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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kigmatzomat" data-source="post: 9694244" data-attributes="member: 9254">Nope, not a lawyer and even if I was, copyright law is a notable crapshoot because by statute it is case-by-case and very non-deterministic.  However a) I follow former copyright lawyer & Verge editor Nilay Patel who had a recent podcast on the subject and b) Alsop is a judge who learned how to write code to be able to rule on software copyrights so his rulings are full commentary using analogies based on things I am very knowledgeable about.  He discusses how its accepted precedent that loading a book you own to a database is legal.  And he states that  "training" an LLM is essentially loading data to a database.  (An erratic, unreliable, lossy, and unpredictable database that sometimes lies and the difference between creativity and hallucination is in the eye of the beholder, but regardless, training = loading a database.)So there is a legal route to making an LLM.  And that's important, if for no other reason that it points out there is a legal way to train an LLM and that companies who don't use that way do not have any precedents as a shield.  But  its only part of the overall LLM process, and the rest of those steps are not in this ruling.    Like, there's the whole part about how you use and/or commercialize the LLM.    You can make a database legally that you then use in an illegal way.  I.e. you legally put copies of your book into a database then you print copies you sell.  That's blatantly illegal use of a legal database.  What about printing and freely giving away out-of-print books that address some long-forgotten public health risk, and there's no in-print literature from any author?  Call a lawyer and a judge, because that miiiight be fair use. This didn't cover use of the LLM, just training.Judges in LLM cases have started saying (in legalese) "this lawsuit against LLM failed because it made a very stupid claim but if they had said X and Y, I would have ruled very differently."</blockquote>

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