In order to help train its AI models, Meta (and others) have been using pirated versions of copyrighted books, without the consent of authors or publishers. The company behind Facebook and Instagram faces an ongoing class-action lawsuit brought by authors including Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, and Christopher Golden, and one in which it has already scored a major (and surprising) victory: The Californian court concluded last year that using pirated books to train its Llama LLM did qualify as fair use.
You’d think this case would be as open-and-shut as it gets, but never underestimate an army of high-priced lawyers. Meta has now come up with the striking defense that uploading pirated books to strangers via BitTorrent qualifies as fair use. It further goes on to claim that this is double good, because it has helped establish the United States’ leading position in the AI field.
Meta further argues that every author involved in the class-action has admitted they are unaware of any Llama LLM output that directly reproduces content from their books. It says if the authors cannot provide evidence of such infringing output or damage to sales, then this lawsuit is not about protecting their books but arguing against the training process itself (which the court has ruled is fair use).
Judge Vince Chhabria now has to decide whether to allow this defense, a decision that will have consequences for not only this but many other AI lawsuits involving things like shadow libraries. The BitTorrent uploading and distribution claims are the last element of this particular lawsuit, which has been rumbling on for three years now, to be settled.
It’s OK when corporations do it.
So we subsidize these baby killing bastards and they pull the broke boy card. The united state is a brutal imperialist capitalist shithole …pffft fuck capitalism
So when this works for them it’ll be precedent to allow the fair use pirating of all media and software, right?
Oh never mind, I forgot that I don’t have billions of dollars to spend on lawyers. Never mind.
At this point I don’t understand pirating software.
So meta gets to claim fair use with pure digital duplication, but archive.org doesn’t when they scan physical copies of books and only lend out the same number of copies as they own in warehouses. That’s piracy.
Got it.
Rules for thee but not for me ahhhh corpo shit.
yuppers
“See your honour, I’m just training my AI with all these books, comics, movies, music, general software and games. Totally permissible. Go fine Lars retroactively for keeping interfering with our training”.
So Anna’s Archive is legal now?
Yeaaah well. I’m just gonna say everything is free now.
(except if I explicitly want to give someone money of course. Surely not a company)
Honestly I agree with Meta here but this should apply to everyone. I think most people here conflate their hate for Meta with the factual reality of intellectual property.
I can hate both.
People can also hate the fact that if you have enough money you can make everything legal.
What do you mean you can hate both? Whats the other of your hates? Disregard for copyright absolutism?
I absolutely love the fact that all these companies are laying the legal groundwork to destroy intellectual property rights altogether. If they win enough of these cases, then every pirate on the open seas sails under a flag of amnesty.
Not all IP is self surviving. Even CopyRight isn’t always a bad thing, if you think of small artists, for example. My fear is about CopyLeft mainly as I feel it’s been incredible successful in pushing forwards openness. The megacorps hating it, tells you it is doing its job. Only of the things they love about LLM and code is it can license wash away CopyLeft.
No, I expect they’ll be more like “rules for thee but not for me”
I wouldn’t be so confident without a legal argument to support your opinion.
No legal argument is necessary. Just look at history. The rich and well connected have always lived by a different set of rules.
See below:
- Robert Richards (Du Pont heir): A 2014 Forbes article noted that a Du Pont heir, Robert Richards, pleaded guilty to raping his 3-year-old daughter in 2008 and received probation instead of jail time, which caused public outrage.
- August Busch IV: August Busch IV, a former Anheuser-Busch CEO, has been involved in past legal incidents, including a girlfriend’s overdose death at his house in 2010 and a car crash in 1983, but he was not charged with rape in these cases.
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So I can use pirated media to train my AI (Actual Intelligence), right?
As long as you’re rich enough to hire your own army of lawyers, probably.
That said, it seems like when you’re rich enough to hire your own army of lawyers you can pretty much do whatever you want.
Well, that doesn’t sound civil or lawful at all and more like kindoms of the dark ages degree of “rules” where it doesn’t apply to a choosen few.
If Meta and other bigcorps that support the US goverment get the special “avoid-judgment” card and you face punishment then there’s no law, only bigotry.
That would encourage individuals and small groups to keep their activites a secret (go anonymous) and break the law whenever they can,
because the “king and his followers” don’t follow their own “rules”.The US is not only getting dystopian, they’re commiting primitive mistakes.
Yes, in fact there’s no framework or legal precedent right now so everyone already is doing it. You can just scrape the web etc and disregard IP ownership because training AI is transformative work - as it should be.
If only US were going for a win in that AI
Should make all journal publications fair use.
