Japan Goes All In: Copyright Doesn't Apply To AI Training

 Japan Goes All In: Copyright Doesn't Apply To AI Training

By Technomancers.ai

June 1, 2023.

Not everyone in Japan is on board with this decision. Many anime and graphic art creators are concerned that AI could lower the value of their work.

In a surprising move, Japan's government recently reaffirmed that it will not enforce copyrights on data used in AI training. The policy allows AI to use any data "regardless of whether it is for non-profit or commercial purposes, whether it is an act other than reproduction, or whether it is content obtained from illegal sites or otherwise." Keiko Nagaoka, Japanese Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, confirmed the bold stance to local meeting, saying that Japan's laws won't protect copyrighted materials used in AI datasets.

Japan, AI, and Copyright

English language coverage of the situation is sparse. It seems the Japanese government believes copyright worries, particularly those linked to anime and other visual media, have held back the nation's progress in AI technology. In response, Japan is going all-in, opting for a no-copyright approach to remain competitive.

This news is part of Japan's ambitious plan to become a leader in AI technology. Rapidus, a local tech firm known for its advanced 2nm chip technology, is stepping into the spotlight as a serious contender in the world of AI chips. With Taiwan's political situation looking unstable, Japanese chip manufacturing could be a safer bet. Japan is also stepping up to help shape the global rules for AI systems within the G-7.

From Technomancers.ai

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Computer Scientist Says AI 'Artist' Deserves Its Own Copyrights

More on this ...  Art in particular mentioned here.  

Computer Scientist Says AI 'Artist' Deserves Its Own Copyrights

Reuters, Blake Brittain, January 11, 2023

Computer scientist Stephen Thaler has requested the Washington, DC, District Court to rule his Creativity Machine artificial intelligence (AI) system deserves copyrights for art it produces. Thaler asked the court to rescind a U.S. Copyright Office ruling decreeing that copyrightable creative works can only be human-made. His lawyer, Ryan Abbott of Brown Neri Smith & Khan, said the case has a "real financial importance" that may have been previously overlooked, and the protection of AI-created art would serve the goals of copyright law. Said Thaler in his court filing, "The fact that various courts have referred to creative activity in human-centric terms, based on the fact that creativity has traditionally been human-centric and romanticized, is very different than there being a legal requirement for human creativity."  ... ' 

Netflix Password Sharing may Be illegal, says UK government: BBC

In the BBC on password sharing.    Illegal vs allowed?  Copyright law involved?   Intellectual Property. 

Netflix password sharing may be illegal, says UK government  By Tom Gerken, BBC Technology reporter   Sharing passwords for online streaming services such as Netflix is against the law, according to a government agency. The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) said on Tuesday the practice broke copyright law.

It is common in the UK for people who do not live together to share their streaming service passwords, despite this typically being against terms of service agreements.  Netflix has never indicated it would take any legal action in such cases.

The IPO has since removed the reference to password sharing in its guidance on the government website. However, a spokesperson confirmed the legal position on password sharing had not changed - and nor has the IPO's guidance.

It said password sharing was both a criminal and civil matter. "There are a range of provisions in criminal and civil law which may be applicable in the case of password sharing where the intent is to allow a user to access copyright-protected works without payment," it said.

"These provisions may include breach of contractual terms, fraud or secondary copyright infringement, depending on the circumstances. "Where these provisions are provided in civil law, it would be up to the service provider to take action through the courts if required."

There is no evidence to suggest any of the major streaming video operators in the UK would do this.  Netflix said it wanted to "make it easy" for people borrowing others' accounts to set up their own, to transfer their profile into a new account, as well as to create "sub-accounts" for people to pay extra for family or friends. It said it would start rolling out these features "more broadly" in early 2023. The BBC has also approached streaming service operators Amazon and Disney for comment.

Scale of the problem

Research firm Digital i estimates around a quarter of UK Netflix subscribers - around four million - are sharing their passwords. Product manager Matt Ross told the BBC account sharing "presents a major challenge" to Netflix and other streaming services.

