A human brain is just the summation of all the content it’s ever witnessed, though, both paid and unpaid.
But copyright is entirely artificial. The deal is that the law says you have to pay when you copy a bunch of copyrighted text and reprint it into new pages of a newly bound book. The law also says you don’t have to pay when you are giving commentary on a copyrighted work, or parodying a copyrighted work, or drawing inspiration from a copyrighted work to create something new but still influenced by that copyrighted work. The question for these lawsuits is whether using copyrighted works to train these models and generate new text (or art or music) is infringement of those artificial, human-made, legal rights.
As an example, sound recording copyrights only protect the literal copying of a sound recording. Someone who mimics that copyrighted recording, no matter how perfectly, doesn’t actually infringe on the recording copyright (even if they might infringe on the composition copyright, a separate and distinct copyright). But a literal duplication process of some kind would be infringement.
We can have a debate whether the law draws the line in the correct places, or whether the copyright regime could be improved, and other normative discussion what what the rules should be in the modern world, especially about whether the rules in one area (e.g., the human brain) are consistent with the rules in another area (e.g., a generative AI model). But it’s a separate discussion from what the rules currently are. Under current law, the human brain is currently allowed to perform some types of copying and processing and remixing that some computer programs are not.
I agree with the summary of the situation in your first paragraph.
Your second paragraph about sound mimickry, as far as I’m aware, is not accurate. Musicians have been ordered to pay for much less than rote mimickry, even simple things like using the same melody or beat as a backing track have been ruled as infringement. In the US, at least.
And I agree with the 3rd paragraph.
So I believe my original question still stands: should an artificial brain be required to pay licensing fees for everything it sees?
The exclusive rights of the owner of copyright in a sound recording under clauses (1) and (2) of section 106 do not extend to the making or duplication of another sound recording that consists entirely of an independent fixation of other sounds, even though such sounds imitate or simulate those in the copyrighted sound recording.
So if I want to go record a version of “I Will Always Love You” that mimics and is inspired by Whitney Houston’s performance, I actually only owe compensation to the owner of the musical composition copyright, Dolly Parton. Even if I manage to make it sound just like Whitney Houston, her estate doesn’t hold any rights to anything other than the actual sounds actually captured in that recording.
I’m not familiar with the situation, but I imagine if Southpark went around suing people for using their stuff, people wouldn’t take them seriously. Virtually everything in Southpark relies on their abuse of Fair Use. Just because it IS infringement, doesn’t mean you have to sue them.
It looks like there are a few other tracks that Bobby Prince is responsible for that made it into Doom. In this interview he states that he made them for fun, labeled the files to not be used in the final game, and was surprised id even had copies. When Romero made the decision to include them in the game, Bobby (who is/was a lawyer apparently) says he was sure they would get sued.
But copyright is entirely artificial. The deal is that the law says you have to pay when you copy a bunch of copyrighted text and reprint it into new pages of a newly bound book. The law also says you don’t have to pay when you are giving commentary on a copyrighted work, or parodying a copyrighted work, or drawing inspiration from a copyrighted work to create something new but still influenced by that copyrighted work. The question for these lawsuits is whether using copyrighted works to train these models and generate new text (or art or music) is infringement of those artificial, human-made, legal rights.
As an example, sound recording copyrights only protect the literal copying of a sound recording. Someone who mimics that copyrighted recording, no matter how perfectly, doesn’t actually infringe on the recording copyright (even if they might infringe on the composition copyright, a separate and distinct copyright). But a literal duplication process of some kind would be infringement.
We can have a debate whether the law draws the line in the correct places, or whether the copyright regime could be improved, and other normative discussion what what the rules should be in the modern world, especially about whether the rules in one area (e.g., the human brain) are consistent with the rules in another area (e.g., a generative AI model). But it’s a separate discussion from what the rules currently are. Under current law, the human brain is currently allowed to perform some types of copying and processing and remixing that some computer programs are not.
I agree with the summary of the situation in your first paragraph.
Your second paragraph about sound mimickry, as far as I’m aware, is not accurate. Musicians have been ordered to pay for much less than rote mimickry, even simple things like using the same melody or beat as a backing track have been ruled as infringement. In the US, at least.
And I agree with the 3rd paragraph.
So I believe my original question still stands: should an artificial brain be required to pay licensing fees for everything it sees?
It is. The recording copyright is separate from the musical composition copyright. Here’s the statute governing the rights to use a recording:
So if I want to go record a version of “I Will Always Love You” that mimics and is inspired by Whitney Houston’s performance, I actually only owe compensation to the owner of the musical composition copyright, Dolly Parton. Even if I manage to make it sound just like Whitney Houston, her estate doesn’t hold any rights to anything other than the actual sounds actually captured in that recording.
Ahh, TIL, thanks for the explanation.
Then explain how Bobby Prince could literally steal a South Park song to make “Shawn’s Got the Shotgun” to make Doom 2.
I’m not familiar with the situation, but I imagine if Southpark went around suing people for using their stuff, people wouldn’t take them seriously. Virtually everything in Southpark relies on their abuse of Fair Use. Just because it IS infringement, doesn’t mean you have to sue them.
It looks like there are a few other tracks that Bobby Prince is responsible for that made it into Doom. In this interview he states that he made them for fun, labeled the files to not be used in the final game, and was surprised id even had copies. When Romero made the decision to include them in the game, Bobby (who is/was a lawyer apparently) says he was sure they would get sued.
And they didn’t, because back then people didn’t abuse Micky Mouse copyright law.
Yes I know about the MIDIs labeled with
un, meaninguse not. That still doesn’t explain Running From Evil, At Dooms Gate, or literally any other song.All intellectual property should be abolish