Microsoft's AI boss Suleyman has a curious understanding of web copyright law
Microsoft's AI boss, Mustafa Suleyman, suggests open web content is free to copy, sparking copyright controversy. AI firms debate fair use of copyrighted material for training, highlighting legal complexities and intellectual property concerns.
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Microsoft's AI boss, Mustafa Suleyman, has sparked controversy by suggesting that content on the open web is fair game for anyone to copy and use freely, dubbing it "freeware." This belief contradicts copyright law, as creating content automatically grants copyright protection in the US. Suleyman's stance came to light during a discussion about AI companies allegedly using copyrighted online material to train AI models. Despite the legal protection of content, some AI firms argue that training on copyrighted material falls under fair use, a defense typically determined by a court. Suleyman's comments have drawn criticism for their disregard of copyright laws and the implications for intellectual property rights. Additionally, he touched on the concept of robots.txt files as a means to prevent content scraping, highlighting the ongoing legal complexities surrounding web content usage. The debate underscores the challenges posed by AI advancements and the need for a nuanced understanding of intellectual property rights in the digital age.
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Microsoft says that it's okay to steal web content it because it's 'freeware.'
Microsoft's CEO of AI, Mustafa Suleyman, believes web content is "freeware" for AI training unless specified otherwise. This stance has sparked legal disputes and debates over copyright infringement and fair use in AI content creation.
1 commentsCopyright provides the exclusive rights to reproduce, adapt, publish, perform, and display that thing.
Training an AI model isn't any of those things.
If you transmit a thing to me, and I have those bits on my computer, you don't get to determine that I can't train an AI on it, unless we signed an agreement further restricting my use prior to you transmitting it to me.
Now. My AI might produce a work that is sufficiently similar to your work that it is considered a reproduction or adaptation, but that doesn't mean that the training was an infringement.
Also, courts have repeatedly held that webscraping is entirely legal.
If you don't want folks (or their computers) learning from things you create, don't put them on the internet.
NOW for the hilarious follow-on: Copyright is not granted for the results of an automatic process. Training an AI is an automatic process, and it's plausible that attempting to claim copyright on model weights would fail if it were litigated fully. It's more likely they'd qualify for trade secret protection.
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Microsoft says that it's okay to steal web content it because it's 'freeware.'
Microsoft's CEO of AI, Mustafa Suleyman, believes web content is "freeware" for AI training unless specified otherwise. This stance has sparked legal disputes and debates over copyright infringement and fair use in AI content creation.