Unfortunately you do have to prove you’re intelligent
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Shorter and more reasonable copyright lengths would make this a moot point because then there would sufficient literature in the public domain to pull from.
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These kind of charges are what put the Pirate Bay admins in prison and caused Aaron Swartz to kill himself because of a threat of lifetime in prison. The claim that they did this either with the goal of profit or actually successful profit and that this was a serious crime. Neither TPB or Swartz at that point in time had ever moved as much data as Meta has for these claims, nor did they ever have the profit or possibility of profit Meta aims to make from their AI offerings.
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Now Meta is claiming they’ve profited so hard you can’t possibly hold them accountable.
It will be the biggest “fuck you” in history to anyone ever hit with civil charges for piracy in the early 2000s, let alone the TPB admins and Swartz, if they let this go. Which means they probably will because in America, apparently if you crime hard enough and big enough they stop putting you in prison and start patting you on the back and calling it good business sense.
If the ruling goes the wrong way, like with many cases like this (drug use is a good example), it won’t help those in the past. However, it will open a door for everyone in the future.
My guess is every DCMA entity on the planet has already sent this judge a letter saying that allowing this defense is a terrible idea. I am honestly torn on this one since there are so many unknowns, and if Meta loses it will mostly be publishers that benefit vs authors.
in America, apparently if you crime hard enough and big enough they stop putting you in prison and start patting you on the back and calling it good business sense.
If you owe the bank $100 you have a problem. If you owe the bank $100,000,000, the bank has a problem.
in America, apparently if you crime hard enough and big enough they stop putting you in prison and start patting you on the back and calling it good business sense.
There’s a story about Alexander the great capturing a pirate and scolding him for raiding villages along the coast line. Alexander asked if the pirate feels ashamed and wants to beg for forgiveness. However, the pirate had something else to say. He said that Alexander was doing the same thing, but infinitely worse. The only difference was that Alexander called himself king and plundered entire lands while the pirate only raided small villages. The pirate reminded Alexander of the many lives he had destroyed in his conquest. So the pirate’s only crime was not to be the biggest baddie in the hood, so to speak.
Alexander replied by stating that the title of king forces his hand and that he couldn’t just stop what he was doing. The pirate on the other hand was just an individual who could easily change course. And so Alexander set the pirate free, stating that he himself will start changing his own ways right there and then if the pirate makes a fresh start first.
I don’t know if there is any truth to this but it’s a fable often used to explain how legitimacy changes the perception people have of wrong doing and heroism on a fundamental level. Alexander’s reply sounds like an excuse and I think that’s on purpose. The pirate outwitted him in the end by stating a basic truth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQBWGo7pef8
This is where I first remember hearing this tale, in this old Schoolhouse Rock parody that was in protest of the War in Iraq.
If heaven and hell are real I hope God and Satan give Swartz a sabbatical so he can go torture Zuck for a while, periodically.
It’s weird that your take away is “Meta needs to get it” and not “Clearly, these laws work for no one”. You don’t get better copyright laws by cheering for the copyright companies.
Aaron wouldn’t be part of the side that wants to lock up all data behind a giant gate and give the keys to a handful of companies. Well, we don’t know what he would think, but I’m guessing he didn’t lean copyright.
Literally the first thing I said was in regards to more sensible copyright making this all a moot point but you do you.
The only reason Meta needs to get it is because it’s entirely hypocritical to all the dirt poor people who couldn’t afford these kind of lawyers. It doesn’t make the current legal status right or correct. It’s just a slap in the face to someone like Swartz who died over far less.
I would rather copyright be amended but sadly that’s less likely to happen here.
I read this as setting precedent that others couldn’t. Court cases like this are one way to make it possible for everyone to break an absurd law.
Precedent only applies equally if we are able to prove the same in court as Meta did. Are you going to need petabytes of pirated data to train your AI? Can you afford a team of top quality lawyers to fight your case and prove you were training a small locally-hosted AI at home? Do you think Meta, of all companies, really is fighting for you to be able to do the same as them? You will still get taken to court, you will still have to fight your case, “precedent” isn’t an automatic get out of jail free card. Do you have the money to fight massive copyright holders with endless money? Of course you don’t, none of us do.
And unlike Meta, you will be thrown in prison like Jeremiah Perkins.
Even if found completely guilty, the worst that will happen is Meta has to pay a fine: which means nothing because any fine is rolled into the cost of doing business. Meta knows it is stupid to not break the law.
That’s also precedent, and a template for using on institutions to break copyright. Still seems like good news to me.
Precedent means we can cite it, so yes, this helps a bit. The rest you wrote is a fair bit of assumption or unnecessary: evidence to back your points would help. Otherwise, it just looks like inconclusive defeatism.
