OK. Obviously the use-case has changed.
Consider a random example of fair use: print an excerpt of this three panel comic you would like to discuss.
Does building a business around the automation of fair use constitute fair use? I would say no.
Consider a random example of fair use: print an excerpt of this three panel comic you would like to discuss.
Does building a business around the automation of fair use constitute fair use? I would say no.
If an LLM trains on NYT articles is the output of the model a substitute for the original article? Or will people continue to pay for the New York Times as before?
Whether they build a business around it doesn't really matter. Plenty of large businesses depend on fair use to avoid copyright lawsuits, including any tech company that hosts any kind of content (YouTube, Reddit, Meta). Even the media itself relies on fair use to be able to air any content.
Those companies don't rely on fair use. They rely on the DMCA. There's an agreement with the user for use of content where the user controls the rights, and anything that users upload where someone else controls the rights, DMCA protects the site as long as they follow the procedures.
This seems like an excellent and very clear distinction. Once it becomes a wholesale harvesting and processing for financial gain, it stops being fair use. Fair use clearly has a magnitude component.