This is purely a function of everyone remembering the RIAA's decade-long campaign to prevent people from taking the music they had rightfully stolen. As far as I'm aware LLaMA was trained on "publicly available data"[0], not "licensed data".
Furthermore, MusicGen's weights are licensed CC-BY-NC, which is effectively a nonlicense as there is no noncommercial use you could make of an art generator[1]. This is not only a 'weights-available' license, but it's significantly more restrictive than the morality clause bearing OpenRAIL license that Stability likes to use[2].
My understanding (IANAL) [1] is that copyright licenses have no say on the output of software. Further, CC licenses don't say anything about running or using software (or model weights). It's therefore questionable whether the CC-BY-NC license actually prevents commercial use of the model.
You're correct, but no one has had the balls (or the lawyers) to clarify this in court yet. Expect to see hosting providers complying with takedown requests for the foreseeable future.
I don't remember the details (or outcome) but there was a lawsuit a few years ago involving CAD or architecture software and whether they could limit how the output images were used because they were assemblages of clipart that the company asserted were still protected by copyright. Something like that. A lot of "AI" output potentially poses a similar issue, just at a far more granular level.
In copyright law the use of the work itself is considered a commercial benefit, so "noncommercial use" is an oxymoron. Consider these situations:
- If I use AudioCraft to post freely-downloadable tracks on my SoundCloud, I still get the benefit of having a large audio catalog in my name, even if I'm not selling the individual tracks. I could later compose tracks on my own and ride off the exposure I got from posting "noncommercially".
- If I run AudioCraft as a background music generator in my store, I save money by not having to license music for public performance.
- If I host AudioCraft on a website and put ads on it, I'm making money by making the work available, even though I'm not charging a fee for entry.
I suspect that a lot of people reading this are going to have different arguments for each. My point is that if you don't think that all of these situations are equally infringing of CC-BY-NC, then you need to explain why some are commercial and some are not. Keep in mind that every exception you make can be easily exploited to strip the NC clause off of the license.
If you're angry at the logic on display here, keep in mind that this is how judges will construe the license, and probably also how Facebook will if you find a way to make any use of their AI. The only thing that stops them from rugpulling you later is explicit guidance in CC-BY-NC. Unfortunately, the only such guidance is that they don't consider P2P filesharing to be a commercial use.
So, absent any other clarifications from Facebook, all you can do without risking a lawsuit is share the weights on BitTorrent.
EDIT: And yes, I have made stuff just to make stuff. I license all of that under copyleft licenses because they express the underlying idea of 'noncommercial' better than actual noncommercial clauses do.
Do you think that non commercial use simply doesn't exist or something?
Because non commercial use isn't some crazy concept. It is a well established one, that doesnt disclude literally everything.
Also, you are ignoring the idea that Facebook will almost certainly not sue anyone for using this for any reason, except possibly Google or Apple.
So if you aren't literally one of those companies you could probably just use it anyway, ignore the license completely, and have zero risk of being sued.
The issue with “non commercial” is that no, it’s not well established. Licenses with a NC clause are so problematic to be practically useless. If you just want to use something at home privately you don’t need a CC license… a CC license is for use and redistribution.
Funnily enough in the UK they actually tried to fix this. The music industry argued that the lack of a private copying levy made legalized CD ripping into government confiscation of copyright ownership... somehow. The UK courts bought this, so now the UK government is constitutionally mandated to ban CD ripping, which is absolutely stupid.
I knew CD ripping got reversed but not the arguments against it, definitely stupid as not giving a monopoly is not the same as confiscation (seems like a very straightforward reasoning). No doubt done Tory got a 'management consultancy' gig with the RIAA from that one.
I like that it makes software like iTunes contributory infringers for enabling mass copyright infringement.
I miss that blog. It was a little crazy and the comments were a flame war shitshow, but man it was fun to read sometimes. Even if I vehemently disagreed, it got me thinking.
Whatever happened to esr? Did he just get too paranoid and clam up?
Noncommercial use is not well established in copyright law, which is the law that actually matters. I know other forms of law actually do establish noncommercial and commercial use standards, but copyright does not recognize them.
As for "Facebook won't sue"? Sure, except we don't have to worry about just Facebook. We have to worry about anyone with a derivative model. There's an entire industry of copyleft trolls[0] that could construct copyright traps with them.
Individuals can practically ignore NC mainly because individuals can practically ignore most copyright enforcement. This is for the same reason why you can drive 55 in a 30mph zone and not get a citation. It's not that speeding is now suddenly legal, it's that nobody wants to enforce speed limits - but you can still get nailed. The moment you have to worry about NC, there is no practical way for you to fit within its limits.
