Capricorn_Geriatric
@Capricorn_Geriatric@lemmy.world
- Comment on The Irony of 'You Wouldn't Download a Car' Making a Comeback in AI Debates 2 months ago:
Agreed.
I didn’t listen to the podcast so I wouldn’t know, but honestly, she was lucky. She’s popular and her publishers had an interest in the case (they’d lose out on profits if she lost). And she initially did lose. It was only because of the publicity of the case that it was overruled (although money did help as well).
Unfortunately, this could’ve happened to any smaller artist, and it routinely happens with patent trolls I pointed to. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lawsuit I can point to, but given the volume, one surely exists.
Also, it’s not as if I approve of the current state of copyright in the US (or EU for that matter).
Originally copyright was meant to protect rights of the author, but in time it was bastardised into the concept we have today where artist sign off their rights to publishers.
So my proposal is - if corporations like copyright, let them have it. I won’t watch Disney movies outside of Disney+ ors the system we’ve got and have to live with, why not let the corporatios feel it as well?
Why would Google, which makes loads of money from those demonetizations on one side of the law now be allowed to use copyrighted works of others for profit, while Internet users in the US get a fine or their service cut for alleged copright infringement while those in Germany get a stern letter with a big fake fine?
Big Tech shouldn’t get to profit both from the false copyright infringement claims as well as getting to use the actual copyrighted content to generate a profit.
This whole AI copyright situation is just a symptom of an ailing global copyright policy that needs to be fixed, and slapping an AI-free-for-all band-aid on top isn’t a fix.
My train of thought is this: If we don’t let a simple AI exceotion into the books, either training AI on copyrighted content stays illegal, or the entire system gets a reimagining.
If it stays the same, this will not mean much. Piracy sites and torrenting exists despite the current state of copyright law. I don’t see why AI could’t exist in this way. This has the huge plus of keeping AI outside the hands of Big Tech. Hopefully this also means it’s harder for harmful uses of AI to be legal.
Alternatively, we get a better copyright system for everyone, assuming it isn’t made to only benefit the corporations.
- Comment on The Irony of 'You Wouldn't Download a Car' Making a Comeback in AI Debates 2 months ago:
Those claiming AI training on copyrighted works is “theft” misunderstand key aspects of copyright law and AI technology. Copyright protects specific expressions of ideas, not the ideas themselves.
Sure.
When AI systems ingest copyrighted works, they’re extracting general patterns and concepts - the “Bob Dylan-ness” or “Hemingway-ness” - not copying specific text or images.
Not really. Sure, they take input and garble it up and it is “transformative” - but so is a human watching a TV series on a pirate site, for example. Hell, it’s eduactional is treated as a copyright violation.
This process is akin to how humans learn by reading widely and absorbing styles and techniques, rather than memorizing and reproducing exact passages.
Perhaps. (Not an AI expert). But, as the law currently stands, only living and breathing persons can be educated, so the “educational” fair use protection doesn’t stand.
The AI discards the original text, keeping only abstract representations in “vector space”. When generating new content, the AI isn’t recreating copyrighted works, but producing new expressions inspired by the concepts it’s learned.
It does and it doesn’t discard the original. It isn’t impossible to recreate the original (since all the data it gobbled up gets stored somewhere in some shape or form and can be truthfully recreated, at least judging by a few comments bellow and news reports). So AI can and does recreate (duplicate or distribute, perhaps) copyrighted works.
Besides, for a copyright violation, “substantial similarity” is needed, not one-for-one reproduction.
This is fundamentally different from copying a book or song.
Again, not really.
It’s more like the long-standing artistic tradition of being influenced by others’ work.
Sure. Except when it isn’t and the AI pumps out the original or something close enoigh to it.
The law has always recognized that ideas themselves can’t be owned - only particular expressions of them.
I’d be careful with the “always” part. There was a famous case involving Katy Perry where a single chord was sued over as copyright infringement. The case was thrown out on appeal, but I do not doubt that some pretty wild cases have been upheld as copyright violations (see “patent troll”).
Moreover, there’s precedent for this kind of use being considered “transformative” and thus fair use. The Google Books project, which scanned millions of books to create a searchable index, was ruled legal despite protests from authors and publishers. AI training is arguably even more transformative.
The problem is that Google books only lets you search some phrase and have it pop up as beibg from source xy. It doesn’t have the capability of reproducing it (other than maybe the page it was on perhaps) - well, it does have the capability since it’s in the index somewhere, but there are checks in place to make sure it doesn’t happen, which seem to be yet unachieved in AI.
While it’s understandable that creators feel uneasy about this new technology, labeling it “theft” is both legally and technically inaccurate.
Yes. Just as labeling piracy as theft is.
We may need new ways to support and compensate creators in the AI age, but that doesn’t make the current use of copyrighted works for AI training illegal or
Yes, new legislation will made to either let “Big AI” do as it pleases, or prevent it from doing so. Or, as usual, it’ll be somewhere inbetween and vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
However,
that doesn’t make the current use of copyrighted works for AI training illegal or unethical.
this doesn’t really stand. Sure, morals are debatable and while I’d say it is more unethical as private piracy (so no distribution) since distribution and disemination is involved, you do not seem to feel the same.
However, the law is clear. Private piracy (as in recording a song off of radio, a TV broadcast, screen recording a Netflix movie, etc. are all legal. As is digitizing books and lending the digital (as long as you have a physical copy that isn’t lended out as the same time representing the legal “original”). I think breaking DRM also isn’t illegal (but someone please correct me if I’m wrong).
The problems arises when the pirated content is copied and distributed in an uncontrolled manner, which AI seems to be capable of, making the AI owner as liable of piracy if the AI reproduced not even the same, but “substantially similar” output, just as much as hosts of “classic” pirated content distributed on the Web.
