And yet, some people don't even want their artwork studied in schools. Even if you argue that an AI is "human enough" the artists should still have the right to refuse their art being studies.
>the artists should still have the right to refuse their art being studies.
No, that right doesn't exist. If you put your work of art out there for people to see, people will see it and learn from it, and be inspired by it. It's unavoidable. How could it possibly work otherwise?
Artist A: You studied my work to produce yours, even when I asked people not to do that!
Artist B: Prove it.
What kind of evidence or argument could Artist A possibly provide to show that Artist B did what they're accusing them of, without being privy to the internal state of their mind. You're not talking about plagiarism; that's comparatively easy to prove. You're asking about merely studying the work.
The right to not use my things exists everywhere, universally. Good people usually ask before they use something of someone else's, and the person being asked can say "no." How hard is that to understand? You might believe they don't have the right to say "no," but they can say whatever they want.
Example:
If you studied my (we will assume "unique") work and used it without my permission, then let us say I sue you. At that point, you would claim "fair use," and the courts would decide whether it was fair use (ask everyone who used a mouse and got sued for it in the last ~100 years). The court would either agree that you used my works under "fair use" ... or not. It would be up to how you presented it to the court, and humans would analyze your intent and decide.
OR, I might agree it is fair use and not sue you. However, that weakens my standing on my copyright, so it's better for me to sue you (assuming I have the resources to do so when it is clearly fair use).
>You might believe they don't have the right to say "no," but they can say whatever they want.
You have a right to say anything you want. Others aren't obligated do as you say just because you say it.
>If you studied my (we will assume "unique") techniques and used them without my permission, then let us say I sue you. At that point, you would claim "fair use,"
On what grounds would you sue me? You think my defense would be "fair use", so you must think my copying your style constitutes copyright infringement, and so you'd sue me for that. Well, no, I would not say "fair use", I'd say "artistic style is not copyrightable; copyright pertains to works, not to styles". There's even jurisprudence backing me up in the US. Apple tried to use Microsoft for copying the look-and-feel of their OS, and it was ruled to be non-copyrightable. Even if was so good that I was able to trick anyone into thinking that my painting of a dog carrying a tennis ball in his mouth was your work, if you've never painted anything like that you would have no grounds to sue me for copyright infringement.
Now, usually in the artistic world it's considered poor manners to outright copy another artist's style, but if we're talking about rights and law, I'm sorry to say you're just wrong. And if we're talking about merely studying someone's work without copying it, that's not even frowned upon. Like I said, it's unavoidable. I don't know where you got this idea that anyone has the right to or is even capable of preventing this (beyond simply never showing it to anyone).
I'm not sure what you've changed, but I'll reiterate: my copying your style is not fair use. Fair use applies to copyrighted things. A style cannot be copyrighted, so if you tried to sue me for infringing upon the copyright of your artistic style, your case would be dismissed. It would be as invalid as you trying to sue me for distributing illegal copies of someone else's painting. Legally you have as much ownership of your artistic style as of that other person's painting.
Now, I just think you are arguing in bad faith. What I meant to say was clear, but I said "technique" instead. Then, instead of debating what I meant to say (you know, the actual point of the conversation), you took my words verbatim.
I'm not sure where you are going with this ... but for what it's worth, techniques can be copyrighted ... even patented, or protected via trade secrets. I never said what the techniques were, and I'm not sure what you are going on about.
I'll repeat this as well: "Fair use" DOES NOT EXIST unless you are getting sued. It's a legal defense when you are accused of stealing someone else's work, and there is proof you stole it. Even then, it isn't something you DO; it's something a court says YOU DID. Any time you use something with "fair use" in mind, it is the equivalent of saying, "I'm going to steal this, and hopefully, a court agrees that this is fair use."
If you steal any copyrighted material, even when it is very clearly NOT fair use (such as in most AI's case), you would be a blubbering idiot NOT to claim fair use in the hopes that someone will agree. There is a crap load of case law showing "research for commercial purposes is not fair use," ... and guess who is selling access to the AI? If it's actual research, it is "free" for humanity to use (or at least as inexpensive as possible) and not for profit. Sure, some of the companies might be non-profits doing research and 'giving it away,' and those are probably using things fairly ... then there are other companies very clearly doing it for a profit (like a big software company going through code they host).
> The right to not use my things exists everywhere, universally.
