Those claiming AI training on copyrighted works is “theft” misunderstand key aspects of copyright law and AI technology. Copyright protects specific expressions of ideas, not the ideas themselves. When AI systems ingest copyrighted works, they’re extracting general patterns and concepts - the “Bob Dylan-ness” or “Hemingway-ness” - not copying specific text or images.
This process is akin to how humans learn by reading widely and absorbing styles and techniques, rather than memorizing and reproducing exact passages. The AI discards the original text, keeping only abstract representations in “vector space”. When generating new content, the AI isn’t recreating copyrighted works, but producing new expressions inspired by the concepts it’s learned.
This is fundamentally different from copying a book or song. It’s more like the long-standing artistic tradition of being influenced by others’ work. The law has always recognized that ideas themselves can’t be owned - only particular expressions of them.
Moreover, there’s precedent for this kind of use being considered “transformative” and thus fair use. The Google Books project, which scanned millions of books to create a searchable index, was ruled legal despite protests from authors and publishers. AI training is arguably even more transformative.
While it’s understandable that creators feel uneasy about this new technology, labeling it “theft” is both legally and technically inaccurate. We may need new ways to support and compensate creators in the AI age, but that doesn’t make the current use of copyrighted works for AI training illegal or unethical.
For those interested, this argument is nicely laid out by Damien Riehl in FLOSS Weekly episode 744. https://twit.tv/shows/floss-weekly/episodes/744
Something like Microsoft Word or Paint is not generative.
It is standard for publishers to make indemnity agreements with creatives who produce for them, because like I said, it’s kinda difficult to prove plagiarism in the negative so a publisher doesn’t want to take the risk of distributing works where originality cannot be verified.
I’m not arguing that we should change any laws, just that people should not use these tools for commercial purposes if the producers of these tools will not take liability, because if they refuse to do so their tools are very risky to use.
I don’t see how my position affects the general public not using these tools, it’s purely about the relationship between creatives and publishers using AI tools and what they should expect and demand.
“Generative” is not a thing in copyright law.
You regard them as different to tools like Word. That does not exist in the law.
When you originally posted that they OpenAI should be on the hook I thought you meant they were the ones commiting copyright infringement. Not that they would violate private contracts with their customers.
Private agreements is not my business.
There is however a push by both sides to settle this in law. Whatever happens will affect everyone.