Audio Flamingo 3 - Fully Open Large Audio Language Models
-
I think I used a bit too much sarcasm. I wanted to take a spin on the idea how the AI industry simultaneously uses copyright, and finds ways to "circumvent" the traditional copyright that was written before we had large language models. An AI is neither a telephone-book, nor should every transformative work be Fair Use, no questions asked. And this isn't really settled as of now. We likely need some more court cases and maybe a few new laws. But you're right, law is complicated, there is a lot of nuance to it and it depends on jurisdiction.
There is a lot of disinformation being spread on copyright because major rights-holders hope to gain a lot of money for nothing.
US fair use has always worked like this. Other countries without fair use had to make laws to enable AI training. I know about Japan and the EU.
It is precisely because of these new laws that AI training in the EU is possible at all (eg by Mistral AI or by various universities/research institutions). But because of lobbying by rights-holders, this is quite limited. It's not possible to train AIs in the EU that are as capable as those from the US, where Fair Use comes directly from the constitution and can't be easily lobbied aside by monied interests.
-
There is a lot of disinformation being spread on copyright because major rights-holders hope to gain a lot of money for nothing.
US fair use has always worked like this. Other countries without fair use had to make laws to enable AI training. I know about Japan and the EU.
It is precisely because of these new laws that AI training in the EU is possible at all (eg by Mistral AI or by various universities/research institutions). But because of lobbying by rights-holders, this is quite limited. It's not possible to train AIs in the EU that are as capable as those from the US, where Fair Use comes directly from the constitution and can't be easily lobbied aside by monied interests.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Hmmh. It's a bit complicated. "Fair Use" is a concept in Common law countries, but lots of European countries do it a bit differently. We here in Germany need specific limitations and exceptions from copyright. And we have some for art and science, education, personal use and citations and so on. But things like electronic data transfer, internet culture and more recently text- and datamining needed to be added on top. And even datamining was very specific and didn't fit AI in it's current form. And we don't have something like Fair Use to base it upon.
From my perspective, I'm still not entirely convinced Fair Use is a good fit, though. For one it doesn't properly deal with the difference of doing something commercially and for research or personal use, and I believe some nuance would help here, big rich companies could afford to pay something. And as AI is disruptive, it has some effect on the original work and balancing that is somehow part of Fair Use. And then the same copyright concept has higher standards for example in music production and sampling things from other songs that are recognizable in the resulting work. And I don't think we have a clear way how something like that translates to text and AI. And it can reproduce paragraphs, or paint a recognizable Mickey Mouse and in some way it's in there in the model and leads to other issues. And then all the lines are blurry and it still needs a massive amount of lawsuits to settle how much sounding like Scarlett Johansson is too much sounding like her... I'd say even the US might need more clarity on a lot of legal questions and it's not just handled by Fair Use as is... But yeah, "transformative" is somewhat at the core of it. I can also read books, learn something and apply the knowledge from it. Or combine things together and create something new/transformative.
-
Hmmh. It's a bit complicated. "Fair Use" is a concept in Common law countries, but lots of European countries do it a bit differently. We here in Germany need specific limitations and exceptions from copyright. And we have some for art and science, education, personal use and citations and so on. But things like electronic data transfer, internet culture and more recently text- and datamining needed to be added on top. And even datamining was very specific and didn't fit AI in it's current form. And we don't have something like Fair Use to base it upon.
From my perspective, I'm still not entirely convinced Fair Use is a good fit, though. For one it doesn't properly deal with the difference of doing something commercially and for research or personal use, and I believe some nuance would help here, big rich companies could afford to pay something. And as AI is disruptive, it has some effect on the original work and balancing that is somehow part of Fair Use. And then the same copyright concept has higher standards for example in music production and sampling things from other songs that are recognizable in the resulting work. And I don't think we have a clear way how something like that translates to text and AI. And it can reproduce paragraphs, or paint a recognizable Mickey Mouse and in some way it's in there in the model and leads to other issues. And then all the lines are blurry and it still needs a massive amount of lawsuits to settle how much sounding like Scarlett Johansson is too much sounding like her... I'd say even the US might need more clarity on a lot of legal questions and it's not just handled by Fair Use as is... But yeah, "transformative" is somewhat at the core of it. I can also read books, learn something and apply the knowledge from it. Or combine things together and create something new/transformative.
Of course, it would be better if governments would pass sensible laws on AI training. These lawsuits are a complete waste. But you can see the problem in Europe. The copyright industry has too much power. You don't get good laws. (In fairness, Japan did pretty well.)
