The music industry is unhappy with AI companies’ arguments that training their models on copyrighted content should be treated as ‘fair use’ in the US. But OpenAI, one of the key players in the sector, is sticking to its guns.
The company is being sued by the New York Times for copyright infringement, and asserted its views in a blog post responding to the lawsuit.
“Training AI models using publicly available internet materials is fair use, as supported by long-standing and widely accepted precedents. We view this principle as fair to creators, necessary for innovators, and critical for US competitiveness,” claimed OpenAI.
“The principle that training AI models is permitted as a fair use is supported by a wide range of academics, library associations, civil society groups, startups, leading US companies, creators, authors, and others that recently submitted comments to the US Copyright Office.”
Note, there are also plenty of comments submitted to the Copyright Office’s latest inquiry that disagree with that view too.
OpenAI wants to be seen as a willing partner by rightsholders, pointing to its opt-out process for publishers: “Legal right is less important to us than being good citizens.”
However, the battle continues over whether good-citizenship principles should be enforced in legislation, rather than simply be a voluntary gesture on the part of the AI companies.
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