"Following on from the addition of the ad-supported tier, there is clearly an opportunity for Netflix to generate significant additional revenue by cracking down on account sharing and converting those who do into subscribers in their own right," he said. .... ' 

NFTs as a Tangled Thought

Good overview.... 

The Tangled Truth about NFTs and Copyright

If code is law, countless NFTs are built on buggy code     

By James Grimmelmann, Yan Ji, and Tyler Kell  Cornell   Jun 8, 2022,   in TheVerge

A long-running meme at The Verge is that copyright law is the only functional law on the internet — the entire internet is just made of copies, after all, so copyright law has become the go-to mechanism for everything from fighting harassment to stopping leaks. Confusion about how copyright law works is everywhere — and it’s getting even more complicated in the world of Web3. What does “owning” something on a blockchain mean, when that something is still just a bit of code that can be infinitely copied? Courts and lawmakers haven’t settled the question, and many NFT projects have run into immediate, confounding problems as they have conflated owning an NFT with owning a copyright.

To help, we’ve adapted a guide on copyright and the blockchain from three legal scholars from Cornell University and the Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contracts (IC3) — James Grimmelmann, Yan Ji, and Tyler Kell. It explains how courts might actually treat NFTs — and why everyone who buys and sells them needs to take copyright law more seriously. - Adi Robertson and Nilay Patel   ...  (much more at the link) ...

Non Human Expression Ineligible for Copyright Protection

 US at least finding in this case 

The US Copyright Office says an AI can’t copyright its art

By Adi Robertson@thedextriarchy

The US Copyright Office has rejected a request to let an AI copyright a work of art. Last week, a three-person board reviewed a 2019 ruling against Steven Thaler, who tried to copyright a picture on behalf of an algorithm he dubbed Creativity Machine. The board found that Thaler’s AI-created image didn’t include an element of “human authorship” — a necessary standard, it said, for protection.

Creativity Machine’s work, seen above, is named “A Recent Entrance to Paradise.” It’s part of a series Thaler has described as a “simulated near-death experience” in which an algorithm reprocesses pictures to create hallucinatory images and a fictional narrative about the afterlife. Crucially, the AI is supposed to do this with extremely minimal human intervention, which has proven a dealbreaker for the Copyright Office.

“COURTS HAVE BEEN CONSISTENT IN FINDING THAT NON-HUMAN EXPRESSION IS INELIGIBLE FOR COPYRIGHT PROTECTION”

The board’s decision calls “the nexus between the human mind and creative expression” a vital element of copyright. As it notes, copyright law doesn’t directly outline rules for non-humans, but courts have taken a dim view of claims that animals or divine beings can take advantage of copyright protections. A 1997 decision says that a book of (supposed) divine revelations, for instance, could be protected if there was (again, supposedly) an element of human arrangement and curation. More recently, a court found that a monkey couldn’t sue for copyright infringement. “The courts have been consistent in finding that non-human expression is ineligible for copyright protection,” the board says.

This doesn’t necessarily mean any art with an AI component is ineligible. Thaler emphasized that humans weren’t meaningfully involved because his goal was to prove that machine-created works could receive protection, not simply to stop people from infringing on the picture. (He’s unsuccessfully tried to establish that AIs can patent inventions in the US as well.) The board’s reasoning takes his explanation for granted. So if someone tried to copyright a similar work by arguing it was a product of their own creativity executed by a machine, the outcome might look different. A court could also reach an alternate conclusion on Thaler’s work if he follows his rejection with a lawsuit.... ' 

Publishers vs Internet Archive

Came across this pre pandemic when I received a letter from my local library about them decreasing the number of digital 'copies' of books available.    Had previously been connected to the Google Books program, that sought to digitize many books.   Still under way, but now far reduced.   There the publishers fought the digitization, even when the books involved were orphaned,  and had no remaining copyright owners.   Had not heard of the case with the Internet Archive,  which we used to track the emergence of web sites.   What does it mean to own a book?  And what does it mean in these times?    The Internet is a great resource, but shouldn't it have access to all publications?
 
