The problem with that approach is that the resulting AI doesn’t contain any identifiable “copies” of the material that was used to train it. No copying, no copyright. The AI model is not a legally recognizable derivative work.
If the future output of the model that happens to sound very similar to the original voice actor counts as a copyright violation, then human sound-alikes and impersonators would also be in violation and things become a huge mess.
The problem with that approach is that the resulting AI doesn’t contain any identifiable “copies” of the material that was used to train it. No copying, no copyright. The AI model is not a legally recognizable derivative work.
That’s a HUGE assumption you’ve made, and certainly not something that has been tested in court, let alone found to be true.
In the context of existing legal precedent, there’s an argument to be made that the resulting model is itself a derivative work of the copyright-protected works, even if it does not literally contain an identifiable copy, as it is a derivative of the work in the common meaning of the term.
If the future output of the model that happens to sound very similar to the original voice actor counts as a copyright violation, then human sound-alikes and impersonators would also be in violation and things become a huge mess.
A key distinction here is that a human brain is not a work, and in that sense, a human brain learning things is not a derivative work.
No, I know how these neural nets are trained and how they’re structured. They really don’t contain any identifiable copies of the material used to train it.
and certainly not something that has been tested in court
Sure, this is brand new tech. It takes time for the court cases to churn their way through the system. If that’s going to be the ultimate arbiter, though, then what’s to discuss in the meantime?
Also, neural network weights are just a bunch of numbers, and I’m pretty sure data can’t be copyrighted. And yes, images and sounds and video stored on a computer are numbers too, but those can be played back or viewed by a human in a meaningful way, and as such represent a work.
The problem with that approach is that the resulting AI doesn’t contain any identifiable “copies” of the material that was used to train it. No copying, no copyright. The AI model is not a legally recognizable derivative work.
If the future output of the model that happens to sound very similar to the original voice actor counts as a copyright violation, then human sound-alikes and impersonators would also be in violation and things become a huge mess.
That’s a HUGE assumption you’ve made, and certainly not something that has been tested in court, let alone found to be true.
In the context of existing legal precedent, there’s an argument to be made that the resulting model is itself a derivative work of the copyright-protected works, even if it does not literally contain an identifiable copy, as it is a derivative of the work in the common meaning of the term.
A key distinction here is that a human brain is not a work, and in that sense, a human brain learning things is not a derivative work.
In that case all work would be derivative.
No, I know how these neural nets are trained and how they’re structured. They really don’t contain any identifiable copies of the material used to train it.
Sure, this is brand new tech. It takes time for the court cases to churn their way through the system. If that’s going to be the ultimate arbiter, though, then what’s to discuss in the meantime?
Also, neural network weights are just a bunch of numbers, and I’m pretty sure data can’t be copyrighted. And yes, images and sounds and video stored on a computer are numbers too, but those can be played back or viewed by a human in a meaningful way, and as such represent a work.