In addition to the possible business threat, forcing OpenAI to identify its use of copyrighted data would expose the company to potential lawsuits. Generative AI systems like ChatGPT and DALL-E are trained using large amounts of data scraped from the web, much of it copyright protected. When companies disclose these data sources it leaves them open to legal challenges. OpenAI rival Stability AI, for example, is currently being sued by stock image maker Getty Images for using its copyrighted data to train its AI image generator.
Aaaaaand there it is. They don’t want to admit how much copyrighted materials they’ve been using.
Note that what the EU is requesting is for OpenAI to disclose information, nobody says (yet?) that they can’t use copyrighted material, what they are asking is for OpenAI to be transparent with sharing the training method, and what material is being used.
The problem seems to be that OpenAI doesn’t want to be “Open” anymore.
Of couse, disclosing openly what materials are being used for training might leave them open for lawsuits, but whether or not it’s legal to use copyrighted material for training is something that is still in the air, so it’s a risk either way, whether they disclose it or not.
Cant have others copying stuff that you have painstakingly copied yourself.
They seem really intent on having their cake and eating it too.
a) we’re not violating the letter or spirit of copyright laws
b) disclosing our data could open us up to a ton of IP lawsuits
hmm