For one it doesn’t properly deal with the difference of doing something commercially and for research or personal use, and I believe some nuance would help here,
That needs to be considered in fair use, but I don't see what difference it would make here.
big rich companies could afford to pay something.
That's a line by the copyright lobbyists. But economics doesn't work like that.
In a competitive market, producers must pass on costs. EG coffee and cocoa beans have become more expensive on world markets in the last year, so now coffee and chocolate are more expensive in stores.
AI is quite competitive. If AI firms are forced to pay license fees, then AI subscriptions will become more expensive for consumers. The money goes straight from everyone to rights-holders; a few people at the top.
-
Of course, it would be better if governments would pass sensible laws on AI training. These lawsuits are a complete waste. But you can see the problem in Europe. The copyright industry has too much power. You don't get good laws. (In fairness, Japan did pretty well.)
For one it doesn’t properly deal with the difference of doing something commercially and for research or personal use, and I believe some nuance would help here,
That needs to be considered in fair use, but I don't see what difference it would make here.
big rich companies could afford to pay something.
That's a line by the copyright lobbyists. But economics doesn't work like that.
In a competitive market, producers must pass on costs. EG coffee and cocoa beans have become more expensive on world markets in the last year, so now coffee and chocolate are more expensive in stores.
AI is quite competitive. If AI firms are forced to pay license fees, then AI subscriptions will become more expensive for consumers. The money goes straight from everyone to rights-holders; a few people at the top.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Sure. I mean we're a bit different at both sides of the Atlantic. Europe regulates a lot more. We're not supposed to be ripped off by big companies, they're not supposed to invade our privacy, pollute the environment unregulated... Whether we succeed at that is a different story. But I believe that's the general idea behind social democracy and the European spirit. We value our freedom from being used and that's also why we don't have a two weeks notice and we do have regulated working hours and a lot of rules and bureaucracy. The US is more freedom to do something. Opportunity. And in my eyes that's the reason why it's the US with a lot of tech giants and AI companies. That just fosters growth. Of course it also includes negative effects on society and the people. But I don't think "right" and "wrong" are fitting categories here. It's a different approach and everything has consequences. We try to balance more, and Europe is more balanced than the US. But that comes at a cost.
That's a line by the copyright lobbyists [...]
Well, I don't think there is a lot of good things about copyright to begin with. Humanity would be better off if information were to be free and everyone had access to everything, could learn, remix and use and create what they like.
I think of copyright more as an necessary evil. But somehow we needed Terry Pratchett to be able to make a living by writing novels. My favorite computer magazine needs to pay their employees. A music band can focus on a new album once they get paid for that... So I don't think we need copyright in specific. But we need some way so people write books, music etc... Hollywood also did some nice movies and tv shows and they cost a lot of money.
I don't have an issue with AI users paying more. Why should we subsidise them, and force the supply chain to do work for a set price? That's not how other businesses work. The chocolate manufacturer isn't the only one making profit, but an entire chain from farmer to the supermarket gets to take part in earning money, which culminates in one product. I don't see why it has to be handled differently for AI.
And what I like about the approach in Europe is that there is some nuance to it. I mean I don't agree 100% but at least they incentivise companies to be a bit more transparent, and they try to differentiate between research to the benefit of everyone and for-profit interest. And they try to tackle bad use-cases and I think that's something society will appreciate once the entire internet is full of slop and misinformation by bad actors. Though, I don't think we have good laws for that as of now.
-
My idea would be to slightly modify / fine-tune a model and then redistribute that modified version. And claim the same Fair Use, AI companies use to take people's copyrighted work. Either that makes it Fair Use as well, or the "no originality required" collapses or the entire business model.
People do that all the time.
-
Sure. I mean we're a bit different at both sides of the Atlantic. Europe regulates a lot more. We're not supposed to be ripped off by big companies, they're not supposed to invade our privacy, pollute the environment unregulated... Whether we succeed at that is a different story. But I believe that's the general idea behind social democracy and the European spirit. We value our freedom from being used and that's also why we don't have a two weeks notice and we do have regulated working hours and a lot of rules and bureaucracy. The US is more freedom to do something. Opportunity. And in my eyes that's the reason why it's the US with a lot of tech giants and AI companies. That just fosters growth. Of course it also includes negative effects on society and the people. But I don't think "right" and "wrong" are fitting categories here. It's a different approach and everything has consequences. We try to balance more, and Europe is more balanced than the US. But that comes at a cost.
