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Amazon- and Google-backed AI firm Anthropic says “general-purpose AI tools simply could not exist” if AI companies had to pay licences for the training material (www.computerweekly.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) company Anthropic has claimed to a US court that using copyrighted content in large language model (LLM) training data counts as “fair use”, however.

Under US law, “fair use” permits the limited use of copyrighted material without permission, for purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching, and research.

In October 2023, a host of music publishers including Concord, Universal Music Group and ABKCO initiated legal action against the Amazon- and Google-backed generative AI firm Anthropic, demanding potentially millions in damages for the allegedly “systematic and widespread infringement of their copyrighted song lyrics”.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

By and large copyright infringement is illegal. That some things aren't infringement doesn't change that a general stance of "if I don't have permission, I can't copy it" is correct. The first argument in the EFF article is effectively the title: "it can't be copyright, because otherwise massive AI models would be impossible to build". That doesn't make it fair use, they just want it to become so.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

The purpose of copyright is to promote the sciences and useful arts. To increase the depth, width, and breadth of the public domain. "Fair Use" is not the exception. "Fair Use" is the fundamental purpose for which copyrights and patents exist. Copyright is not the rule. Copyright is the exception. The temporary exception. The limited exception. The exception we grant to individuals for their contribution to the public.

"it can't be copyright, because otherwise massive AI models would be impossible to build".

If that is, indeed, true, and if AI is a progression of science or the useful arts, then it is copyright that must yield, not AI.