this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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Most instances don't have a specific copyright in their ToS, which is basically how copyright is handled on corporate social media (Meta/X/Reddit owns license rights to whatever you post on their platform when you click "Agree"). I've noticed some people including Copyright notices in posts (mostly to prevent AI use). Is this necessary, or is the creator the automatic copyright owner? Does adding the copyright/license information do anything?

Please note if you have legal credentials in your reply. (I'm in the USA, but I'd be interested to hear about other jurisdictions if there are differences)

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[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 76 points 10 months ago (5 children)

I don't think it really does or can do anything.

I think it makes people feel good, like they're fighting against AI or something.

In my opinion, it just clutters up comments.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 32 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It's crazy to me that anyone thinks it does anything. How can someone who cares enough about AI not know the controversies about OpenAI's training data?

The people and organizations building LLMs do not give a fuck if you add that garbage to your comment or not.

[–] XEAL@lemm.ee 6 points 10 months ago

Also, good luck to those people if they have to prove an AI was trained with their comment

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Does that mean creative commons doesn't really mean anything? I have my website cc by sa, thinking or changing it to cc by sa no cc but I feel like companies would still take my stuff from my website.

[–] vithigar@lemmy.ca 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Depends on what your goal is. Strictly speaking cc by sa is more permissive than putting no copyright notice at all, since copyright is automatic, and the cc licenses grant various permissions not contained in standard copyright. It's just a fancy legalistic way of saying "please credit me if you use this, continue to share in a similar fashion, but not for any commercial purpose".

So if you want people to share your work, cc by sa makes sense.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (10 children)

Not sure but at the very least it's way less annoying to see it on a website than it is under every comment

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[–] General_Effort@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

You (in certain cases your employer) own the copyright to your creations. It's your intellectual property. By adding a license, you give others permission to use your property. That's just good old capitalism.

Your property rights aren't without limit, though. What exactly those are depends on jurisdiction, but you probably can't stop others from archiving your site for their own purposes.

[–] Klear@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago

They can't take stuff from your website because piracy isn't stealing.

[–] Blackbeard@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)
[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 13 points 10 months ago

Yeah, it's unclear whether copyright is even relevant when it comes to training AI. It feels a lot like people who feel very strongly about intellectual property but have clearly confused trademarks, patents, copyright, and maybe even regular old property law - they've got an idea of what they think is "right" and "wrong" but it's not closely attached to any actual legal theory.

[–] nicknonya@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

those anti ai training links remind me of the "i don't consent to facebook using my data" posts my grandma makes

[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

That’s exactly what it is. It’s born from a fundamental misunderstanding of how copyright law works. It’s basically just a Facebook chain letter.

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

That, plus a healthy dose of fuck copyright.

[–] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 42 points 10 months ago (2 children)

In the vast majority of countries, everything written down is automatically copyrighted by default and if you want to release it into the public domain or under a free license you have to make it explicit.

[–] neidu2@feddit.nl 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I'm writing this response mainly for the purpose of bringing it to the public domain. Feel free to screenshot, copy, and distribute however you see fit.

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

This comment is copyrighted and you are now committing piracy by reading it.

Pay the fee on your way out. Thank you.

[–] neidu2@feddit.nl 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Bold of you to assume I wasn't already committing piracy before reading it.

[–] Blackbeard@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)
[–] hperrin@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It’s not really fully determined whether you can actually release something to the public domain, since the “public domain” is not a legally sanctioned entity. It’s just the name we use for things that are uncopyrightable or otherwise not copyrighted (like certain government works, or works old enough that the copyrights have expired). The CC0 license from Creative Commons gets around this by waiving all copyrights instead.

This waiver nullifies and voids all copyright on a work. It also provides a fallback all-permissive license in case the waiver is deemed legally invalid. In the worst case that even the license is deemed invalid, the license contains a promise from the copyright holder not to exercise any copyrights he/she owns in the work.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Granting_work_into_the_public_domain

[–] platypode@sh.itjust.works 29 points 10 months ago (1 children)

does adding the copyright/license information do anything?

