Is using video games to train computer AI considered fair use?
<p>Consider a scenario where I'm thinking of building an automated driving system for my own learning, I use driving simulation video games to aid a specific computer vision module as a test bench since I don't have the financials to actually hire a fleet of vehicles and land.</p>

<p>Is this considered fair use? If later on I'm successful in building the system and I want to commercialize it what legal issues can arise?</p>

<p>What if I decide later on to use portions of the software for another commercial product?</p>

<p>It's not fair use. Fair use is when you do something that normally only the copyright holder can do. Playing a video game is the ordinary, intended use of the work. In the United States, ordinary use is not protected by copyright.</p>

<p><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106" rel="nofollow noreferrer">17 USC 106</a> sets out the rights protected by copyright. The include copying the work, producing derivative works, distributing the work, and so on. None of these are ordinary use.</p>

<p>Someone could perhaps argue that you are creating a derivative work. I doubt that argument would work because you are not taking any protectable elements from the work. But if anyone did argue that, it would make sense to also argue that <em>if</em> that's so, your use would still be covered under fair use because it's transformative, does not substitute for the original work in any way, and takes very little of the work.</p>

fair-use