…it isn’t a cybersecurity problem. You are allowed to look at Getty images. There aren’t any restrictions on looking.
But don’t pretend that AI is just “looking at the images.”
AI isn’t a real intelligence. Its software.
And that software isn’t merely “looking at work.”
What if I think about the images? Is that OK? Am I allowed to consider the composition choices and lighting while I look? What if I use a tool to analyze the image Getty lets me look at?
You make that assertion often. You genuinely seem to mistake it for being a settled objective fact and not, like, your opinion, man.
…if you haven’t purchased a licence then you are subject to existing intellectual property laws, which is in part what the current Getty lawsuit is all about. If you have purchased a licence, then no, you cannot use that content for any machine learning and/or artificial intelligence purposes without the express permission of Getty without violating the terms of the licence.
Is it your position that AI is merely looking at images?
Yes, it is. We have had this debate over and over.
This will be the last time I go around this particular circle but I’ll explain one more time
Facebook’s terms allow it to use its content for any purpose connected with its supply of services. So it can use its content to train AI for the purpose of providing facebook content. Once it’s trained its AI on that content, it can then monetise that AI, by selling it externally because as long as the AI doesn’t reproduce the content, it is not in itself infringing copyright.
…“AI is merely looking at images” is hardly an argument that would stand up in court, let alone here. If all it did was “look”, then it wouldn’t be able to do everything else that it does.
Allowable under the TOS.
Not explicitly allowed under the TOS, which again, states that “This is solely for the purposes of providing and improving our Products and services.” Using that content to create an AI for the purposes of improving Facebook’s Products and services is fine: but then selling that AI is not as it falls outside the scope of the licence.
Once the AI has been trained, it is not an infringement of anyone’s copyright for the AI to be sold. I explained this a dozen posts back.
If this were not true, then a researcher using copyright materials to produce their own paper would be infringing copyright.
I don’t give the first flying fuck about something “standing up in court” or not, I’m talking about what actually happens in the neural net machine learning models.
…this isn’t about an infringement of copyright.
Its about an infringement of the licence.
The licence grants Facebook permission to use uploaded content in a certain way. It can’t use that content outside of the scope of that licence.
Copyright is not relevant here. Because as I’ve already stated: the uploader might (for a number of different reasons) not be the copyright holder.
If this was what actually happened, then it would hold up in court.
But AI doesn’t have eyes. It isn’t merely “looking.”
…@Darren_Garrison: my apologies if things are getting heated, and for anything I’ve said or done that has contributed to any escalation.
And maybe it will. It has already been asserted to be legal in Japan
https://technomancers.ai/japan-goes-all-in-copyright-doesnt-apply-to-ai-training/
And Israel
https://technomancers.ai/israel-no-training-data-copyright-uae-open-source-falcon-llm/
NP, it is just the legal implications of the output of AI learning is a complete non sequitur to me when discussing the technical details of what is happening it the software.
BTW, just those two countries making it legal kills AI regulation, because anyone wanting to create/host AI can do it from there. But the US isn’t going to regulate AI anyway, because money.
…nothing is settled.
https://www.nippon.com/en/news/yjj2023060900323/
The technical details are relevant to the legal implications. IT won’t be settled by analogy.
Oh, honestly. Are you here to learn or to nitpick? Copyright operates through a system of licences. The licence granted by users to Facebook is a copyright licence.
“Once the AI has been trained, it is not an infringement of anyone’s copyright licence for the AI to be sold. I explained this a dozen posts back.”
Better? It is not an infringement of a copyright licence to produce a new work based on one’s research using material to which one has access to under a copyright licence. Indeed, for the first copyright holder to have any rights in an original work produced by the licencee by use of the material, the licence would explicitly need to say that which Facebook’s terms do not.
Yeah, but I wasn’t discussing the legal implications.
…I’m a commercial photographer who has been dealing in copyright and issuing image licences for my work since 2011. I’m always open to learn. But I’m not sure what it is you are trying to teach me.
The licence granted by users to Facebook is not a copyright licence. It simply isn’t.
If you upload content to Facebook, you grant a “non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free and worldwide licence to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate and create derivative works of your content (consistent with your privacy and application settings)”, " solely for the purposes of providing and improving our Products and services as described in Section 1 above."
This isn’t a copyright licence. Because the uploader most likely doesn’t own the copyright to start with. The TOS explicitly states that the copyright holder retains ownership of the intellectual property. You don’t grant Facebook a copyright licence. You grant them a licence to use uploaded content in a limited number of ways.
Nope.
Its an infringement of the TOS. Facebook licences your uploaded content for the purposes of providing and improving our Products and services, and you grant them licence to display your work. If you delete that content, the licence is revoked.
What I’m saying has nothing to with whether someone’s actions are defensible or not. As I said, the issue is about making excuses. In this case, it’s specifically about manufacturing excuses on behalf of a company accused of wrongdoing, when you don’t know if they are accurate.
Your counterargument was that, sometimes, a company is so hated that any defense would actually make things worse. And that they need to lie low until people forget. But, if you’re out there making excuses for them, people won’t forget. (And presumably, you want to defend them, or you wouldn’t be making excuses).
I have no problem with defending people who actually need defending, who can’t defend themselves. But that’s not the case here. The PR team is defending them.
My underlying principle here is that you shouldn’t make excuses on behalf of someone accused of wrongdoing. You don’t know if your excuse is true, but excuses have a way of becoming the accepted narrative–at least among those who like the accused. And all that does is get in the way of figuring out the actual truth.
Yes, someone who can’t defend themselves would change things. At that point, it would be good to do your best to figure out what actually happened and defend them. But that’s not the case with a company like Reddit. Heck, having a competent PR department is all the more reason not to feel the need to make excuses.
(And I hate that I can’t seem to ever explain myself in less than 5 paragraphs. Sure, they’re short paragraphs, designed to be easier to parse on a screen than longer ones, but still.)
Also, who judges people’s actions based on whether they like what they are doing? There are plenty of things I don’t like that aren’t morally wrong.
Which is exactly where I disagree with you for reasons previously stated. Their current PR strategy is as far I as I can make out a total clusterfark and the better strategy would be to keep their mouth shut. Anyway, I’m done with helping them out.