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The action around OpenAI's case and, uh, fretting over mass extinction or whatever, might have distracted us, but the Doe v. Github AI case had a meaningful ruling last week. It's the case about MSFT Co-Pilot code-writing AI, with claims that focus on outputs.

As part of its package of anti-piracy measures, the DMCA includes a provision that says you can't remove CMI from a copy of a protected work. The goal was to penalize pirates who would strip out watermarks or other markings that rightsholders use to indicate their ownership.

It's stupid to apply this rule to AI training and other computational fair uses because removal of CMI is an important part of non-consumptive textual analysis. It's got nothing to do with facilitating piracy - the copies never see the light of day!

As I pointed out in a recent blog post, even AI critics strip CMI as part of their textual analysis work. It's just best practice in computer analysis, whether for AI training or for other purposes. recreatecoalition.org/without-fai...