That's a line by the copyright lobbyists [...]
Well, I don't think there is a lot of good things about copyright to begin with. Humanity would be better off if information were to be free and everyone had access to everything, could learn, remix and use and create what they like.
I think of copyright more as an necessary evil. But somehow we needed Terry Pratchett to be able to make a living by writing novels. My favorite computer magazine needs to pay their employees. A music band can focus on a new album once they get paid for that... So I don't think we need copyright in specific. But we need some way so people write books, music etc... Hollywood also did some nice movies and tv shows and they cost a lot of money.
I don't have an issue with AI users paying more. Why should we subsidise them, and force the supply chain to do work for a set price? That's not how other businesses work. The chocolate manufacturer isn't the only one making profit, but an entire chain from farmer to the supermarket gets to take part in earning money, which culminates in one product. I don't see why it has to be handled differently for AI.
And what I like about the approach in Europe is that there is some nuance to it. I mean I don't agree 100% but at least they incentivise companies to be a bit more transparent, and they try to differentiate between research to the benefit of everyone and for-profit interest. And they try to tackle bad use-cases and I think that's something society will appreciate once the entire internet is full of slop and misinformation by bad actors. Though, I don't think we have good laws for that as of now.
I know those narratives, as the humanities people call this. I don't know if you know the term. You know commercials. They rarely give you facts. They don't give you technical data about performance, durability, or such. Usually, a commercial is a little story, maybe just a few nice people having fun. When you see the product and think about buying, you can see yourself living that story. Maybe you see yourself in a new car speeding unhindered down an empty road; not stuck in traffic like those suckers you see every day in reality.
You don't convince people with facts. You use psychological manipulation. If you think about history, people mostly believed religious stories about what happened in the world. That many people in developed countries defer to scientific facts is unusual. Of course, many don't. The stories are much nicer. Let's face it: The only reason we put up with ugly, meaningless facts is because we are reliant on technology.
We want the good life. We want to be healthy, and not having to worry about food or shelter. We want comforts, like flowing hot and cold water; an extravagant luxury for most humans throughout history and even today. In war, we want the best weapons, so that it is the other guys who do the dying.
So the question is: Do you prefer the feel-good-story or do you want a society that works for everyone?
You cannot have both.
-
I know those narratives, as the humanities people call this. I don't know if you know the term. You know commercials. They rarely give you facts. They don't give you technical data about performance, durability, or such. Usually, a commercial is a little story, maybe just a few nice people having fun. When you see the product and think about buying, you can see yourself living that story. Maybe you see yourself in a new car speeding unhindered down an empty road; not stuck in traffic like those suckers you see every day in reality.
You don't convince people with facts. You use psychological manipulation. If you think about history, people mostly believed religious stories about what happened in the world. That many people in developed countries defer to scientific facts is unusual. Of course, many don't. The stories are much nicer. Let's face it: The only reason we put up with ugly, meaningless facts is because we are reliant on technology.
We want the good life. We want to be healthy, and not having to worry about food or shelter. We want comforts, like flowing hot and cold water; an extravagant luxury for most humans throughout history and even today. In war, we want the best weapons, so that it is the other guys who do the dying.
So the question is: Do you prefer the feel-good-story or do you want a society that works for everyone?
You cannot have both.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I'm a bit in the science/facts bubble. I mean sure, advertisements and narratives are effective, and I'm not exempt. But I'd like to know the truth. And have politics based on scientific evidence. The goal is to strive and have a nice life, eveyone should be happy if possible. And then we use science to tell what kind of laws we need. Are all students delegating their homework to ChatGPT and they don't learn anything anymore? Find ways so school achieves it's goal. Do we confuse reality and fiction? Find ways to mitigate for that, e.g. watermarking. Do we loose all artists and creative people? Find ways so they can be part of society... I mean sometimes we can have a cake and eat it too, especially with technology. But we need to be clever.
I mean in the past we've adopted to new technology. One example which is often cited in context with AI is channging from horses to cars. That was very disruptive as well. I think today's situation is a bit different. And for example copyright barely works in the digital age. But AI is likely going to have a massive impact on society. Maybe we need to re-think capitalism. That's not necessarily good or bad or a "narrative". But somehow things need to be addressed.
