There is a part of me that thinks "if only I had stopped to give a course on the entire history of copyright law, the elements of fair use, and how impact litigation works, this rando on the internet would see the error of his ways." Reader, it has never made a lick of difference and it is best to touch grass.
3 Boosts
1 Like
@evacide after reading the previous thread I feel like I want to wade into the waters with a narrow case. I'm seeking clarity in good faith.
Lets assume the LLM was trained on all GPL code in github. A user prompts for code to be created and the LLM replicates portions of GPL licensed code in their entirety, but leaves out the GPL license requirement.
Can the user that prompted the LLM take that code and license it however they wish as if it were a transformative work?
@fullywoolly I don't know, but I can tell you that the EFF brief was not about how the works produced by LLMs can be used, but about whether the training itself is a fair use.
@evacide @fullywoolly I had/have the same question, I have from time-to-time poked at LLMs to see if I get them to spit out bits of code that is AGPL licensed, since an actual AGPL violation would be a lot more fun (viral out the network connection, not just binary distribution). Thus far I have not succeeded. Maybe I could ask one LLM to attempt to weasel out of another LLM, for funsies.
@evacide gotcha. I can see publicly posted material being fair use but feels more nuanced with the licensing requirements. Anyway thanks for the answer.
@fullywoolly I'm sorry that I don't have a better answer for you.
Copyright law in the US is an extremely tangled and stupid patchwork of bullshit. It is not a surprise that people believe a lot of things about copyright law that are out of date, completely incorrect, or insufficiently nuanced. But if you are not actually interested in correcting any of that, I don't feel compelled to play.
@evacide In my experience, creative people at the lower levels of popularity can violate US copyright law willy-nilly with no fear of consequences.
@SordidAmok As is usually the case with anything to do with the law, the answer starts with a long sigh and "....it depends." There are things that are clearly violations of copyright law that you can do for which there will be zero consequences, there are things for which there will be immediate consequences, and there are things that are arguably legal for which you may still experience consequences because of, say, automated DMCA enforcement on certain platforms.
@evacide
Part of my brain: "but Eva if I can just explain to everyone logically in a neutral tone then I can fix everything"
@chillybot See also: Perhaps I didn't explain it thoroughly enough.
@evacide @chillybot slower, and louder, that might work.
@evacide Always and forever.
@evacide I love that app!
@evacide