Precedent is, in effect, new law and it absolutely does change who gets taken to court and the costs of defending your case. So, depending on which arguments the court accepts, I won’t need fancy lawyer. And it won’t require nearly the risk, creativity, or time that it requires of Meta’s legal reps today. Look at civil rights or environmental protections case law; big profile early cases were horrifically costly, and now compliance by company’s is largely by default.
Horrible people and companies can set good precedent, often without intending to. For example, plenty of criminals set and clarified due process law. So we absolutely could all benefit from Meta’s bad intentions.
We benefit from institutions that will be training their own AI, hosting data publicly, and have the resources to mirror a precedent. Care to cite sources that the arguments being accepted are going to carve out Mark Zuckerberg by name as the one person who can ignore copyright? I haven’t read the fillings, but this should be easy.
We don’t get better laws if everyone is cheering for the copyright industry. Everything after your first point goes against that. Goliath, the same one that beat up Aaron, finally has a match in his own weight category, and you are hoping he wins basically.
What kind of “better law” do you think will come out of this? That regular people like us will be able to share freely?
You think that the law being applied on poor people but not on the wealthy is a healthy way to get a better law?
Get the fuck real and nobody is asking for the copyright cabal to win as much as we are saying “look, if this is the how the law is going to be applied, apply it evenly, don’t just fuck over poor people but give the wealthy a pass.”
And poor people who don’t have the weight and money of Meta aren’t going to be able to prove that they need the same amount of data to train an LLM so they probably will still have the law held against them. Get fucking real man.
What country do you think you live in? One where laws are applied evenly or rationally? Or one where fascists have taken over the god damned government? Because guess what it’s the latter and the laws are effectively meaningless for the wealthy but still held against the poor. Sure, if that’s what you want, go for it, but it damn sure won’t suddenly get us better laws or let regular people torrent without worry. Congress has been deadlocked for decades and does nothing but hurt common people and give corporations a ticket to do whatever and you think better laws will come out of this? Seriously, once again, get fucking real.
Encouraging laws you don’t like does nothing but cement them. We are currently, as a society, begging lawmakers for harder copyright laws.
I get the Justice system sucks but making the wrong laws stronger does not make it better.
Think about what you are saying is all, you tend to write long elaborate speeches on why copyright deserves to win. There is being critical of AI, and then there’s being a mouthpiece for copyright companies. I’m not trying to be mean here, sorry.
Dude, I have been promoting copyright law being changed and being shortened for 25 fucking years.
Do you even know who Rufus Pollock is or anything about his research into copyright lengths? Because I was around when that shit was published. I hosted DJ Danger Mouse’s Grey Album on Grey Tuesday as a fuck you to the Beatles copyright holders since the Grey Album should have been considered fair use as it was released for free with no profit at all. I was part of the Kopimi collective.
Not wanting corporations to get a pass while we all get fucked is not the same thing. You’re not being mean, you’re being obtuse.
None of that matter if, right now, you are cheering on copyright laws. There’s no reason to stop promoting change now.
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So we can pirate books as well as long as we aren’t able to reproduce them verbatim from memory as well?
Judge Vince Chhabria either accepts whatever bribes and offers he’s probably getting offered and sides with Meta, or it will eventually go on to the Supreme Court where they most definitely will. That’s the part of this that will work the most under an administration of no accountability.
Tell the judge you are training a neural network… it just happens to also be you.
I saw this coming from 69 miles away
I’m getting the feeling that the average Lemming is a pro-piracy advocate only for as long as it’s them financially benefiting from it but the script interestingly flips when a company they don’t like does the same thing.
If money wasn’t an issue, there’s be no reason to pirate anything. It’s a financial decision. There’s no practical difference between earning fifty bucks and saving that much - in both cases you’re left with 50 more bucks to spend.
There’s a pretty big difference in scale, and the perpetrator, and whether or not they’re benefiting monetarily, and much more.
Stealing is wrong whether it’s for personal or business use. Which one is more wrong is besides the point.
Capitalism is on hell of a mind breaker. Most artist will allow IP to be lifted for random people which can’t buy their stuff. Does Meta have monetary issues ? Or may be IP law were never to protect artist but to exploit and get more money.
You can keep the insults to yourself.
It’s virtually never the case that people genuinely can’t afford it or that it’s simply not available for purchase anywhere. In the vast majority of cases, people pirate because they don’t want to pay. It’s a financial decision that leaves them no ground to stand on and criticize others for doing the same.
You would be surprised how many pirate due to lack of product.