-
I'm a bit in the science/facts bubble. I mean sure, advertisements and narratives are effective, and I'm not exempt. But I'd like to know the truth. And have politics based on scientific evidence. The goal is to strive and have a nice life, eveyone should be happy if possible. And then we use science to tell what kind of laws we need. Are all students delegating their homework to ChatGPT and they don't learn anything anymore? Find ways so school achieves it's goal. Do we confuse reality and fiction? Find ways to mitigate for that, e.g. watermarking. Do we loose all artists and creative people? Find ways so they can be part of society... I mean sometimes we can have a cake and eat it too, especially with technology. But we need to be clever.
I mean in the past we've adopted to new technology. One example which is often cited in context with AI is channging from horses to cars. That was very disruptive as well. I think today's situation is a bit different. And for example copyright barely works in the digital age. But AI is likely going to have a massive impact on society. Maybe we need to re-think capitalism. That's not necessarily good or bad or a "narrative". But somehow things need to be addressed.
Europe has clearly chosen a path that will increase its technological dependency on either the US or China. It's not likely to play a large role in figuring out the future economic order. We'll see how long it can continue on this path.
Its AI policies are reminiscent of Feudalism. People create AI, but then they have to pay a levy to people who have contributed nothing. But they have rights awarded by the government. AI is not the only area where the EU is shifting to policies that facilitate wealth extraction rather than creation. I don't think that is domestically sustainable. Sooner or later the European nations will try to extract wealth from each other and that will be the end. It doesn't have to go that far. Maybe we will just see a stagnation and decline, as in South America.
-
Europe has clearly chosen a path that will increase its technological dependency on either the US or China. It's not likely to play a large role in figuring out the future economic order. We'll see how long it can continue on this path.
Its AI policies are reminiscent of Feudalism. People create AI, but then they have to pay a levy to people who have contributed nothing. But they have rights awarded by the government. AI is not the only area where the EU is shifting to policies that facilitate wealth extraction rather than creation. I don't think that is domestically sustainable. Sooner or later the European nations will try to extract wealth from each other and that will be the end. It doesn't have to go that far. Maybe we will just see a stagnation and decline, as in South America.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Is your stands limited to AI or do you generally condone paying a levy? Like towards Spotify or Netflix or Hollywood, because I could as well skip that and watch the newest movies without obeying their copyright...
I mean it's not nothing, there is some effort people put into things. Like the Wikipedia is super useful for machine learning. My computer code on Github teaches AI programming. And I can see the crawlers at my own server and today I had to update my config because it's been hammered by Alibaba. Dozens of different IP addresses, fake user agent and they completely overloaded my database with requests. It's not like I don't contribute or am part of a different world?!
-
Is your stands limited to AI or do you generally condone paying a levy? Like towards Spotify or Netflix or Hollywood, because I could as well skip that and watch the newest movies without obeying their copyright...
I mean it's not nothing, there is some effort people put into things. Like the Wikipedia is super useful for machine learning. My computer code on Github teaches AI programming. And I can see the crawlers at my own server and today I had to update my config because it's been hammered by Alibaba. Dozens of different IP addresses, fake user agent and they completely overloaded my database with requests. It's not like I don't contribute or am part of a different world?!
That's a bit of an odd question, given my praise of American Fair Use. The USA has had copyright, including Fair Use, for longer than much of Europe. The predecessor of modern copyright law was created in the 1700s in the UK. There is a German scholar, Eckhard Höffner, who argues that this caused book production to plummet in the UK. He also says that the German-speaking lands produced more books, more different books, than the UK in the century before such laws arrived.
The American founding fathers were men of the Enlightenment. They, or some of them, understood the problems with such government sponsored monopolies. Therefore, the US Constitution limits copyrights and patents. It's an interesting clause. Congress is empowered "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". It's about progress first; very much a product of the Enlightenment.
I don't know if there was ever a discussion if entertainment should qualify at all for copyright protection. I have to try to look it up at some time.
In 1998, US copyright was extended by 20 years. Now it is life of the author +70 years. That has been called the Mickey-Mouse-Protection-Act, because it meant that the original Mouse enjoyed another 20 years of copyright This was roundly criticized by economists and even lead to a case before the Supreme Court. Obviously, making copyright retroactively longer does not encourage any kind of creativity. It's in the past. Well, the case was lost, nevertheless.
For many left/liberal people, this is corruption; just the Disney company getting what it wants.
The EU countries had expanded their copyright years earlier, without resistance or even comment. Smug Europeans may feel superior when Americans rage against the corporations. But the truth is often like this, where Europeans simply quietly accept such outrages.
