I want to train a model for a musician based on piano covers they have recorded of popular songs and therefore own, but because of copyright infringement they still pay royalties to the writers of these songs. Curious if this is legal or not – I would presume not since the recordings are not being monetized in this scenario but rather fed into a model, and the recordings are still owned 100% by the musician licensing them to me.
This is a bit of gray zone then. To be honest, I’d probably just do it because every major ai company in the world is already doing way worse than what you’re doing, and making billions. The reality is their actions are creating legal precedent in your favor. Not LITERAL legal precedent, but abstract in the sense that every day they do business and DON’T get sued, we trend towards their actions being considered legal when it comes to blows later. It’s an open secret that landmark laws and cases are often dictated simply by what aligns with the interests of the current government administration, not necessarily what is most fair to everyone, or even constitutional. If the US government is doing millions/billions of dollars worth of business with ai companies, and these companies are doing ethically ‘gray’ training, it’s a pretty strong bet the judgements will be rigged in favor of Ai. I’m not telling you to betray your morals, but I’m just saying the wind is blowing that way, and it’s hard to sail against it.