For physical rival [1] goods, yes. Not necessarily the same for intangible non-rival things (e.g. the text of a book, not the physical ink and paper). Copyright law creates a legal right of exclusive control over creative works, but to me there isn't a non-economic-related social right to exclusive control over creative works. In the US, fair use is a major limit on the legal aspect of copyright. The First Amendment's freedom of expression is the raison d'être of fair use. Most countries don't have a flexible exception similar to fair use.
> OR, I might agree it is fair use and not sue you. However, that weakens my standing on my copyright, so it's better for me to sue you
No, choosing not to sue over a copyrighted work doesn't weaken your copyright. It only weakens the specific case of changing your mind after the statute of limitations expires. The statute of limitations means that you have a time limit of some number of years (three years in the US) to sue, with the timer starting only after you become aware of an instance of alleged infringement. Copyright is not like trademark. You don't lose your copyright by failing to enforce it.
Furthermore, even though the fair use right can only be exercised as an affirmative defense in court, fair use is by definition not copyright infringement [3]:
> Importantly, the court viewed fair use not as a valid excuse for otherwise infringing conduct, but rather as consumer behavior that is not infringement in the first place. "Because 17 U.S.C. § 107[9] created a type of non-infringing use, fair use is 'authorized by the law' and a copyright holder must consider the existence of fair use before sending a takedown notification under § 512(c)."[1]
(Ignore the bracket citations that were copied over.)
> And yet, some people don't even want their artwork studied in schools.
You can either make it for yourself and keep it for yourself or you can put it out into the world for all to see, criticize, study, imitate, and admire.
that's not how licensing work, be it art, software or just about anything else. We have some pretty well defined and differentiated rules what you can and cannot do, in particular commercially or in public, with someone else's work. If you go and study a work of fiction in a college class, unless that material is in the public domain, you're gonna have to pay for your copy, you want to broadcast a movie in public, you're going to have to pay the rightsholder.
> If you go and study a work of fiction in a college class, unless that material is in the public domain, you're gonna have to pay for your copy,
No you wont!
It is only someone who distributes copies who can get in trouble.
If instead of that you as an individual decide to study a piece of art or fiction, and you do no distribute copies of it to anyone, this is completely legal and you don't have to pay anyone for it.
In addition to that, fair use protections apply regardless of what the creative works creator wants.
That's not a fair statement to make. It can influence a judge's decision on whether something is fair use, but it can still be fair use even if you profit from it.
The doctrine of fair use presupposes that the defendant acted in good faith.
- Harper & Row, 105 S. Ct. at 2232
- Marcus, 695 F.2d 1171 at 1175
- Radji v. Khakbaz, 607 F. Supp. 1296, 1300 (D.D. C.1985)
- Roy Export Co. Establishment of Vaduz, Liechtenstein, Black, Inc. v. Columbia Broadcastinig System, Inc., 503 F. Supp. 1137 (S.D.N.Y.1980), aff'd, 672 F.2d 1095 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 826, 103 S. Ct. 60, 74 L. Ed. 2d 63 (1982)
Copying and distributing someone else's work, especially without attributing the original, to make money without their permission is almost guaranteed to fall afoul of fair use.
I wasn't talking about someone creating and selling copies of someone else's work, fortunately.
So my point stands and your completely is in agreement with me that people are allowed to learn from other people's works. If someone wants to learn from someone else's work, that is completely legal no matter the licensing terms.
Instead, it is only distributing copies that is not allowed.
AI isn't a human. It isn't "learning"; instead, it's encoding data so that it may be reproduced in combination with other things it has encoded.
If I paint a painting in the style of Monet, then I would give that person attribution by stating that. Monet may have never painted my artwork, but it's still based on that person's work. If I paint anything, I can usually point to everything that inspired me to do so. AI can't do that (yet) and thus has no idea what it is doing. It is a printer that prints random parts of people's works with no attribution. And finally, it is distributing them to it's owner's customers.
I actually hope that true AI comes to fruition at some point; when that happens I would be arguing the exact opposite. We don't have that yet, so this is just literally printing variations of other people's work. Don't believe me, try running an AI without training it on other people's work!
There's no such thing as fair use until you get to court (as a legal defense). Then, the court decides whether it is fair use or not. They may or may not agree with you. Only a court can determine what constitutes fair use (at least in the US).
So, if you are doing something and asserting "fair use," you are literally asking for someone to challenge you and prove it is not fair use.
