Comment by jimbob21

6 months ago

They clearly were being digitized, but I think its a more philosophical discussion that we're only banging our heads against for the first time to say whether or not it is fair use.

Simply, if the models can think then it is no different than a person reading many books and building something new from their learnings. Digitization is just memory. If the models cannot think then it is meaningless digital regurgitation and plagiarism, not to mention breach of copyright.

The quotes "consistent with copyright's purpose in enabling creativity and fostering scientific progress." and "Like any reader aspiring to be a writer" say, from what I can tell, that the judge has legally ruled the model can think as a human does, and therefore has the legal protections afforded to "creatives."

11 comments

jimbob21

Reply
trinsic2  6 months ago

In my mind, there is a difference between a person using there own creative thinking to create a derivative work from learning about a subject and making money off of it versus a corporation with a language model that is designed to absorb the works of the entire planet and redisrubtes that information in away that puts them in a centralized position to become an authority on information. With a person, there is a certain responsibility one has to create meaning from that work so that others can experience it. For-profit companies are like machines that have no interest in the creative expression part of this process hence there is a concern that they do not have the best interests of the public at heart.

palmotea  6 months ago

> Simply, if the models can think then it is no different than a person reading many books and building something new from their learnings.

No, that's fallacious. Using anthropomorphic words to describe a machine does not give it the same kinds of rights and affordances we give real people.

  • pavon  6 months ago

    The judge did use some language that analogized the training with human learning. I don't read it as basing the legal judgement on anthropomorphizing the LLM though, but rather discussing whether it would be legal for a human to do the same thing, then it is legal for a human to use a computer to do so.

      First, Authors argue that using works to train Claude’s underlying LLMs was like using
  works to train any person to read and write, so Authors should be able to exclude Anthropic
  from this use (Opp. 16). But Authors cannot rightly exclude anyone from using their works for
  training or learning as such. Everyone reads texts, too, then writes new texts. They may need
  to pay for getting their hands on a text in the first instance. But to make anyone pay
  specifically for the use of a book each time they read it, each time they recall it from memory,
  each time they later draw upon it when writing new things in new ways would be unthinkable.
  For centuries, we have read and re-read books. We have admired, memorized, and internalized
  their sweeping themes, their substantive points, and their stylistic solutions to recurring writing
  problems.

  ...

  In short, the purpose and character of using copyrighted works to train LLMs to generate
  new text was quintessentially transformative. Like any reader aspiring to be a writer,
  Anthropic’s LLMs trained upon works not to race ahead and replicate or supplant them — but
  to turn a hard corner and create something different. If this training process reasonably
  required making copies within the LLM or otherwise, those copies were engaged in a
  transformative use.

    [1] https://authorsguild.org/app/uploads/2025/06/gov.uscourts.ca...

    • trinsic2  6 months ago

      Yeah I see the point, but is still thing there is a differnce between human learning and machine learning creatively, see my post above connected to the parent.