Not a lawyer, but I'd be sore amazed if "your honor, he copy/pasted my Lemmy comment" flies in court, regardless of your copyright status. The same goes for those AI use notices--they're a nice feel-good statement, but the scrapers won't care, and good luck (a) proving they scraped your comment, (b) proving they made money on it, and (c) getting a single red dime for your troubles.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 40 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You're better off just pasting this guy into every comment to poison the well.

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[–] sneezycat@sopuli.xyz 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

We'll all do it and then the AI will learn and do it too, but it'll be too late for us to stop, having become a custom ingrained in the population.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)
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[–] ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 22 points 10 months ago (2 children)

On top of all comments generally being copyrighted by their author automatically, the licence at the bottom of a comment is like a no trespassing sign. The sign itself doesn't stop people from trespassing. You still need to call police when someone trespasses. If you never call police then the sign is literally useless.

The licence is the same thing. If someone includes it at the bottom of all their comments, but never launches legal action when someone violates that licence agreement, then it's literally useless. Given that launching legal action is incredibly expensive, I highly doubt the people using these licences will ever follow up. Also, how will they even know? How will they know a company used their comment as training data for their commercial AI? How are they going to even enforce the terms of the licence?

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[–] General_Effort@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago

The creator is the automatic copyright owner, or in some cases their employer. Copyright is automatic through international treaties like the Berne convention. The Berne convention is from the 19th century and was created by the authoritarian european empires of the time. The US joined only in 1989. I think your question shows that the idea has not fully taken hold of the public consciousness. Automatic copyright is now the global norm. (I always wonder how much its better copyright laws helped the US copyright industry to become globally dominant.)

Very short and/or simple texts are not copyrighted. IE they are public domain.

Adding a license statement gives others the right to use these posts accordingly. It only serves to give away rights but is not necessary to retain them. The real tricky question is the status of the other posts. I'd guess most jurisdictions have something like the concept of an implied license. Given how fanatical some lemmy users are on intellectual property, not having it in writing is really asking for trouble, though.

What such a license means for AI training is hard to say at this point. The right-wing tradition of EU copyright law gives owners much power. They can use a machine-readable opt-out. Whether such a notice qualifies is questionable. However, there is no standard for such a machine-readable opt-out, so who knows?

US copyright has a more left-wing tradition and is constitutionally limited to certain purposes. It's unlikely that such a notice has any effect.

[–] Danterious@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Well first thing is that the license is a copyleft license so it is still allowed to be used, distributed, etc. the only real difference between this license and public domain (as far as I know) is me saying that I don't want it being used for commercial purposes that's it.

Also for me its more just a way for me to say fuck you to everything having to be commercialized so even if it doesn't hold legal water I don't care.

~Anti~ ~Commercial-AI~ ~license~ ~(CC~ ~BY-NC-SA~ ~4.0)~

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There's a bit more to it than just that

BY - attribution is required

NC - as you said, cannot be used for commercial purposes

SA - Share Alike -anything using it must be shared under a similar license.

[–] Danterious@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Ah well then I might try and find a license that doesn't require attribution because I don't care about that part. But the rest seem exactly what I'm going for.

Edit: grammar

~Anti~ ~Commercial-AI~ ~license~ ~(CC~ ~BY-NC-SA~ ~4.0)~

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[–] MichaelTen@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

I don't know.

But minimum royalty laws should exist.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 3 points 10 months ago

Creator owns the copyright.

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

This Stack Exchange answer has some potentially relevant info. One notable excerpt:

The short answer is 'it depends'. [...]

It depends on:

  • whether the code is eligible for copyright,
  • what license the content of the particular forum is under, and
  • what additional license (if any) the individual contributor has put it under.
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