Apparently, stealing other people’s work to create product for money is now “fair use” as according to OpenAI because they are “innovating” (stealing). Yeah. Move fast and break things, huh?
“Because copyright today covers virtually every sort of human expression—including blogposts, photographs, forum posts, scraps of software code, and government documents—it would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials,” wrote OpenAI in the House of Lords submission.
OpenAI claimed that the authors in that lawsuit “misconceive[d] the scope of copyright, failing to take into account the limitations and exceptions (including fair use) that properly leave room for innovations like the large language models now at the forefront of artificial intelligence.”
Copyright protects the original artist, for a limited time and in limited circumstances, against others copying and, distributing the original work, or creating derivative works. Copyright does not protect against a particular entity consuming the work. Limitation on consumption is antithetical to copyright law.
The fundamental purpose of copyright is to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. To expand the collective body of knowledge. Consumption of intellectual works is not restricted by copyright. Even if you know that the particular copy of a book was produced by a pirate in violation of the author’s copyright, your consumption of that work is not an infringement.
Knowing that the 13th word of the Gettysburg Address is “continent”, and that the preceding and following words are “this” and “a” does not constitute copying, distribution, or creation of a derivative work. Knowledge of the underlying work is not an infringement.
Quite the contrary, the specific purpose of intellectual property laws is to promote the progress of sciences and useful arts. To expand society’s collective body of knowledge. “Fair Use” is not an exemption. “Fair Use” is the purpose. The temporary and natrow limitations on free use are the means by which the law encourages writers and inventors to publish.
If AI is considered a “progress in the sciences and useful arts”, then, unpopular as it may be, the preemptive, pragmatic solution should be pretty obvious: clarify that Fair Use Doctrine explicitly protects this activity.