But the training data does contain songs, and they need to pay for those.

Copying protected works without permission is generally illegal, it doesn’t matter if you use a scraper.

There was a landmark case in which Google’s use of a web scraper was deemed fair use. That does not mean that all scrapers are fair use.

Google successfully argued fair use because its product (search results) did not compete with the original product (books). In fact, a search hit makes it more likely you will buy the original book.

The defendants in this case will probably try to argue fair use. But Google was an exceptional case, in practice most people who argue fair use will lose in court. Songs directly compete against other songs. In fact, that’s why artists who include samples in their work usually agree to pay licensing fees.

This is the basis for the RIAA claims, which sure sounds like piracy:

On information and belief, similar to other generative AI audio models, Suno trains its AI model to produce audio output by generally taking the following steps: a. Suno first copies massive numbers of sound recordings, including by “scraping” (i.e., copying or downloading) them from digital sources. This vast collection of information forms the input, or “corpus,” upon which the Suno AI model is trained.

I don’t think this is frivolous. If you publish a song that includes part of my song, that’s good evidence that you copied my song.

This isn’t a prosecution, and nobody is alleging a crime. This is a civil lawsuit.

In a civil lawsuit, the standard of evidence is much different. You do not have to “prove” things beyond a reasonable doubt like in a criminal trial. The jury is instructed to weigh the evidence like a balance, and whichever side has the best evidence wins. Even if it’s only a small difference.

That’s why it’s so important to have evidence that counters whatever the other side claims. You are bound to lose if your opponents are the only ones offering evidence on their side of the balance.

Training starts with storing a copy of training data.

That’s circumstantial evidence. Which will always beat zero evidence.

If you don’t keep logs, and someone has evidence you did something wrong, then there won’t be any opposing evidence that you were innocent. So the jury will start out leaning against you.

In fact if a judge thinks you didn’t keep logs because you were afraid they would incriminate you, then he will tell the jury to consider the lack of logs as further evidence against you.

Then how would they know they didn’t use the songs in question?

I think a common misconception of these lawsuits is that the AI itself is an issue. It isn’t. It doesn’t matter if the generative AI does anything at all or even works. The AI developers, not the AIs, are the problem.

Let’s go back to your Vanilla Ice example. Suppose Vanilla Ice was found to have downloaded a massive collection of mp3s from The Pirate Bay. He is sued by the RIAA, just like Napster users were sued years ago.

In court, he explains that his music doesn’t sample from his massive mp3 collection at all. And he loses, because the RIAA doesn’t care what he did after he pirated mp3s. Pirating them, by itself, is illegal.

And that’s what’s going on here. The RIAA isn’t arguing that the AI output is illegal. They are arguing that the AI output is basically a snitch: it’s telling the RIAA that the developers pirated a bunch of mp3s.

Of course there are other ways to create similar notes.

But now the AI developers will have to testify under oath that they did not use Johnny B Goode, and identify the soundalike song they used that is not among the millions of other IPs held by the RIAA.

You can prove it through discovery, ie force the AI developers to reveal all the songs they used to train their AI.

I don’t know what is going on here. On the one hand, I don’t trust Assange. On the other hand, I really don’t trust the Trump DoJ. Especially since they indicted Assange after the Obama DoJ concluded he hadn’t broken the law.

A trial would have been interesting.

I didn’t say I think he is guilty. But the charges against him aren’t what everyone seems to think.

Australia, like most countries, does not generally shield suspected criminals from prosecution.

You can certainly be charged in Russia.

Extradition is another matter.

The US alleges that Assange was part of a conspiracy to hack computers in the US, ie was involved in planning the hack.

The superseding indictment alleges that Assange was complicit with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, in unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified documents related to the national defense.  Specifically, the superseding indictment alleges that Assange  conspired with Manning;  obtained from Manning and aided and abetted her in obtaining classified information

The point is that the US is not unusual in prosecuting people in other countries. Australia and others do the sane thing.

the US can exercise such authority

Many countries have the authority to prosecute crimes that occur on their soil even if the perpetrator is outside the country. Including Assange’s native country.

The foreign interference crimes apply to conduct that occurs in Australia. So, if the perpetrator was in Australia at the time they engaged in interference, then prosecuting them would be relatively straightforward, provided there was sufficient evidence. If an offender is outside Australia at the time of the interference, they could still be charged with a crime.

Anyone involved in a crime committed on US soil can be charged with the crime.

Do you suppose hacking your computer should be legal provided the hacker is in Russia?