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by cycomanic 1336 days ago
> Lastly if the argument is about that the tech makes it "possible to fully or substantially recreate any given existing work" using deliberate and specific inputs, well we've had plenty of legal precedent on that too. The same arguments were made about Xerox machines, about cassette tapes, about VCRs, about CD-Rs. The copyright holders pretty much lost in every case. At the point you are taking specific and deliberate actions to knowingly infringe on copyright is the point where the technology used is no longer relevant. The right inputs can be used to infringe on the copyright of Star Wars at any typewriter or computer keyboard in the world. The right inputs can be used to infringe on the copyrights of The Beatles at virtually any instrument. It is the act of infringing, not the technology, which is relevant here

There is a significant difference here though, a Xerox machine or a VCR itself does not contain a representation of the art they are copying, a DL network does. I am pretty certain the cases around Xerox/VCRs etc would have had a pretty different outcome if you could type a prompt into your machine "print a story about some kids in a wizard college fighting against the comeback of an evil sorcerer" and it would have put out something closely resembling Harry Potter.