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cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/8121669

Taggart (@mttaggart) writes:

Japan determines copyright doesn't apply to LLM/ML training data.

On a global scale, Japan’s move adds a twist to the regulation debate. Current discussions have focused on a “rogue nation” scenario where a less developed country might disregard a global framework to gain an advantage. But with Japan, we see a different dynamic. The world’s third-largest economy is saying it won’t hinder AI research and development. Plus, it’s prepared to leverage this new technology to compete directly with the West.

I am going to live in the sea.

www.biia.com/japan-goes-all-in-copyright-doesnt-apply-to-ai-training/

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[-] abhibeckert@lemmy.world 55 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Um - your examples are so old the copyright expired centuries ago. Of course you can copy them. And you can absolutely use an image of the Mona Lisa without accreditation or licensing.

Painting and selling an exact copy of a recent work, such as Banksy, is a crime.

… however making an exact copy of Banksy for personal use, or to learn, or to teach other people, or copying the style… that’s all perfectly legal.

I don’t think think this is a black and white issue. Using AI to copy something might be a crime. You absolutely can use it to infringe on copyright. The real question is who’s at fault? I would argue the person who asked the AI to create the copy is at fault - not the company running the servers.

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 29 points 10 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)
[-] abhibeckert@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Huh? What does being non profit have to do with it? Private companies are allowed to learn from copyrighted work. Microsoft and Apple, for example, look at each other's software and copy ideas (not code, just ideas) all the time. The fact Linux is non-profit doesn't give them any additional rights or protection.

[-] iegod@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago

They're not gatekeeping llms though, there are publicly available models and data sets.

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)
[-] iegod@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

Stability diffusion is open source. You can run local instances with provided and free training sets to query against and generate your own outputs.

https://stability.ai/

[-] silverbax@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Thanks for your response. I realize I muddied the waters on my question by mentioning exact copies.

My real question is based on the 'everything is a remix' idea. I can create a work 'in the style of Banksy' and sell it. The US copyright and trademark laws state that a work only has to be 10% differentiated from the original in order to be legal to use, so creating a piece of work that 'looks like it could have been created by Banksy, but was not created by Banksy' is legal.

So since most AI does not create exact copies, this is where I find the licensing argument possibly weak. I really haven't seen AI like MidJourney creating exact replicas of works - but admittedly, I am not following every single piece of art created on Midjourney, or Stable Diffusion, or DALL-E, or any of the other platforms, and I'm not an expert in the trademarking laws to the extent I can answer these questions.

[-] abhibeckert@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Thanks for your response

Always happy to discuss copyright. :-) Our IP laws are long overdue for an overhaul in my opinion. And the only way to make that happen is for as many people as possible to discuss the issues. I plan to spend the rest of my life creating copyrighted work, and I really hope I don't spend all of it under the current rules...

The US copyright and trademark laws state that a work only has to be 10% differentiated from the original in order to be legal to use

The law doesn't say that.The Blurred Lines copyright case for example was far less than 10%. Probably less than 1%, and it was still unclear if it was infringement or not. It took five years of lawsuits to reach an unclear conclusion where the first court found it to be infringing then an appeals panel of judges reached a split decision where the majority of them found it to be non-infringing.

Copyright is incredibly complex and unclear. It's generally best to just not get into a copyright lawsuit in the first place. Usually when someone accuses you of copyright infringement you try to pay them whatever amount of money (in the Blurred Lines case, there were discussions of 50% of the artist's income from the song) to make them go away even if your lawyers tell you you're probably going to get a not guilty verdict.

[-] Silentiea@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago

I really haven't seen AI like MidJourney creating exact replicas of works

I don't have a source to cite, but I did read an article that showed a bad faith actor deliberately trying to use ai to copy images directly, and while the results weren't exact replicas, they were reasonable facsimiles of the original, to the extent that if a human has created it without ai, it would have been blatant copyright infringement, despite not being quite identical.

I wish I had the examples on hand to show, but it was months ago, and unfortunately I have not the skills nor time to retrieve it.

[-] tabular@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

To be at fault the user would have to know the AI creation they distributed commits copyright infringement. How can you tell? Is everyone doing months of research to be vaguely sure it's not like someone else's work?

Even if you had an AI trained on only public domain assets you could still end up putting in the words that generate something copyrighted.

Companies created a random copyright infringement tool for users to randomly infringe copyright.

[-] red@sopuli.xyz 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The same way you can tell if you repainted a Banksy yourself. If you don't realize, and monetize, then you are liable for a copyright lawsuit regardless of the way you created the piece in question.

And if noone can detect similarities beyond influences, then it's not infringing anything.

[-] tabular@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

You may recognize a Banksy but to another it's like I said you aught to know your work is like one from Coinsey: who?

This is exasperated when people can create creative works via AI, having even less knowledge about your peers who know how to DIY. A potentially life-ruining lawsuit is a bad system to find out you can't monetize something.

[-] red@sopuli.xyz 4 points 10 months ago

If only there was some way to find out prior to selling stuff as if you made it. If only. Darn it!

[-] tabular@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

I don't understand. If I make something that doesn't mean I'm not infringing someone's works.

[-] red@sopuli.xyz 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Point: regardless of the HOW it was made, the process of figuring if it infringes on something is the same. It's still not always easy and due to the shittyness of current IP laws, even long time professional artists sometimes make mistakes.

In the end it's just about money.

[-] tabular@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

I am familiar with SEGA owning a software patent on Crazy Taxi's "arrow above car points where to go" because my interests in creating games happened to lead me to an article stating such.

That seems related to HOW my works are made, to me. I know of no other way to find that out.

[-] pirat@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Like this one in Midtown Madness? Did MS actually have to pay SEGA to do the same thing? Both were originally released in 1999, it seems. I'm unsure which came first, but does it even matter if SEGA managed to get the patent first?

MS Midtown Madness gameplay screenshot

[-] tabular@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Midtown Madness 1/2/3 all have the arrows from what I've seen. At least 3 has a part where you pick up people in a taxi.

I am unsure what would happen if Midtown Madness did it first but didn't patent it, game mechanic patents are not common (I hope...). Perhaps they knew they could win but didn't want to lose money fighting the Microsoft of that time? I can find no mention of MM regarding the Sega v. Fox lawsuit where Fox privately settled over Simpson's Road Rage in 2003.

[-] pirat@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Crazy! I had never thought of this sort of arrow as something that would have a patent. Isn't it pretty common in various other driving/racing games? Maybe not?! MM1 & MM2 definitely had the arrow — I've spent way too many hours fucking around in those as a kid! However, there's no taxi mode in any of them. Sadly, I've never tried MM3, since it was never released for PC, iirc only for Xbox, but the video you shared indeed confirms it had the arrow too, and even a taxi mode! How similar is it to that of Crazy Taxi? I've never played that. At least, SEGA probably doesn't own the patent for the taxi/delivery/ambulance driver game format too?!

[-] tabular@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Looks basically the same, as you get closer to the destination in Crazy Taxi the arrow pluses in size and switches colour from green, to orange, to red.

Are you aware that mini-games during loading screens were patented (expired now)?

[-] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 1 points 10 months ago

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you pick up people in a taxi

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this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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