@SRAZKVT It’s a bit more complicated than that for reasons other than copyright (mentioned in my next couple posts in the thread). TL;DR: you may still have to defend it even if they can’t enforce copyright, and they may also have other grounds for lawsuit.

@jik In other parts of this thread, this is being discussed. I was limited on space, so I took shortcuts. What I meant is that, in order to enforce your copyright, you need to prove you own the copyright. Registering it is the single most effective way to do that.

If you can't register your copyright, you (effectively) can't enforce it.

If you can't enforce your copyright, your copyright vs public domain is a distinction without a meaningful difference.

I couldn't fit all that in the post.

@Lapizistik To be clear, I agree with you. It's a moral failure to make billions of dollars from other people's effort without compensating them at all.

@Lapizistik In the US, courts have determined (for now, at least) that training an AI model on copyrighted works is considered "fair use". So it's basically legalized copyright laundering. Even code released under the GPL loses its infectiousness when laundered through an LLM.

I'd be very interested to see what other countries do around that, because it would determine which models are legal to use where.

@dwineman 100%. They don't need a favorable judgement to silence you.

@jaredwhite Yeah, you didn't miss much. Mainly he was replying to things I wasn't saying. Easiest argument I've had on the internet in years.

@dwineman Yeah, there are a few approaches to IP law that they'd still have available. But even then, the discovery process would probably require them to air out some of their laundry, too.

IIRC one of the AI platforms was sued recently and settled out of court. Someone on here pointed out that they likely did that to avoid discovery, which would enter a lot of internal data into public record. I'm fuzzy on the details, but the gist was companies generally don't like to go to court over this.

@starr Also, are the full contents of all registered copyrights visible at the Library of Congress? I assumed that was patents only but I used to get copyright and patents confused a lot and this may be one of those things I've been carrying incorrectly in my mind.

@starr I'll have to ask. We didn't get into these kinds of details when we talked about it.

It's definitely more complicated than AI-generated code infecting copyright GPL-style. More that you can't claim copyright on the AI-generated code, so if you don't disclaim the AI-generated code, your copyright won't be recognized. There may also be a lot more dirty details to it that could sway a decision one way or another.

@Azuaron @fsinn The argument has been that the model doesn't contain the copyrighted works directly. Like, you can't grep the model file on disk for a passage from a book it can still somehow reproduce.

It's a ridiculous argument, though, because the models deal in numbers, not text. Those numbers are converted to text for human consumption only, so of course it won't contain the raw text anywhere in the model.

@starr Sorry, it occurred to me that that could come across as sarcastic. I mean that law is not cut and dry, and opinions of specific people factor into every legal decision.

@starr I’m open to being wrong on this. I’m not an expert and I’ve only got the legal opinions of my siblings (who are lawyers) to go on.

@starr I did notice it specifically mentions registration, but I thought copyright registration is necessary to enforce your copyright. Is that not correct?

Like, it needs to be confirmed that you indeed own the copyright before infringement of that copyright can be determined. Registration of the copyright is probably the single best way to do that and, if you don’t register it, my first line of questioning would be why you didn’t.

@grechaw I'd legitimately love if generating code with AI became too large a risk for companies to take on. It’s the outcome most likely to exquisitely satisfy the schadenfreude I feel toward the rich.

@JoBlakely Very possible

@fsinn This is amazing

@atax1a This is the most incredible clapback I've seen all day. Flawless. No notes.

@saxnot In the second screenshot, second bullet point. AFAICT, if you don't disclaim the parts of the work generated by AI, copyright cannot be assigned for the entire work.

The link in that bullet point goes here: https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/Theatre-Dopera-Spatial.pdf

@lexinova Yeah, my take is very much US-centric because it's the only jurisdiction I'm familiar with.

@bougiewonderland It would be some poetic justice for a company that stole the whole idea of a GUI and talked down about OSS for decades to lose their copyright and for that GUI to become public domain explicitly because they couldn't come up with a way to comply with copyright law.