Publishers Are Taking the Internet to Court
In a lawsuit against the Internet Archive, the largest corporations in publishing want to change what it means to own a book.    By Maria Bustillos   in TheNation.

When Covid-19 struck, hundreds of millions of students were suddenly stranded at home without access to teachers or libraries. UNESCO reported that in April, 90 percent of the world’s enrolled students had been adversely affected by the pandemic. In response, the Internet Archive’s Open Library announced the National Emergency Library, a temporary program suspending limits on the number of patrons who could borrow its digital books simultaneously. The Open Library lends at no charge about 4 million digital books, 2.5 million of which are in the public domain, and 1.4 million of which may be under copyright and subject to lending restrictions. (This is roughly equivalent to a medium-sized city library; the New York Public Library, by comparison, holds 21.9 million books and printed materials and 1.78 million e-books, according to 2016 figures from the American Library Association.) But the National Emergency Library wound up creating an emergency of its own—for the future of libraries. ... "     (Much more in the article) 

Web Scraping now Legal

Should be considerable changes in behavior for certain kinds of data.   Still some regulation about crawling data acquisition in this way.

Web scraping is now legal
Here’s what that means for Data Scientists
By Tom Waterman in Towards Data Science

In late 2019, the US Court of Appeals denied LinkedIn’s request to prevent HiQ, an analytics company, from scraping its data.

The decision was a historic moment in the data privacy and data regulation era. It showed that any data that is publicly available and not copyrighted is fair game for web crawlers. .... "

EU and Copyrights

Had not heard of this particular topic. Of interest.

In the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)  Been around a long time, a good follow.

The Final Version of the EU's Copyright Directive Is the Worst One Yet   By Cory Doctorow

Despite ringing denunciations from small EU tech businesses, giant EU entertainment companies, artists' groups, technical experts, and human rights experts, and the largest body of concerned citizens in EU history, the EU has concluded its "trilogues" on the new Copyright Directive, striking a deal that—amazingly—is worse than any in the Directive's sordid history.
Goodbye, protections for artists and scientists

The Copyright Directive was always a grab bag of updates to EU copyright rules—which are long overdue for an overhaul, given that it's been 18 years since the last set of rules were ratified. Some of its clauses gave artists and scientists much-needed protections: artists were to be protected from the worst ripoffs by entertainment companies, and scientists could use copyrighted works as raw material for various kinds of data analysis and scholarship.... "

Copyrights Expire

How important is this?   95 year ago.   What is the most iconically valuable thing from 1923 that could be repurposed, for free? Fascinating writeup.  Note the important distinction between copyrights and Trademark property enforcement.   From Motherboard:

A Massive Amount of Iconic Works Will Enter the Public Domain on New Year’s Eve
Why the copyright terms on a goldmine of works from 1923 are about to expire.

When the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, movies, songs, and books created in the United States in 1923—even beloved cartoons such as Felix the Cat—will be eligible for anyone to adapt, repurpose, or distribute as they please.

A 20-year freeze on copyright expirations has prevented a cache of 1923 works from entering the public domain, including Paramount Pictures’ The Ten Commandments, Charlie Chaplin’s The Pilgrim, and novels by Aldous Huxley.

Such a massive release of iconic works is unprecedented, experts say—especially in the digital age, as the last big dump predated Google.  ... "

Assistants Using Wikipedia

A conversation at Wikipediocracy discusses how personal assistants like Alexa, Google Home and Siri use and attribute (or not)  knowledge from the Wikipedia.   Back to the complicated world of licenses and copyrights.   Was also re-introduced to the considerable undercurrent of WP authors complaining about how their work is used.

Google Reader Agreement Update

Have followed Google book scanning project for years.  Why not create the universal library? Full text would be available free only for the huge numbers of books that are out of print.   Google Books exists today.  https://books.google.com/   The agreement between authors and Google,  looked like it had been worked out as class action.   Has been stalled by Google's competitors and Antitrust law.