> There's no such thing as fair use until you get to court (as a legal defense)
Well the point is that it wouldn't go to court, as it would be completely legal.
So yes, if nobody sues you, then you are completely in the clear and aren't in trouble.
Thats what people mean by fair use. They mean that nobody is going to sue you, because the other person would lose the lawsuit, therefore your actions are safe and legal.
> you are literally asking for someone to challenge you and prove it is not fair use.
No, instead of that, the most likely circumstance is that nobody sues you, and you aren't in trouble at all, and therefore you did nothing wrong and are safe.
> the artists should still have the right to refuse their art being studies.
Why? That certainly isn't a right spelled out in either patents or copyrights, both of which are supposed to support the development of arts and technology, not hinder it.
If I discover a new mathematical formula, musical scale, or whatnot, should I be able to prevent others from learning about it?
> Fair use allows reproduction and other uses of copyrighted works – without requiring permission from the copyright owner – under certain conditions. In many cases, you can use copyrighted materials for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship or research.
Reminder that you can't own ideas, no matter what the law says.
NOTE: This comment is copyrighted and provided to you under license only. By reading this comment, you agree to give me 5 billion dollars.
I'd love to see you try to enforce that license because it would only prove my point. You'd have to sue me; then I would point to the terms of service of this platform and point out that by using it, you have no license here.
Fair use though, only applies as a legal defense because someone asserts you stole their work. Then ONLY the court decides whether or not you used it under fair use. You don't get to make that decision; you just get to decide whether to try and use it as a defense.
Even if you actually did unfairly use copyrighted works, you would be stupid not to use that as a defense. Because maybe somebody on the jury agrees with you...
Copyright is there to allow you to stop other people from copying your work, but it doesn't give you control over anything else that they might do with it.
If I buy your painting, you can stop me from making copies and selling them to other people, but you can't stop me from selling my original copy to whomever I want, nor could you stop me from painting little dinosaurs all over it and hanging it in my hallway.
That means that if I buy your painting, I'm also free to study it and learn from it in whichever way I please. Studying something is not copying it.
There's an implied license when you buy a work of art. However, there can also be explicit licenses (think Banksy) to allow the distribution of their work.
These explicit license can be just about anything (MIT, GPL, AGPL, etc)
Any explicit license would only apply to copyrights, including all of the ones you listed there. Buying a painting is not copying it, neither is looking at it, so it wouldn't matter if I had a license for it or not.
The fact is that copyright only applies to specific situations, it does not give you complete control over the thing you made and what can be done with it.
If I buy your book, I can lend it to a friend and they can read it without paying you. I can read it out loud to my children. I can cross out your words and write in my own, even if it completely changes the meaning of the story. I can highlight passages and write in the margins. I can tear pages out and use them for kindling. I can go through and tally up how many times you use each word.
Copyright only gives you control over copies, end even then there are limits on that control.
> Copyright only gives you control over copies, end even then there are limits on that control.
If that were true, nobody would be afraid of the GPL's. When you buy a painting, you get an implicit license to do pretty much what you want and resell it, but you still can't put it in your YouTube videos (yeah, nobody cares, but "technically..."), create your own gallery, or put it on a stage ... but we're not talking about paintings. Not directly, anyway.
We are talking about implicit licenses, though; people's work is listed online with some implicit license. At the crux of this AI issue is whether or not there is an implied license when AI scans stuff and, if not, whether it is covered under fair use.
For example, my blog posts and short stories. I don't care if someone uses it for training, but if it is over-fitting and spitting out my stories as if it were its own ... I'd be pretty furious.
I'm interested to see what happens, but I have a sinking suspicion that for some AI companies, it won't be an issue (non-profit, actually research motivated, etc.) and probably will win a "fair use" argument. Then others create AI from people's code they host, doing it purely for profit; I highly doubt they would be able to defend themselves.
No, that right doesn't exist. If you put your work of art out there for people to see, people will see it and learn from it, and be inspired by it. It's unavoidable. How could it possibly work otherwise?
Artist A: You studied my work to produce yours, even when I asked people not to do that!
Artist B: Prove it.
What kind of evidence or argument could Artist A possibly provide to show that Artist B did what they're accusing them of, without being privy to the internal state of their mind. You're not talking about plagiarism; that's comparatively easy to prove. You're asking about merely studying the work.