The original copyright in the US (and before that in the UK) was 14 years. Copyright protection required registration. It worked like the patent system. The interesting thing is that patents still work a lot like that. One must register and publish them and then they last for 20 years. Patents still have a 20-year duration. Meanwhile, copyrights have gone from 14 years to life+70 years, no registration required.
Patents are public so that people can learn from them. That has been used as an argument for patents. The alternative would be that everyone tries to keep new inventions secret. This way, people can learn and try to circumvent patents; find other ways of achieving the same thing. That's an interesting observation in light of AI training, no?
I haven't answered your question. In my experience, pro-copyright people will always refuse to argue over what should be covered by copyright or how long. They demand an expansion and use psychological manipulation to get it. If you do not let yourself be manipulated, they change the subject and will argue if copyright should exist at all. I have never met a single person who was able to defend copyright as it exists. Perhaps you can answer own question now.
-
That's a bit of an odd question, given my praise of American Fair Use. The USA has had copyright, including Fair Use, for longer than much of Europe. The predecessor of modern copyright law was created in the 1700s in the UK. There is a German scholar, Eckhard Höffner, who argues that this caused book production to plummet in the UK. He also says that the German-speaking lands produced more books, more different books, than the UK in the century before such laws arrived.
The American founding fathers were men of the Enlightenment. They, or some of them, understood the problems with such government sponsored monopolies. Therefore, the US Constitution limits copyrights and patents. It's an interesting clause. Congress is empowered "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". It's about progress first; very much a product of the Enlightenment.
I don't know if there was ever a discussion if entertainment should qualify at all for copyright protection. I have to try to look it up at some time.
In 1998, US copyright was extended by 20 years. Now it is life of the author +70 years. That has been called the Mickey-Mouse-Protection-Act, because it meant that the original Mouse enjoyed another 20 years of copyright This was roundly criticized by economists and even lead to a case before the Supreme Court. Obviously, making copyright retroactively longer does not encourage any kind of creativity. It's in the past. Well, the case was lost, nevertheless.
For many left/liberal people, this is corruption; just the Disney company getting what it wants.
The EU countries had expanded their copyright years earlier, without resistance or even comment. Smug Europeans may feel superior when Americans rage against the corporations. But the truth is often like this, where Europeans simply quietly accept such outrages.
The original copyright in the US (and before that in the UK) was 14 years. Copyright protection required registration. It worked like the patent system. The interesting thing is that patents still work a lot like that. One must register and publish them and then they last for 20 years. Patents still have a 20-year duration. Meanwhile, copyrights have gone from 14 years to life+70 years, no registration required.
Patents are public so that people can learn from them. That has been used as an argument for patents. The alternative would be that everyone tries to keep new inventions secret. This way, people can learn and try to circumvent patents; find other ways of achieving the same thing. That's an interesting observation in light of AI training, no?
I haven't answered your question. In my experience, pro-copyright people will always refuse to argue over what should be covered by copyright or how long. They demand an expansion and use psychological manipulation to get it. If you do not let yourself be manipulated, they change the subject and will argue if copyright should exist at all. I have never met a single person who was able to defend copyright as it exists. Perhaps you can answer own question now.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Yes, I mainly wanted to rule out the opposite. Because the multi billion dollar companies currently do some lobbying as well. Including the same manipulation and narratives, just the other way around. They want everyone else to lose rights, while they themselves retain full rights, little to no oversight... And that's just inherently unfair.
As I said. Copyright might not be something good or defendable. It clearly comes with many obvious flaws and issues. The video you linked is nice. I'd be alright with abolishing copyright. Preferrably after finding a suitable replacement/alternative. But I'm completely against subsidising big companies just so they can grow and manifest their own Black Mirror episode. Social scoring, making my insurance 3x more expensive on a whim and a total surveillence state should be prohibited. And the same rules need to apply to everyone. Once a book author doesn't get copyright any longer, so does OpenAI and the big tech companies. They can invest some $100 million in training models, but it's then not copyrighted either. I get to access the model however I like and I can sell a competing service with their model weights. That's fair and same rules for everyone. And Höffner talks to some degree about prior work and what things are based upon. So the big companies have to let go of their closely guarded trade secrets and give me the training datasets as well. I believe that'd be roughly in the spirit of what he said in the talk. And maybe that'd be acceptable. But it really has to be same rules for everyone, including big corporations.
