t win against those guys, just hope for a hefty settlement.

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  • slevinkelevra@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    GEMA is so bizarre. If you’re a musician and composer and want to do a live concert that consists only of songs written by you and there is an entrence fee, you’ll basically have to give them all of said fee or even more. They are destroying any culture really, only to give the money to some of the most successful musicians.

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    • General_Effort@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      GEMA was created by the Nazis to take over pop culture. There’s a certain logic there.

      Of course, under the Nazis you could be sent to camp if you belonged to the wrong subculture. So there is a difference. The rebels of the time listened to jazz, to swing. “Negro music” was the social media of that age, corrupting the youth.

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    • Vintor@retrolemmy.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      All of that is incorrect.

      You can check the GEMA fees here: www.gema.de/portal/app/tarifrechner/preisrechner - I had it calculate the fees for a 4-hour concert with 100 seats and an entrance fee of 5 Euros, and the total GEMA fee is 31,35 €. If all seats are filled, that is less than 10% of your income. Certainly a lot of money, but a far cry from “all of said fee or even more”.

      Secondly, if you are not a GEMA member and all the music you play is non-GEMA (and written by yourself), you don’t have to pay anything, see here for example: www.anwalt.de/rechtstipps/gema (central quote: “Der GEMA-Pflicht unterliegen dabei alle Musikwerke, für die sie die Verwertungsrechte erhalten hat”, translation: “GEMA liability applies to all musical works for which it has received exploitation rights.”)

      I don’t like the GEMA either, but let’s stay with the verifiable facts, please.

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• conorab@lemmy.conorab.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I understand (to agree degree) going after AI companies for reproducing the lyrics in a way that would not normally be protected by copyright but outright scraping is going too far from a moral standpoint.

  There’s a good argument to be made about abusing their resources to do the scraping as I’ve heard complaints of site owners getting overwhelmed by AI crawlers but provided you’re not doing that I think scraping should be allowed generally speaking even if the operator disallows it, since without that search engines break and archival (especially to prove malice) go out the window.

  I’m inclined to take an approach of “you can ingest whatever you want, but you are liable for reproduction, and if preventing reproduction is too onerous, then you probably should get the licences to permit it or don’t ingest that data”. Even that has some caveats since that reasoning would decimate social media services and personal/community spaces if actually enforced which is kinda what Safe Harbor helps protect.

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• jmbreuer@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  How is it an “undisclosed [amount of] damages” - aren’t court rulings supposed to be public [records]?

  I know stuff like the rulings of me going to court with the driver and insurance companies involved in a car accident certainly was public (in Germany).

  Anyone in the know please ELI5 and/or point me at the relevant laws, how/what/in which cases (parts of) rulings can be “undisclosed”.

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  • NiHaDuncan@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Settlements can go undisclosed by agreement of the parties involved. Civil court is different from criminal; the former is for the benefit of interested parties, the latter is for the benefit of the public at large. Criminal courts can do some things behind closed doors as well but that usually requires a need of the state (such as protection of a judge, jury, state, etc.)

    This is assuming a legal system similar to that in OPs post.

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• melonhusk@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  So, if my brain ‘ingested’ a song lyric and now I can sing it, does that mean I owe GEMA royalties every time I hum in the shower? asking for a friend. who is me. my friend is me.

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  • saroh@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    My understanding is that it’s for learning only. You should be safe for your private singing purposes. It seems like you would own them royalties if you created your own song lyrics, after having read/heard one of theirs…

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  • frongt@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Unless you are performing it for others, or for profit, they generally don’t care.

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    • masterspace@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      What if you read a copyrighted engineering textbook, and then build something for profit with that knowledge?

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  • jmbreuer@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    They sure would like that.

    Never thought I’d hail the GEMA for what they’re doing…

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• sns@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I think “ingesting” is more accurate than “learning”.

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  • Strider@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Illegaly ingesting. I hate it that private people are fined when they look wrong at a minor hash of a snippet of data but when a corporation does it in full and monetizes it, it’s fine!

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• tangeli@piefed.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Is ChatGPT a legal entity competent to violate copyright law? I don’t think that’s likely.

  I do think OpenAI violated copyright law by copying song lyrics and other media to use them as input to their LLM systems for commercial benefit. Judging by the valuations of the companies that do not yet have significant income compared to the investments, on the face of it, the IP they copied, often without license, as far as I know, is fantastically valuable.

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  • stephen01king@piefed.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Does that mean song lyric websites with ads also violate copyright laws?

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    • tangeli@piefed.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      According to Are Song Lyrics Copyrighted? How the Law Works, unless their use is ‘fair use’ or they have a license, then they are violating copyright, if I understand the article correctly. I believe that site explains laws in the United States. It probably varies somewhat by jurisdiction, so I expect it would depend on who owns the website and where they are based.

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