Obligatory IANAL and as far as the law goes, I focused on US law since the default country on here is the US. Similar or different laws are on the books in other places, although most are in fact substantially similar. Also, what the legislators cone up with will definately vary from place to place, even more so than copyright law since copyright law is partially harmonised (see Berne convention).
- Comment on Google denies reports that it’s discontinuing Fitbit products 2 months ago:
They haveb’t stopped producing them… Yet. They’re just planning to.
- Comment on Perspective 2 months ago:
Realist: the glass is plastic
- Comment on How is Lemmy better than Reddit? 2 months ago:
Lemmy isn’t a single website like reddit.com is. It’s rather a collection of decentralised servers (“instances”) offering the same service (one very similar to reddit). It’s often compared to e-mail - just as Gmail users can talk to Outlook users, lemmy.world users can post and comment on lemmy.ml from their home instance.
What this does is it removes the centralised aspects of Reddit - if a community has powertripping mods one can make an alternate community (like on Reddit). But this goes a step above - powertripping server admins can be reigned in by simply switching instances.
- Comment on Patreon: adding Apple’s 30 percent tax is the price of staying in the App Store 2 months ago:
Gee, thanks!
- Comment on Chat is this real 2 months ago:
It’s perfectly reasonable for, say, a tattoo artist not to be liable for the medical bills, if the ink causes a hitherto unknown allergy to kick in.
Why would it be rasonable? Did the tatoo artist do what is (keyword:) reasonable on their end to ensure that doesn’t happen? Did they make information about tatoo ink allergies known to their customers? Do they advise their customers about the allergies? Do they use FDA approved tatoo inks?
It’s not reasonable to argue that a streaming service agreement covers liability for being cut in half by a train.
Did the streaming service clearly for example cause magnetic interference and was ruled as a large contributor to the disaster? If yes, then it’s reasonable.
Whatever scenatio you think of, there’s always room for liability. Some, nay, mlst of it’s far-fetched, but not impossible.
However there’s at least one thing that’s never reasonable, and that’s arbitration itself. Arbitration is someone making a decition which can’t be amended after it’s made. It can’t be appealed. New evidence coming to light after-the-fact means nothing. Arvbitration is absolute.
Arbitration doesn’t allow complaint. The judgement is final.
Which is fucking ridiculous.
Let’s return to your two claims of unreasonability:
It’s perfectly reasonable for, say, a tattoo artist not to be liable for the medical bills, if the ink causes a hitherto unknown allergy to kick in.
It’s not reasonable to argue that a streaming service agreement covers liability for being cut in half by a train.
There’s nothing stopping a normal court from fairly making a judgement. It can be appealed, which is fine.
What isn’t fine is giving a company, or a like-minded court sole and absolute jurisdictions over suits against a company by its users. And above that, making said judgements unappealable.
To paraphrase you: there has to be a reasonable understanding of the underlying facts of the case covered. Some claims are clearly ubsubstantiated. Some, however, are clearly substantiated and if the service provider knows and understands that, they would accept the jurisdiction of the court system without carveouts grossly in their favour.
- Comment on Chat is this real 2 months ago:
Honestly, isn’t them invoking the arbitration clause a direct admission of guilt? Had they just came to court and said “we have nothing to do with it” they might’ve just gotten away with it. Like this, they literally drag themselves into the suit and say you can’t sue me. Not a good look.
- Comment on Patreon: adding Apple’s 30 percent tax is the price of staying in the App Store 3 months ago:
Thank you for the clarification, as I said, there are exceptions which are few and far between for the rule, with this being a huge carveout I missed - selling physical goods is exempt.
But if you want to pay for in-game goods (subscriptions, gems, skins, whatever) or an app outright Apple takes 30%. I know they charge Netflix the 30% for their subscriptions, but wonder about e.g. tickets/passes for transit.
- Comment on Patreon: adding Apple’s 30 percent tax is the price of staying in the App Store 3 months ago:
Apple takes a 30% cut from almost all transactions made within all apps installed from the App Store (which is literally all of them) and you’re not allowed to advertise e.g. a website to avoid the tax. Patreon rightly passes the 30% onto consumers, as should all apps. Regardless of their own bad practices, Apple needs to be held accountable.
- Comment on Netflix officially removes Basic - the cheapest ad-free tier 3 months ago:
What does a member slot mean by the way? Is it a person (as in if you want seperate recommendations for you, your wife and kid you pay for two more slots) or is it a home (as in your family, the grandparets, friends you share the account with etc. since they started cracking down on password sharing. Obligatory never had or even used netflix (other than seeing a few movies at friends’ places)
- Comment on Windows 11 is nagging users to try OneDrive to "fully backup" your PC 3 months ago:
Didn’t read the article, but Windows 10 did the whole OneDrive backup nag message thing as well. Defender would always shiw a warning that you’re “not secure” if you don’t backup to OneDrive.
- Comment on Google and Microsoft consume more power than some countries 4 months ago:
It’s definately cheaper to have some in-house power plants than to pay utilities for the electricity more often than not, and hydroelectric or battery storage might also be cost-effective at times, although I’d say a bit less so than generation.
- Comment on Apple argues in favor of selling Macs with only 8GB of RAM 7 months ago:
all kinds of restrictions to your rights
The document mentions a lot of US laws. I wonder if they try the same over in the EU.
- Comment on Do you actually own anything digital? 10 months ago:
Congratulations, then you aren’t. On another note, how does Linux on a phone look like? I thought Ubuntu touch was still pretty far from daily-drive capability.
- Comment on Do you actually own anything digital? 10 months ago:
Don’t all games on Steam get the basic DRM treatment?
- Comment on Do you actually own anything digital? 10 months ago:
You did, but you are the product