I’ll lift a comment from techdirt:
“Let companies rip off your work, or else only Big Tech will be able to rip off your work”
Maybe we’re so far in capitalist hellholle that we simply consider everything to be for sale. What about GPL work that OpenAI steals? Or personal data? With how secretive they are with data they “scraped” we don’t even know if they have any right at all to repackage and sell it.
Making only big companies able to “rip off your work” (not an accurate representation, but whatever) Is not the solution you think it is.
The only solution is to force all models trained on public data to not be covered by copyrights by default. Any output from those models should also by default be in the commons. The solution is to avoid copyright cartels, not strengthen them.
Agreed that interim solution should be to make all “AI” work public domain since it treats everything it trains on as public domain. I’m for it because it would would immediately stop being profitable for commercial enterprises. Then check who they ripped off and settle any financial claims and damages before moving on to establish license for already created output.
Exactly. Make ALL output public domain. Force them to release their training sets. Force them to open source their models.
There will still be companies like Adobe and DeviantArt who will be able to work around this due to their ToS, but we have enough existing models to make them obsolete due to the power of FOSS.
That’s how it is now.
No, the models is not in the commons. Their training data is also not known.
The models (ie the weights specifically) may not be copyrightable, anyways. There’s no copyright on the result of number crunching. Once the model is further fine-tuned, there might be copyright, but it’s still unlike anything covered by copyright in the past.
One analogy I have is a 3D engine. The engineers design the look of the typical output by setting parameters, but that does not create a specific copyright on the parameters. There’s copyright on the design documents, the code, the UI, if any and maybe other stuff. It’s not quite the same, though.
Some jurisdictions have IP on databases. I think that would cover AI models. If I am right, then that means that any license agreements that come with models are ineffective in the US.
However, to copy these models, you first need to get your hands on them. They are still trade secrets, so don’t on leaks.
IMO, we need to ask: What benefits the people? or What is in the public interest?
That should be the only thing of importance. That’s probably controversial. Some will call it socialism. It is pretty much how the US Constitution sees it, though.
Maybe you agree with this. But when you talk about “models trained on public data” you are basically thinking in terms of property rights, and not in terms of the public benefit.
Well, I think that removing copyrights altogether is in the public interest, so…there you go :)
The main thing investors do with technology is find something free and make a product out of it. This time they flipped the script by stealing, and I want these companies and investors to face consequences. I don’t want all of humanity’s creative works that have ever been posted online to be repurposed and repackaged by a new technology and then sold.
Sure, that’s what they want. They want the backing of copyright strengthening from emotional reactions like yours so that the only ones able to do GenerativeAI is those few big companies. They’re playing you.
Think about WHY only the absurdly wealthy companies would be able to purchase all of that data though. Because that data has immense value. Many authors and artists would certainly refuse to sell. I care that few companies hoard so much wealth and power, but I care more about the current issue that companies with wealth and power dont even have to spend a dime because they are just stealing.
Dont solve the problem of power consolidation on the dime of peoples life’s work.
You don’t need every artist to sell. Just enough. Likewise most artists already traded away their rights to the likes of Adobe and deviantart. And since there’s no real powerful artist union they all have basically 0 power compared to the capitalists who have more than enough economic power to get this done. Nothing will be fixed or prevented in this path. Only skewed even more in favour of the rich
I am just wondering how many of these artists took the Faustian bargain of producing xxx material - you get paid and people appreciate your work but you are banned from ever working a “serious” job in the art world. Then, image generation came and they lost all that money to imitators.
Finally some sane level headed coverage of AI copyright issues. Techdirt doesn’t miss.
If “big tech” can collapse, and it does. It will leave a power-void.
Will the fediverse win? It needs to if we have any chance at democratizing the internet.
