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Japan determines copyright doesn't apply to LLM/ML training data (infosec.town)

submitted 10 months ago by ericjmorey@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

68 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[–] silverbax@lemmy.world 60 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (27 children)

I think this is a difficult concept to tackle, but the main argument I see about using existing works as 'training data' is the idea that 'everything is a remix'.

I, as a human, can paint an exact copy of a Picasso work or any other artist. This is not illegal and I have no need of a license to do this. I definitely don't need a license to paint something 'in the style of Picasso', and I can definitely sell it with my own name on it.

But the question is, what about when a computer does the same thing? What is the difference? Speed? Scale? Anyone can view a picture of the Mona Lisa at any time and make their own painting of it. You can't use the image of the Mona Lisa without accreditation and licensing, but what about a recreation of the Mona Lisa?

I'm not really arguing pro-AI here, although it may sound like it. I've just heard the 'licensing' argument many times and I'd really like to hear what the difference between a human copying and a computer copying are, if someone knows more about the law.

[–] abhibeckert@lemmy.world 50 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (24 children)

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.

[–] silverbax@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

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.

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