Apparently, stealing other people’s work to create product for money is now “fair use” as according to OpenAI because they are “innovating” (stealing). Yeah. Move fast and break things, huh?
“Because copyright today covers virtually every sort of human expression—including blogposts, photographs, forum posts, scraps of software code, and government documents—it would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials,” wrote OpenAI in the House of Lords submission.
OpenAI claimed that the authors in that lawsuit “misconceive[d] the scope of copyright, failing to take into account the limitations and exceptions (including fair use) that properly leave room for innovations like the large language models now at the forefront of artificial intelligence.”
IP law used to stop corporations from profiting off of creators’ labor without compensation? Yeah, absolutely.
IP law used to stop individuals from consuming media where purchases wouldn’t even go to the creators, but some megacorp? Fuck that.
I’m against downloading movies by indie filmmakers without compensating them. I’m not against downloading films from Universal and Sony.
I’m against stealing food from someone’s garden. I’m not against stealing food from Safeway.
If you stop looking at corporations as being the same as individuals, it’s a very simple and consistent viewpoint.
IP law shouldn’t exist, but if it does it should only exist to protect individuals from corporations. When that’s how it’s being used, like here, I accept it as a necessary evil.