139: Google doesn't like copyright

Dominic Young says Google is playing chicken over AI. Bo Sacks distributed the article the other day. I’ll provide a link below.

Google wants individuals and organizations to use AI, but there’s a looming threat of copyright lawsuits. Google wants to reassure people that they can use AI safely, so they’re offering to cover people’s legal costs if they get sued.

Why would they do this? Dominic points out a few possible reasons.

They’re confident they’d win in court, and they want to calm the jitters.
They’re confident legislators will smooth the way for them.

Since both of those possibilities seem rather remote, Dominic says it’s just a game of chicken. All of us are on mopeds, and Google is driving an 18-wheeler full of bricks. Of course we’re going to swerve first.

That’s a good perspective. Google is a bully, and they get their way because they’re the gorilla.

But I think there’s another reason to consider.

Google is inherently against copyright. Their mission statement says they want to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

That mission is a direct challenge to publishers in two ways. First, in monetization. Second, in copyright.

I recently asked Bard some questions about this, and here’s what it told me.

Google stated in its 2019 Annual Report that "everyone should have access to the information they need, regardless of their income or location.” The report was published on February 12, 2020, and can be found on Google's website. (I couldn’t find that exact quote, but I did find similar things.)

… Google states that it believes that "information is power," and that it is committed to making information accessible to everyone, regardless of their background or circumstances.

I also asked Bard about Google and copyright, and it said …

Google stated that copyright law "provides incentives for creators to produce and distribute their works, and it ensures that they are rewarded for their efforts." Google has also argued that copyright law can actually promote access to information by allowing creators to control how their work is used.

I then asked Bard whether it – and other LLMs – aren’t a direct threat to copyright, and it didn’t give me a very good answer.

But of course they’re a threat to copyright. They’re taking copyrighted material and using it in a way that the creators didn’t authorize.

So my answer to why is Google promising to indemnify AI users against copyright claims is that they realize copyright is a huge barrier to their business model. They want to kill it. Or at least amend it.

Resources

Why Google’s generative AI gamble is a game of chicken it could lose
https://pressgazette.co.uk/platforms/why-googles-generative-ai-gamble-is-a-game-of-chicken-it-could-lose/