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0 pointskmeisthax1y ago0 comments

LLaMA still has an "IP hook" - the license for LLaMA forbids usage on applications with large numbers of daily active users, so presumably at that point Facebook can start asking for money to use the model.

Whether or not that's actually enforceable[0], and whether or not other companies will actually challenge Facebook legal over it, is a different question.

[0] AI might not be copyrightable. Under US law, copyright only accrues in creative works. The weights of an AI model are a compressed representation of training data. Compressing something isn't a creative process so it creates no additional copyright; so the only way one can gain ownership of the model weights is to own the training data that gets put into them. And most if not all AI companies are not making their own training data...

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lolinder1y ago

> LLaMA still has an "IP hook" - the license for LLaMA forbids usage on applications with large numbers of daily active users, so presumably at that point Facebook can start asking for money to use the model.

No, the license prohibits usage by Licensees who already had >700m MAUs on the day of Llama 3's release [0]. There's no hook to stop a company from growing into that size using Llama 3 as a base.

[0] https://llama.meta.com/llama3/license/

Salgat1y ago

The whole point is that the license specifically targets their competitors while allowing everyone else so that their model gets a bunch of free contributions from the open source community. They gave a set date so that they knew exactly who the license was going to affect indefinitely. They don't care about future companies because by the time the next generation releases, they can adjust the license again.

lolinder1y ago

Yes, I agree with everything you just said. That also contradicts what OP said:

The license does not forbid usage on applications with large numbers of daily active users. It forbids usage by companies that were operating at a scale to compete with Facebook at the time of the model's release.

> They don't care about future companies because by the time the next generation releases, they can adjust the license again.

Yes, but I'm skeptical that that's something a regular business needs to worry about. If you use Llama 3/4/5 to get to that scale then you are in a place where you can train your own instead of using Llama 4/5/6. Not a bad deal given that 700 million users per month is completely unachievable for most companies.

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lolinder1y ago

No, the license prohibits usage by Licensees who already had >700m MAUs on the day of Llama 3's release [0]. There's no hook to stop a company from growing into that size using Llama 3 as a base.

[0] https://llama.meta.com/llama3/license/

Salgat1y ago

lolinder1y ago

Yes, I agree with everything you just said. That also contradicts what OP said:

> They don't care about future companies because by the time the next generation releases, they can adjust the license again.

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