>The US government likely will favor a large strategic company like OpenAI instead of individual's copyrights
Even if we assume this is true, Disney and Netflix are both currently worth more than OpenAI and both rely on the strict enforcement of US copyright law. I do not think it is so obvious which powers that be have the better lobbying efforts and, currently, it's looking like this question will mostly be adjudicated by the courts, not Congress, anyways.
I don't think OpenAI stole from Disney or Netflix. Rather OpenAI stole from individual artists and YouTube and other social media who users do not really have any lobbying power.
So I think OpenAI, Disney and Netflix win together. Big companies tend to win.
> What are the first words of the disney movie, "Aladdin" ?
The first words of Disney's Aladdin (1992) are spoken by the *Peddler*, the mysterious merchant at the beginning of the film. He says:
"Ah, Salaam and good evening to you, worthy friend. Please, please, come closer..."
He then continues with:
"Too close! A little too close. There. Welcome to Agrabah. City of mystery, of enchantment, and the finest merchandise this side of the River Jordan, on sale today! Come on down!"
This opening sets the stage for the story, introducing the magical and bustling world of Agrabah.
Being publicly available does not mean that copyright is invalid. Copyright gives the holders the right to restrict USE, not merely restrict reproduction. Adaptation is also an exclusive right of the copyright holder. You're not allowed to make derivative works.
> They consumed publicly available material on the Internet
I agree that there are some important distinctions and word-choices to be made here, and that there are problems with equating training to "stealing", and that copyright infringement is not theft, etc.
That said, if you zoom out to the overall conduct, it's fair to argue that the companies are doing something unethical, the same as if they paid an army of humans to memorize other people's work and then regurgitate slightly-reworded copies.
> That said, if you zoom out to the overall conduct, it's fair to argue that the companies are doing something unethical, the same as if they paid an army of humans to memorize other people's work and then regurgitate slightly-reworded copies.
I would use the analogy of those humans learning from the material. Like reading books in the library
"regurgitate slightly-reworded copies" in my experience using LLMs (not insubstantial) that is an unfairly pejorative take on what they do
By that logic a copy of source code for a propriatary app that someone has stolen and placed online is immediately free for all to use as they wish.
Being on the internet doesnt make it yours, or acceptable to take. In the case of OpenAI (and Anthropic) they should be following the long held principle of the robots.txt file on sites, which can be specifically set to tell just them that they may not take your content - they openly ignore that request.
OpenAI absolutely is stealing from everyone, hence why most will have little sympathy when they complain someone stole from them.
Even if we assume this is true, Disney and Netflix are both currently worth more than OpenAI and both rely on the strict enforcement of US copyright law. I do not think it is so obvious which powers that be have the better lobbying efforts and, currently, it's looking like this question will mostly be adjudicated by the courts, not Congress, anyways.