I fucked with the title a bit. What i linked to was actually a mastodon post linking to an actual thing. but in my defense, i found it because cory doctorow boosted it, so, in a way, i am providing the original source here.
please argue. please do not remove.
I’d argue that the community benefit aspect of the “scholarship or research purposes”language preclude for-profit AI companies from falling under fair use. These aren’t education programs. They’re not research for the greater good. They are private entities trying to create a machine that can copy until it creates. For their own needs, not the greater good. Education has a net positive effect on society, and those stipulations in the law are meant to better serve the whole.
If these generative AI machines were being built by students, it would fall under these specifications of fair use. But the profit motive changes everything.
I’d say “fair use” pretty much covers educational and community benefit. Private companies do neither. They are stealing and reproducing for themselves, not society.