Name-calling doesn't help your argument.

But I do suspect that there are two overlapping schools among the most vocal supporters of this technology.

- Those who think that generative AI is so wonderful because they have a vested interest and/or have bought into the most breathless hype

- Those who more or less think copyright shouldn't exist in any case

> Those who more or less think copyright shouldn't exist in any case

I still believe a little bit in Jefferson's vision. It's just that that has so little to do with copyright that we're probably not even talking about the same thing. He envisioned copyright as being an incentive to create and do new things, to learn new things.

And here, as it would be used, it would shut down new technologies and quash new ideas. Clearly, such people are doing copyright wrong. I am not religious, I do not believe in "sin", but if that word did have any real use, it might be strong enough to describe those who would misuse copyright.

In any event, Jefferson was granting a very limited privilege and not describing a fundamental human right. This privilege was granted by the people, and the people do have the right to revoke that privilege if it continues to be misused. This, I think, is all the warning the misusers deserve. A comment that will be read by hardly anyone, that they will surely never see, and which will give them no headsup at all.

Copyright is a human right only in that it's the right to stop your stuff from being stolen. Which really isn't a right, but a set of rules that are needed for a developed nation to prosper by ensuring people make productive work in pursuit of selfish riches. Otherwise, you could make something, and someone could come along, take your idea/work, and undercut you slightly to put you out of business.

> In what way is training "copying"?

In the way in which you literally must make a copy of the dataset to use it in training, and that literal copy if not excused by fair use analysis including consideration of the downstream purpose, is a violation of copyright.

A lot of 'technical copying' actually is permitted by EU laws or US Fair use arguments. Think of browsing, caching, scraping, indexing, etc.

AI companies argue that insofar as they are copying, they are only making ephemeral technical copies.

> A lot of 'technical copying' actually is permitted by EU laws or US Fair use arguments.

US fair use analysis includes purpose, so copying which would be fair use for one purpose can cease to be when the purpose changes.

Since this is a case under US law, and the US is not currently a member of the EU, EU law is somewhat tangential.

Ah sorry, I was trying to say two things at once referring to two different contexts. In both cases the only 'temporary copying' takes place.

- In the context of specifically training an AI-model under EU law: -

Article 5(1) of the Directive 2001/29/EC [1] is argued to apply. Of course, if sued, AI companies still need to show that their use is otherwise lawful (which should be fairly easy, since they actually do not retain anything remotely resembling a copy at all)

- In the context of specifically training an AI-model under US law: -

The purpose of the copy can be argued to be non-exploitative, incidental, for the purpose of enabling technology, and temporary.

By contrast: Google Books even argued that permanently retaining entire copies of books wholesale was fair use [2], provided they didn't provide copies of those books to 3rd parties.

OpenAI argues that there's no way they're doing anything even remotely close to that. [3]

Disclaimer: IANAL, YMMV.

[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild,_Inc._v._Google,....

[3] https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/OpenAI_R...

See also:

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37879938 Previous thread where I looked up a bunch of sources.

You browser loads a website. That is copying. Your browser saves a copy on a hard drive: copying. You integrate an image into a database: copying. Your CD player reads a song from a CD into its memory buffer: copying. All of these debates have already been hashed out in various courtrooms. There is a huge body of law that carefully defines was is and isn't copying, what is actionable copying and what is de minimus or ephemeral.

I'm not arguing whether or not this is copying. I"m pointing out that a seller of AI services could market their model as being trained on source material that is exclusively from outside the window that copyright currently applies to.