Re:French Court Issues Damages Award for Violation of GPL
by hnfong on Monday March 04, 2024 @07:57AM
(#39589900)
AFAIK, having humans recite copyrighted songs from memory and then performing it without permission is illegal in most jurisdictions.
However, copyright law seems to make a distinction between expression/implementation of an idea (which can be copyrighted), and the idea itself (which generally speaking, cannot be). This is why clean room implementation is a legally sanctioned protocol to copy functionality without running afoul of copyright law.
Whether the language model is copying the "expression" (or a particular implementation) of a computating function, or whether it is just somehow re-implementing it given user's instructions, is going to be an interesting debate, and I really doubt people who think it's one way or the other has actually understood the nuances.
However, copyright law seems to make a distinction between expression/implementation of an idea (which can be copyrighted), and the idea itself (which generally speaking, cannot be). This is why clean room implementation is a legally sanctioned protocol to copy functionality without running afoul of copyright law.
Whether the language model is copying the "expression" (or a particular implementation) of a computating function, or whether it is just somehow re-implementing it given user's instructions, is going to be an interesting debate, and I really doubt people who think it's one way or the other has actually understood the nuances.