[JoshTriplett]

> If even WWII-era documents are still under copyright, building a model respecting that would be impossible.

"We can't do this legally, so we should be allowed to ignore the law."

If you can't build a model while respecting licenses, don't build a model.

I don't want copyright to exist, at any duration, and I certainly think it should be much shorter than it is. However, as long as it exists, AI should not get any exception to it; such an exception inherently privileges massive entities over small entities or individuals.

[realusername]

If you can't do something which looks reasonable within the laws, it means that the laws have to change.

I don't see how building such a model of historical documents would impact authors (which most of them are dead anyways).

[JoshTriplett]

> If you can't do something which looks reasonable within the laws, it means that the laws have to change.

Then change the law. For everyone, consistently, not just massive AI companies. Until then, deal with it.

> I don't see how building such a model of historical documents would impact the authors

It impacts the authors of new documents, who do not get to copy those historical documents, while an AI competing with them gets to. If you want those historical documents to be freely available, make copyright stop applying to them. For everyone, not just massive AI companies.

[realusername]

I'm personally in favor of a heavily reduced copyright duration similar to patents and so if AI makes people realize how stupid the current laws look, I take it.

[JoshTriplett]

That'd be fine if AI waited for the law to change, rather than just breaking it and trying to grow fast enough to make countries scared to enforce their own laws against it.

[realusername]

The people campaigning for a change previously mostly were librarians, tech enthusiasts, archivists and pirate parties, now it's megacorporations worth billions of dollars.

I have a feeling that they are going to fare better odds, the world runs on money.

[JoshTriplett]

They might fare better odds at using their ill-gotten goods to lobby for changes that benefit them, and do not help others or are even harmful to others.