Example I pirate anime as it airs. I do this for 3 reasons 1: as it airs lets me be in the discussion. 2: crunchyroll does not respect me as a customer enough for me to pay them to ruin the industry. And 3: a sense of ownership once I buy the BluRay of that season 6 to fucking 12 months after it’s done airing…
There are edge cases where you could argue piracy is morally justifiable. Those aren’t what I’m talking about here, though. I’m talking about movies, TV series, games, and software that people pirate not because they couldn’t get it elsewhere or couldn’t afford it - but simply because they want it for free. That’s the vast majority of online piracy.
Arguments you don’t like become edge case. Your using the propaganda book 101. Are you thinking we are stupid ?
Insult ? Where ? Trying to victimize yourself ? Are you a maga ?
The rest of the arguments are bullshit too, their are many study showing that piracy is a service issue. Netflix nearly killed piracy when it got out. Then it enshitificated and piracy grow again.
It’s not really beside the point, from most reasonable perspectives. A multi-billion-dollar company enriching itself on the backs of starving authors so that it can go on enriching itself on the backs of its users is significantly different from a small number of comparatively destitute individuals stealing some temporary enjoyment for themselves. They are both wrong, but the discussion is utterly useless if you don’t talk about the harm involved and who benefits.
I don’t really see that difference there. Of course the difference in scale is massive when you compare a multi-billion company doing it to an individual, but what about the harm when everyone does it as individuals versus one big company doing it? I don’t think the difference matters anymore at that point.
Doing something morally wrong can’t be justified just because only a small number of people are doing it. You wouldn’t use that defense for any other immoral behavior either. Me dumping my car’s old motor oil into the woods is still bad even if I’m the only one in my country who does it - and if I then go ahead criticizing a drilling company for causing an oil spill, I’d be just as much of a hypocrite.
I fundamentally disagree with both your premise and your example’s conclusion. I’m not saying that it can be justified, though; just that it must be contextualized differently. To wit: it would be right for you to criticize them even if you are being hypocritical. You have far fewer resources to dispose of that oil. Your business model is not predicated upon handling oil well. You are not enriching yourself at the cost of others. And yes, there may be others doing it as well, but the combined impact of every individual doing it is almost certainly a tiny fraction of the company doing it.
I feel you have it the wrong way around. The “average Lemming” is pissed, because private piracy is prosecuted and punished while Meta’s is not.
I, for once, couldn’t care less whether Meta pirates the shit out of all the books if I am allowed to do the same ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That at least would be a morally consistent stance and I have no issue with that. I’m talking about the people who criticize them for pirating while doing it themselves too.
Propaganda 101 : excluding cases which didn’t fit the pursued narrative
Little guys who get caught get the book thrown at them. But oligarchs get to carve out a legal right to pirate for profit. It’s this disparity people are pissed off about here.
I support piracy because I think:
- consolidation ruins concurrency
- I hate ads in services I pay for
- copyright laws kills creativity
- the USA is lobbying the entire world to adopt their view and fuck them
- those laws are there to benefit big companies and not individuals
- it is legal where I live because we pay state tax to have access to media
I’m not arguing against piracy here. I partake in it myself too.
I am not saying you are. I am saying there are a lot of valid reasons and it is not as simple as “if I do it I am for it but when big bad company does it it is bad”.
A person downloading a pirated copy of a book w/o any DRM for their own leisure use on their own device is different from a multi trillion dollar corporation who is using those books to train an LLM to make AI Slop and make money from it w/o even crediting the authors for their work.
The difference is only in scale. Stealing is stealing independent of if it’s for personal use or not.
Nothing is being stolen here. Just an illegal copy. Copy is made for varying reasons here and have different moral aspects.
I’m using theft an an example due to it being the closest equivalent. The point still stands: if it’s wrong for an company to do it at scale, then it’s wrong when an idividual does it too.
Scale ? How much did Mr random made by selling a shitty copy of the book they pirated ? Meta won at least million using their copy machine yo increase the company stock price.
Scale is not the only difference. The companies who do this end up making money with something trained on someone’s else’s work. If a regular Joe Shmoe pirates a book, they don’t earn anything with it.
they don’t earn anything with it.
That’s not entirely true either. There’s no practical difference between saving 50 bucks and earning 50 bucks. In both cases you’re left with more money to spend. Piracy is equally a financial decision even if it’s just for personal use. You’re saving what ever amount it would’ve cost to buy that media.
Classic “the end justifies the means” (bad) defense. If ISPs can send letter for torrenting, and Facebook torrented a lot, Facebook deserves a fair punishment.
lol it would be hilarious if they could order Facebook disconnected from the Internet like a pleb hit with a copyright complaint
Not deserves, needs.
truck full of letters backs up to Meta’s headquarters
“there, that’s more appropriate.”
