Comment by marssaxman
1 year ago
I did say "free to do whatever they like on their own hardware", because intellectual property laws generally govern the transfer of such property rather than the use.
After seeing the harm done by the expansion of patent law to cover software algorithms, and the relentless abuse done under the DMCA, I am reflexively skeptical of any effort to expand intellectual property concepts.
That doesn't make it technically legal. That only makes it not worth pursuing. You can sue Joe Schmoe for a million dollars but if he doesn't have that then you're not getting a dime. But if Joe Schmoe is using that thing to make money, well then... yeah you bet your ass that's a different situation and the "worth" of pursuing is directly proportional to how much he is making. Doesn't matter if it is his own hardware or not.
Like why do you think who owns the hardware even matters? Do you really think the legality changes if I rent a GPU vs use my own? That doesn't make any sense.
In terms of copyright law, it matters very much whether Joe Schmoe is using his own copy of the data for his own purposes, or whether he is making more copies and distributing them to other people.
If the AI companies were letting people download copies of their training data, copyright law would certainly have something to say about that. But no: once they download the training data, they keep it, and they don't share it.
Yes? That is a different thing? I guess we can keep moving the topic until we're talking about the same topic if you want. But honestly, I don't want to have that kind of conversation.
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