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Comment by stale2002

3 years ago

> If you go and study a work of fiction in a college class, unless that material is in the public domain, you're gonna have to pay for your copy,

No you wont!

It is only someone who distributes copies who can get in trouble.

If instead of that you as an individual decide to study a piece of art or fiction, and you do no distribute copies of it to anyone, this is completely legal and you don't have to pay anyone for it.

In addition to that, fair use protections apply regardless of what the creative works creator wants.

Making a profit off variations of someone's work isn't covered under fair use.

  • That's not a fair statement to make. It can influence a judge's decision on whether something is fair use, but it can still be fair use even if you profit from it.

    • The doctrine of fair use presupposes that the defendant acted in good faith.

      - Harper & Row, 105 S. Ct. at 2232

      - Marcus, 695 F.2d 1171 at 1175

      - Radji v. Khakbaz, 607 F. Supp. 1296, 1300 (D.D. C.1985)

      - Roy Export Co. Establishment of Vaduz, Liechtenstein, Black, Inc. v. Columbia Broadcastinig System, Inc., 503 F. Supp. 1137 (S.D.N.Y.1980), aff'd, 672 F.2d 1095 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 826, 103 S. Ct. 60, 74 L. Ed. 2d 63 (1982)

      Copying and distributing someone else's work, especially without attributing the original, to make money without their permission is almost guaranteed to fall afoul of fair use.

  • Gotcha.

    I wasn't talking about someone creating and selling copies of someone else's work, fortunately.

    So my point stands and your completely is in agreement with me that people are allowed to learn from other people's works. If someone wants to learn from someone else's work, that is completely legal no matter the licensing terms.

    Instead, it is only distributing copies that is not allowed.

    • AI isn't a human. It isn't "learning"; instead, it's encoding data so that it may be reproduced in combination with other things it has encoded.

      If I paint a painting in the style of Monet, then I would give that person attribution by stating that. Monet may have never painted my artwork, but it's still based on that person's work. If I paint anything, I can usually point to everything that inspired me to do so. AI can't do that (yet) and thus has no idea what it is doing. It is a printer that prints random parts of people's works with no attribution. And finally, it is distributing them to it's owner's customers.

      I actually hope that true AI comes to fruition at some point; when that happens I would be arguing the exact opposite. We don't have that yet, so this is just literally printing variations of other people's work. Don't believe me, try running an AI without training it on other people's work!

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