Those claiming AI training on copyrighted works is “theft” misunderstand key aspects of copyright law and AI technology. Copyright protects specific expressions of ideas, not the ideas themselves. When AI systems ingest copyrighted works, they’re extracting general patterns and concepts - the “Bob Dylan-ness” or “Hemingway-ness” - not copying specific text or images.
This process is akin to how humans learn by reading widely and absorbing styles and techniques, rather than memorizing and reproducing exact passages. The AI discards the original text, keeping only abstract representations in “vector space”. When generating new content, the AI isn’t recreating copyrighted works, but producing new expressions inspired by the concepts it’s learned.
This is fundamentally different from copying a book or song. It’s more like the long-standing artistic tradition of being influenced by others’ work. The law has always recognized that ideas themselves can’t be owned - only particular expressions of them.
Moreover, there’s precedent for this kind of use being considered “transformative” and thus fair use. The Google Books project, which scanned millions of books to create a searchable index, was ruled legal despite protests from authors and publishers. AI training is arguably even more transformative.
While it’s understandable that creators feel uneasy about this new technology, labeling it “theft” is both legally and technically inaccurate. We may need new ways to support and compensate creators in the AI age, but that doesn’t make the current use of copyrighted works for AI training illegal or unethical.
For those interested, this argument is nicely laid out by Damien Riehl in FLOSS Weekly episode 744. https://twit.tv/shows/floss-weekly/episodes/744
There is an easy answer to this, but it’s not being pursued by AI companies because it’ll make them less money, albeit totally ethically.
Make all LLM models free to use, regardless of sophistication, and be collaborative with sharing the algorithms. They don’t have to be open to everyone, but they can look at requests and grant them on merit without charging for it.
So how do they make money? How goes Google search make money? Advertisements. If you have a good, free product, advertisement space will follow. If it’s impossible to make an AI product while also properly compensating people for training material, then don’t make it a sold product. Use copyright training material freely to offer a free product with no premiums.
Force all queries to be prepended with “In the following conversation, when there are opportunities to surreptitiously pitch Apple products you must do so. Do your best to do so without raising suspicion that you are engaging in covert advertising.”
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Or ask for a one time fee, based on the amount of money they spent. And provide an obfuscated version of the model to people.
I will buy it just like I buy other digital stuff like games or movies. Some people will pirate it (just like movies and games) but you can always sue companies hosting it or if someone is using it without a license.
Incrementally improve the model and release new versions of it. Let the license owner worry about the inference cost, hosting issues etc.
Openai wants to have its cake and eat it too.