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Really depends on the details. If the extractable works align with songs that are over-represent in the training data, they may largely consist of performances of public domain compositions. And if their extraction also requires prompting which explicitly requests an infringing result, then the actual liability might be something you could mount a defense for.

Or hell, the extracted potentially infringing and over-represented material might all be pop music set to variations of Pachelbel's Canon, and I'd pay to see that lawsuit.



Details matter here. For a given musical performance, there are at least 3 copyrights in action:

1. The copyright on the composition. This can also include arrangements - for instance, Gershwin's original piano version of Rhapsody in Blue is now public domain, but the orchestral version everyone knows,

2. The copyright on the sheet music (the actual layout, spacing, editorial notes, things like that.. it's actually an insanely deep subject. I've got an 800 page book on the subject - which is referred to as music engraving, as up until about 40 years ago it was literally done by engraving the plates by hand. Much much harder problem than doing normal book-style text layout, as it's fully 2D, whereas text is basically 1d with occasional special cases. (NB: This copyright is really only relevant to the musicians, conductors, etc, but it does matter.

3. The copyright of the particular recording. This is the really relevant one. A 5 year old recording of a 500 year old work is very much under copyright.


This is just a distraction. Everyone knows we're talking about the last one here.

No one sued Napster because their guitar tabs were being shared.


No, it absolutely is not.

From GP: " they may largely consist of performances of public domain compositions."

My entire point is that the composition being PD does not mean RECORDINGS of it are PD.


And, obviously, the lyrics.




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