I agree, but it is useful to ask if a human isn’t allowed to do something, why is a machine?

By putting them on the same level. A human creating an output vs. an AI creating an output, it shows that an infringement has definitely taken place.

I find it helpful to explain it to people as the AI breaching copyright simply because from that angle the law can logically be applied in both scenarios.

Showing a human a piece of copyright material available to view in public isn’t infringement.

Showing a generic AI a piece of copyright material available to view in public isn’t infringement.

The infringing act is the production of the copy.

By law a human can decide to do that or not, they are liable.

An AI is a program which in this case is designed to have a tendency to copy and the programmer is responsible for that part. That’s not necessarily infringement because the programmer doesn’t feed in copyright material.

But the trainer showing an AI known to have a tendency to copy some copyright material isn’t much different to someone putting that material on a photocopier.

I get many replies from people who think this isn’t infringement because they believe a human is actually allowed to do it. That’s the misunderstanding some have. The framing of the machine making copies and breaching copyright helps. Even if ultimately I’m saying the photocopier is breaching copyright to begin with.

Ultimately someone is responsible for this machine, and that machine is breaking copyright. The actions used to make, train, and prompt the machine lead to the outcome.

As the AI is a black box, an AI becomes a copyright infringing photocopier the moment it’s fed copyright material. It is in itself an infringing work.

The answer is to train a model solely on public domain work and I’d love to play around with that and see what it produces.