Noncommercial licenses are taken up in "GREAT MINDS v. FEDEX OFFICE AND PRINT SERVICES, INC 886 F.3d 91 (2nd Cir. 2018). Thé court explains they are enforceable and are basically just a category of contract. So, as long as the contract is clear, it’s probably enforceable.
> My point is that if you don't think that all of these situations are equally infringing of CC-BY-NC, then you need to explain why some are commercial and some are not.
What “NonCommercial” means in the license is explictly defined in the license, and if you think either those examples, or more to the point, every possible use ever so as to render ‘NonCommercial’ into ‘no use’ as you have claimed, you need to make that argument, based on the definition in the license, not some concept of what might be construed as commercial use by general legal principles if the license used the term without its own explicit definition.
> if you don't think that all of these situations are equally infringing of CC-BY-NC, then you need to explain why some are commercial and some are not. Keep in mind that every exception you make can be easily exploited to strip the NC clause off of the license.
You're right: those are all equally infringing CC-BY-NC. I don't see a problem.
Yes, but you can easily make noncommercial use of an art generator.
Obviously, you can't host a commercial art generation service with a noncommercial-use license, and (insofar as art produced by a generator is a derivative work of the model weights, which is a controversial and untested legal theory) you can’t make commercial art with a noncommercial license, but not all art is commercial.
"Noncommercial art" is not a thing in the eyes of the law. Even if you don't intend to make money the law still considers the work itself to be commercial. That's why CC-BY-NC has to have a special "filesharing is non-commercial" statement in it, because people have made successful legal arguments that it is.
You're probably thinking of "not charging a fee to use", which is a subset of all the ways you can monetize a creative work. You can still make money off of AudioCraft by just hosting it with banner ads next to the output. Even a "no monetization" clause[0] would be less onerous than "noncommercial use only", because it'd at least be legal to use AudioCraft for things like background music in offices.
[0] Which already precludes the use of AudioCraft music on YouTube since you can't do unmonetized uploads anymore
> “Noncommercial art” is not a thing in the eyes of the law
The definition of “NonCommercial”, the oddly capitalized term of art in the license, is not a matter of general law, it is a matter of the license, which defines it as “not primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation. For purposes of this Public License, the exchange of the Licensed Material for other material subject to Copyright and Similar Rights by digital file-sharing or similar means is NonCommercial provided there is no payment of monetary compensation in connection with the exchange.”
> Even if you don’t intend to make money the law still considers the work itself to be commercial.
Even if you do make money, if the use is “not primarily intended” for that purpose, it is "NonCommercial" in the terms of the license.
> That’s why CC-BY-NC has to have a special “filesharing is non-commercial” statement in it, because people have made successful legal arguments that it is.
It has the filesharing term in it because it permits that particular exchange-of-value as a primary purpose.
> Even a “no monetization” clause would be less onerous than "noncommercial use only"
How would a clause that prohibits monetization entirely be less onerous than one which prohibits it only as the primary intent of use?
> it’d at least be legal to use AudioCraft for things like background music in offices.
It is legal to use it for that purpose (in a for-profit enterprise, I suppose, one might make an argument that any activity was ultimately primarily directed at “commercial advantage”, but in a government or many nonprofit environments, that wouldn’t be the case.)
In their example audio clips they have a "perfect for the beach" audio track. With your understanding of the NC license, would a resort or private beach club be able to play a similar generated music track at their poolside bar or something along those lines? Their primary intention of the bar isn't to play the music, its just an additional ambiance thing; they're trying to sell drinks and have guests pay membership fees, people aren't really coming because of the background music.
> With your understanding of the NC license, would a resort or private beach club be able to play a similar generated music track at their poolside bar or something along those lines?
A resort, probably not, ambiance is, at least arguably, a marketable commercial advantage; a private club in the “mutual benefit organization” sense (rather than a “business selling memberships”, which is just like a resort), probably, because their interest, even indirectly, isn’t making money.
Furthermore, MusicGen's weights are licensed CC-BY-NC, which is effectively a nonlicense as there is no noncommercial use you could make of an art generator[1]. This is not only a 'weights-available' license, but it's significantly more restrictive than the morality clause bearing OpenRAIL license that Stability likes to use[2].
[0] https://github.com/facebookresearch/llama/blob/main/MODEL_CA...
[1] https://github.com/facebookresearch/audiocraft/blob/main/LIC...
[2] These are also very much Not Open Source™ but the morality clauses in OpenRAIL are at least non-onerous enough to collaborate over.