[License-discuss] Curious about derived works and AI...

[Shuji Sado]

In general, Japanese copyright law is considered to be one of the most
compatible with machine learning in the world.
Training AI with open source code is basically considered legal, and
even for commercial software code, AI training is legal as long as it
is not explicitly prohibited by contract.

However, if the output generated by the AI is substantially identical
to the original code, it will be considered copyright infringement of
the original code.
License washing is not permitted.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs in Japan recently published an English
PDF titled "General Understanding on AI and Copyright in Japan":
https://www.bunka.go.jp/english/policy/copyright/pdf/94055801_01.pdf .
Various industries in Japan discussed and submitted tens of thousands
of public comments for the creation of this document.
Although it is not a complete document, it provides an understanding
of how Article 30-4 of the Copyright Act, which is seen as fully
endorsing machine learning, actually functions.


2024/05/26 2:10 Bruce Perens via License-discuss
<license-discuss at lists.opensource.org>:
>
> 1. Not in Japan, because they've decided to make their law that way. 2. It should be the case in most countries, but it is not so far because it's not literal copying and cases which are attempting to make the point that it is copying are still in litigation.
>
> On Sat, May 25, 2024, 06:55 Miles Georgi <azimux at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi! If I open-source a project with a free license, if code from that project winds up being used as training data or prompt data to a code-generating AI to generate similar code, would that generated code be considered a derived work under any circumstances? And does that potentially depend on what license is chosen?
>>
>> I'm trying to choose a license for a project I wish to release and I'm assuming there's no way to protect against something like that but figured I'd ask.
>>
>> Cheers!
>>
>> Miles
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-- 
Shuji Sado
Chairman, Open Source Group Japan
https://opensource.jp/
https://shujisado.com/