Technology

TLDR: maybe it’s like a library? Libraries pay for books, even digital copies.

Presumably somebody bought a copy of the book, even if you found it on the coffee table.

This seems more like going through the trash for anything legible, reading billboards and taking free newspapers. It just happens that a lot of the stuff put out at the curb was copyrighted material. In fact, almost every website has © in the footer, so clearly the sentiment is “don’t copy my original content”, especially without credit. But if the AI is not reproducing, in whole or in part, the copyrighted material then it does seems a bit late to try to claw back value just because someone else found a way to monetize what you put out on the open web. I think that’s what’s going to have to be proven, one way or another.

Maybe another way to look at a LLM is as an enormous library, but instead of borrowing books and periodicals, as a user you are borrowing the pre-digested knowledge directly. Libraries have complex agreements in place with publishers, so that rights holders are compensated. Say what you will about these contracts, but they are a precedent. What is perhaps without precedent is how to handle the rest of the trash this library is indiscriminately gathering up.