“Established copyright doctrine will dictate that the Times cannot prevent AI models from acquiring knowledge about facts, any more than another news organization can prevent the Times itself from re-reporting stories it had no role in investigating,” OpenAI writes.
Oh boy, their defense is that their advanced predictive text can acquire knowledge? Please, proceed.
It still is defensible. I can quote a whole bunch of lines from “talladega nights” and “old school” verbatim. I can sing the entirety of “Amish paradise”, with close to 100% accuracy.
My recall ability does not mean that I’ve violated copyright.
This doesn’t matter. You personally reciting movie quotes as a private individual is fair use. OpenAI’s ChatGPT has a commercial purpose, and you could say it does compete with The NY Times.
Only indirectly - as in airplanes competing with cars. And the law generally encourages that type of competition as it leads to substantial innovation and economic growth.
That’s like saying amazon and mom and pop gift shops don’t compete. Like yeah, a lot of people will still prefer the atmosphere and curation of the mom and pop shop but that doesn’t fucking matter when the vast majority of people just use Amazon, driving the shop out of business. This despite the fact that Amazon is more general and only competes indirectly.
What does that have to do with copyright infringement though? And how would it be illegal?
I could totally start a website, maybe call it “New York Stories”, read every news article about New York (I’d get a lot of them from NYT) and then working off my own memory, not copy/pasting the text write/publish the same story. That would not be copyright infringement. In fact the NYT themselves do it all the time, publishing things that were originally reported elsewhere. You’re allowed to do that as long as you don’t produce exact copies.
LLMs generally don’t do exact copies of anything - they’re just not exact at all. If you ask the AI exactly the same question a thousand times, you won’t get precisely the same exact response twice.
For example asking “What should I eat in New York?” gave me:
New York City offers a vast array of culinary experiences, reflecting its diverse culture. Here’s a mix of iconic eats and modern must-tries:
Pizza: New York-style pizza is famous worldwide. Visit classic spots like Di Fara, Lombardi’s, or newer favorites like Lucali for a slice of this iconic dish.
Bagels and Lox: New York bagels are [… several more paragraphs …]
Then the same question again:
New York City is a melting pot of cultures, making it one of the best places in the world to explore a wide variety of cuisines. Here are some iconic foods and places to consider when deciding what to eat in New York:
Pizza: New York-style pizza is famous worldwide. Look for places with a long history and great reviews, such as Lombardi’s (America’s first pizzeria), Di Fara Pizza, or Joe’s Pizza for a classic slice.
Bagels: Another iconic New York […]
It’s approximately the same response but not exactly the same and even recommends different restaurants.
Being exact matters when it comes to copyright infringement. Like OpenAI I’m genuinely curious how they got it to output a verbatim copy of anything. That’s highly unusual behaviour and if they had reported it to the company I’m sure it would have been fixed. Just like if someone posted an exact copy of an NYT article in this community it would be removed and nobody would be taken to court.
Do you have paying customers that ask you for movie scripts and song lyrics like OpenAi does? If so, the above would be flat out copyright infringement.
Oh boy, their defense is that their advanced predictive text can acquire knowledge? Please, proceed.
It would be a plausible defense if the AI model wasn’t regurgitating Times articles verbatim.
It still is defensible. I can quote a whole bunch of lines from “talladega nights” and “old school” verbatim. I can sing the entirety of “Amish paradise”, with close to 100% accuracy.
My recall ability does not mean that I’ve violated copyright.
This doesn’t matter. You personally reciting movie quotes as a private individual is fair use. OpenAI’s ChatGPT has a commercial purpose, and you could say it does compete with The NY Times.
Only indirectly - as in airplanes competing with cars. And the law generally encourages that type of competition as it leads to substantial innovation and economic growth.
That’s like saying amazon and mom and pop gift shops don’t compete. Like yeah, a lot of people will still prefer the atmosphere and curation of the mom and pop shop but that doesn’t fucking matter when the vast majority of people just use Amazon, driving the shop out of business. This despite the fact that Amazon is more general and only competes indirectly.
Are you charging for your performances?
No, but you’re not trying to sell your abilities to write things. The entire point of OpenAI as a company is to sell its LLM.
What does that have to do with copyright infringement though? And how would it be illegal?
I could totally start a website, maybe call it “New York Stories”, read every news article about New York (I’d get a lot of them from NYT) and then working off my own memory, not copy/pasting the text write/publish the same story. That would not be copyright infringement. In fact the NYT themselves do it all the time, publishing things that were originally reported elsewhere. You’re allowed to do that as long as you don’t produce exact copies.
LLMs generally don’t do exact copies of anything - they’re just not exact at all. If you ask the AI exactly the same question a thousand times, you won’t get precisely the same exact response twice.
For example asking “What should I eat in New York?” gave me:
Then the same question again:
It’s approximately the same response but not exactly the same and even recommends different restaurants.
Being exact matters when it comes to copyright infringement. Like OpenAI I’m genuinely curious how they got it to output a verbatim copy of anything. That’s highly unusual behaviour and if they had reported it to the company I’m sure it would have been fixed. Just like if someone posted an exact copy of an NYT article in this community it would be removed and nobody would be taken to court.
If you write it down and sell it you 100% do violate copyright
Google be in trouble then
Do you have paying customers that ask you for movie scripts and song lyrics like OpenAi does? If so, the above would be flat out copyright infringement.
Pffffft, this guy can’t recite “Forgot about Dre” from memory…