Now it seems that the whole idea is awaiting the amending of copyright law.  With little likelihood of proceeding.  50-60 Petabytes on disk and 25 million volumes,  content inaccessible to anyone.   The Atlantic article linked to below has considerable detail on the status of this.  But probably not enough for lawyers.

Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria
“Somewhere at Google there is a database containing 25 million books and nobody is allowed to read them.” .... ' 

Google Books Copyright Case

Success, I think for broad knowledge access.  Long followed.  In the CACM:

Fair Use Prevails as Supreme Court Rejects Google Books Copyright Case
The Supreme Court on Monday declined (PDF) to hear a challenge from the Authors Guild and other writers claiming Google's scanning of their books amounts to wanton copyright infringement and not fair use.  .... " 

Copyright Chaos or Disclaimer?

It is suggested that the recent 'muslim' ruling that would pull critical content from You Tube videos could change the way content is managed.  Will providers need to get permission from every participant in a video, regardless of how minor?  Will some new kind of disclaimer be sufficient? Or will chaos result.   As reported.

On Fair Use

In TechDirt:   Good extended piece on recent hearings on copyright and fair use.  A concept often made use of in this blog.   " .... It is twenty years since the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its landmark decision on copyright law and the defence of fair use in the "Pretty Woman" case, Campbell v. Acuff Rose Music. Inspired by the jurisprudence of Justice Story and Justice Leval, Justice Souter developed a doctrine of transformative use. His Honour stressed that "the goal of copyright, to promote science and the arts, is generally furthered by the creation of transformative works." Justice Souter observed: "Such works thus lie at the heart of the fair use doctrine's guarantee of breathing space within the confines of copyright, and the more transformative the new work, the less will be the significance of other factors, like commercialism, that may weigh against a finding of fair use."  ... " 

Google Wins Book Scanning Case

In GigaOM: A long term suit against Google scanning and storing books.  Have followed this for a long time.  Finally decided in Google's favor, apparently using fair use arguments. " ... Google has won a resounding victory in its eight-year copyright battle with the Authors Guild over the search giant’s controversial decision to scan more than 20 million books from libraries and make them available on the internet  ... " 

Software Patents

In the WSJ:  On software patents.   A survey and debate on the topic.   The patent system, like the copyright laws, are broken and impede innovation.   Process within software perhaps, but the system is heavily gamed and poorly managed.

National Digital Public Library

Just launched.  A new open source library of US resources has launched in Beta.  The DPLA.  Some have been talking about how decrepit US copyright laws will influence this effort.  " ... Two years in the making, the DLPA will make available to the public 2.4 million records at its launch, including electronic images, video and audio from America's libraries, archives and museums. It also makes many scientific records available.... "  On twitter as @DPLA

Public Domain Review

So with all the knowledge out there on the Web, what is really out there in the public domain?  Copyright laws continue to extend the extent of protection.  Or works are otherwise orphaned. But here is the Public Domain Review  What is it about?

The public domain is a vast commons of material that everyone is free to enjoy, share and build upon without restriction. All works eventually enter the public domain – from classic works of art, music and literature, to abandoned drafts, tentative plans, and overlooked fragments.

The Public Domain Review aspires to become a bounteous gateway into the whopping plenitude that is the public domain, helping our readers to explore this rich terrain by surfacing unusual and obscure works, and offering fresh reflections and unfamiliar angles on material which is more well known.

By providing a curated collection of exotic scraps and marvellous rarities and linking to freely distributable copies of works in online archives and from far flung corners of the web, we hope to encourage readers to further utilise and explore public domain works by themselves.

We believe the public domain is an invaluable and indispensable good, which – like our natural environment and our physical heritage – deserves to be explicitly recognised, protected and appreciated.

Trolls and Copyrights

A judicial case addresses the right to re-post. But I don't think this is the last we will hear about fair-use in blogs.