1. It's decided by courts in US. Courts in US currently are very friendly to big tech. At this point if they deny this and say something that undermines this industry it's going to be a big economic blow, the country is way over-invested in this tech and its infrastructure.
2. "Transformative means fair" is the old idea from pre-LLM world. That's a different world. Now those IP laws are obsolete and need to be significantly updated.
Last time I checked, there are still undecided cases wrt fair use. Sure, it’s looking favorable for LLM training, but it’s definitely still up in the air.
> it’s completely transformative
IANAL, but apparently hinges on how the training material is acquired
> IANAL, but apparently hinges on how the training material is acquired
That doesn't make sense. You are either transforming something or you are not. There might be other legal considerations based on how you acquired, but it doesn't affect if something is transformative.
So there are mixed messages, per my understanding. Kadrey v Meta seems to favor the transformative nature. Bartz v Anthropic went to summary judgement but the court expressed skepticism that the use in that case was “transformative”. We won’t know because of the settlement.
Again, IANAL, so take this with a big grain of salt.
It is not up in the air at all. It's completely transformative.