The basic idea of copyright is that if you want to acquire a copy of a book you need to buy that copy. If they just downloaded lib-gen, they didn’t buy the copies of the book they use and that would be a copyright violation.
That’s true whether or not you afterward do something transformative.
What a bizarre normative assertion. That copyright violation would be true whether or not they used it to train a model or indeed, deleted it immediately after downloading it. The copyright violation is one thing, and the model is another thing. The license that one would buy has nothing to do with any transformative ML use, and would deny that use if possible (and likely already contains language to the effect of denying as much as possible). There is no more connection than there is in the claim “if you rob a Starbucks, you should buy a pastry first”.
Yes, the copyright violation is true whether or not they used it to train a model. Douglas_Knight’s claim is that the copyright violation occurred. If that’s true, that makes it possible to sue them over it.
Even if it’s transformative they should still have to buy one license for each book to be able to use it.
Why?
The basic idea of copyright is that if you want to acquire a copy of a book you need to buy that copy. If they just downloaded lib-gen, they didn’t buy the copies of the book they use and that would be a copyright violation.
That’s true whether or not you afterward do something transformative.
What a bizarre normative assertion. That copyright violation would be true whether or not they used it to train a model or indeed, deleted it immediately after downloading it. The copyright violation is one thing, and the model is another thing. The license that one would buy has nothing to do with any transformative ML use, and would deny that use if possible (and likely already contains language to the effect of denying as much as possible). There is no more connection than there is in the claim “if you rob a Starbucks, you should buy a pastry first”.
Yes, the copyright violation is true whether or not they used it to train a model. Douglas_Knight’s claim is that the copyright violation occurred. If that’s true, that makes it possible to sue them over it.