There’s a related problem with copyright. It’s not about the fact that entity has the rights to make money from something the entity created. It’s that they “lock up” the idea behind an exclusive license that has to be negotiated separately, with no way to arrive at a fair deal.
For example, no-one else can try to produce a better Star Wars movie or video game that what the copyright holders permit. Harry Potter famously has a ton of fanfiction, but no one can sell it. Tons of people want to simply make youtube videos of them playing a Nintendo game and...
A “fair deal” would be that some % of the revenue for selling a derivative work goes back to the original holder, recursively, where the % is defined by law, and the original holder does not get the right to block the distribution of the derivative work, their consideration is financial. @gwern might have a clearer idea of how this might work mechanically.
There is a similar problem where to make a new and innovative service work, you need some way to make use of a large quantity of copyrighted content. The Google books case is similar to the AI training lawsuits now, and Google seems to have eventually won in court.
There isn’t one. Copyright owners can block uses unless certain fair use conditions are met.
I am claiming this is wrong, others should be able to build on the ideas others have created so long as they share revenue with the first creator, recursively. Ironically fair use, which llms may turn out to fall under, mean the fair user doesn’t need to compensate the original owners a dime.
The Google books case, the 2nd circuit agreed that copying the full contents of most books ever published was fair use, and providing search engine services where the full text contents of all those books are searched, and small snippets provided to online users, was fair use, and compensation is not required.
I am not a copyright lawyer, but the LLM cases seems to have the same elements as Google books case.
To actually change the real world in this regard, at least in the US, there will need to be arguments to cross many hurdles, such as to convince a majority of congressmen, and inevitably many judges when it get’s challenged. And probably even beyond since the USG has ratified most of WIPO, which it can’t unilaterally change.
Inevitably there will have to be convincing legal arguments or else this won’t get far enough for it to practically matter.
If you don’t have any right now, maybe try focusing your efforts on coming up with some?
Copyright law doesn’t protect scientific facts so progress is able to be made, and it probably doesn’t protect authors and artists, so data inefficient AI can be trained.
I was simply noting it causes a dead weight loss in creative output, which has become much worse by extending copyright to effectively eternity. Almost everyone alive when steamboat willy hit theaters is not.
There’s a related problem with copyright. It’s not about the fact that entity has the rights to make money from something the entity created. It’s that they “lock up” the idea behind an exclusive license that has to be negotiated separately, with no way to arrive at a fair deal.
For example, no-one else can try to produce a better Star Wars movie or video game that what the copyright holders permit. Harry Potter famously has a ton of fanfiction, but no one can sell it. Tons of people want to simply make youtube videos of them playing a Nintendo game and...
A “fair deal” would be that some % of the revenue for selling a derivative work goes back to the original holder, recursively, where the % is defined by law, and the original holder does not get the right to block the distribution of the derivative work, their consideration is financial. @gwern might have a clearer idea of how this might work mechanically.
There is a similar problem where to make a new and innovative service work, you need some way to make use of a large quantity of copyrighted content. The Google books case is similar to the AI training lawsuits now, and Google seems to have eventually won in court.
What’s the actual legal argument against copyright holders from being able to block certain uses they dislike?
There isn’t one. Copyright owners can block uses unless certain fair use conditions are met.
I am claiming this is wrong, others should be able to build on the ideas others have created so long as they share revenue with the first creator, recursively. Ironically fair use, which llms may turn out to fall under, mean the fair user doesn’t need to compensate the original owners a dime.
The Google books case, the 2nd circuit agreed that copying the full contents of most books ever published was fair use, and providing search engine services where the full text contents of all those books are searched, and small snippets provided to online users, was fair use, and compensation is not required.
I am not a copyright lawyer, but the LLM cases seems to have the same elements as Google books case.
To actually change the real world in this regard, at least in the US, there will need to be arguments to cross many hurdles, such as to convince a majority of congressmen, and inevitably many judges when it get’s challenged. And probably even beyond since the USG has ratified most of WIPO, which it can’t unilaterally change.
Inevitably there will have to be convincing legal arguments or else this won’t get far enough for it to practically matter.
If you don’t have any right now, maybe try focusing your efforts on coming up with some?
There are lower hanging fruit with greater ROI.
Copyright law doesn’t protect scientific facts so progress is able to be made, and it probably doesn’t protect authors and artists, so data inefficient AI can be trained.
I was simply noting it causes a dead weight loss in creative output, which has become much worse by extending copyright to effectively eternity. Almost everyone alive when steamboat willy hit theaters is not.
How do you know the ‘dead weight loss in creative output’ outweighs the positive effects in the first place?
It doesn’t seem obvious at all to me if there are no such arguments put forward.