Anthropic wins key ruling on AI in authors' copyright lawsuit

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/international-business/article-anthropic-ai-wins-authors-copyright-lawsuit/

by hiatus • 1 year ago

12 5 1 year ago

hiatus2• 1 year ago

Anthropic's use of copyrighted material was deemed fair use by Judge William Alsup, a technically-competent judge who is well-known for his trial of the Oracle v Google Java case.

JohnFen2• 1 year ago

It's not a surprising ruling. I think it's bad that's the way things are, but that doesn't mean that's not the way things are.

What it means to me, personally, is that it isn't yet safe to publish anything publicly. Anything I do will just get used to train genAI, a use that I highly object to. So my writings, artworks, code, etc., have to remain private.

lesuorac• 1 year ago

A common thing I hear is whats the difference between if I study a bunch of painters and then paint an impressionist painting versus train an AI and then have it generate one?

I guess the difference is that you (ideally) paid for a ticket to the museum to study the artwork.

"Alsup also said, however, that Anthropic’s storage of the authors’ books in a “central library” violated their copyrights and was not fair use."

I have to imagine that terabytes (petabytes?) of copyrighted content is not going to be cheap even if you only have to pay once per work. This might not be the win Anthropic wants.

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There is some really interesting text in the order.

"Instead, it was a fair use because all Anthropic did was replace the print copies it had purchased for its central library with more convenient space-saving and searchable digital copies for its central library — without adding new copies, creating new works, or redistributing existing copies."

Did Alsup just declare emulators as legal? Assuming you ripped the rom yourself, all you're doing is playing the game in a more convenient manor.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69058235/231/bartz-v-an...

hiatus2• 1 year ago

"Instead, it was a fair use because all Anthropic did was replace the print copies it had purchased for its central library with more convenient space-saving and searchable digital copies for its central library — without adding new copies, creating new works, or redistributing existing copies."
Did Alsup just declare emulators as legal? Assuming you ripped the rom yourself, all you're doing is playing the game in a more convenient manor.

Wasn't this always allowed? That is, making copies of something you own for your own use so long as you aren't distributing methods of circumventing digital controls.

JohnFen2• 1 year ago

That is, making copies of something you own for your own use so long as you aren't distributing methods of circumventing digital controls.

Yes. Aside from the terrible DMCA anti-circumvention rules, copyright is about redistribution, not literal copying. I can legally make copies of anything I legally own a copy of all day long. I just can't put those copies in the hands of anyone else (mostly -- I actually can, but I have to treat the original and all of the copies as an indivisible unit, so if I give, sell, or lend a copy to someone else, I have to include the original and all other copies with it).

Anthropic wins key ruling on AI in authors' copyright lawsuit

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