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Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

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Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#181

Post by orev »

leobg wrote: post #178
xivzgrev wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s dead serious. Uber got its start by flouting taxi rules. By the time the backlash started uber/lyft were too popular for governments to shut down so instead most governments created an awkward different category for them, so there’s at least some regulation applying to them. If Uber had tried to work thru the regulation they would have never gotten off the ground or have been as loved by users. Taxis in many way…

What about Google itself? Store content from billions of websites in your own index without permission and show snippets from those sites to your own users, making yourself into “the source” of all answers when, in reality, it’s all just scraped from other people’s sites? Imagine pitching that idea to copyright lawyers back in 1999.

Yes, and that was litigated and ruled in favor of Google, because search engines provide links back to the original content, so there’s a mutual benefit. Using copyrighted material for AI does not provide links back to the original sources, so that’s where it is not covered under the ruling.

Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#182

Post by yalogin »

This isn’t new is it? Every startup in the last decade plus existed to slurp user data one way or another. User data accumulation is the single most popular value proposition for startups and what drove funding. In that sense AI is not new, it super charges everything including user data aggregation. It will be surprising only if this is a new trend.

Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#183

Post by bamboozled »

cbanek wrote: post #180
xivzgrev wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s dead serious. Uber got its start by flouting taxi rules. By the time the backlash started uber/lyft were too popular for governments to shut down so instead most governments created an awkward different category for them, so there’s at least some regulation applying to them. If Uber had tried to work thru the regulation they would have never gotten off the ground or have been as loved by users. Taxis in many way…

So... move fast and break laws.

Yes, and just pay the law makers off

Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#184

Post by gruez »

rchaud wrote: post #164
gruez wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Uber was an illegal taxi service That claim is at best, speculative. According to wikipedia they won every case brought against them, so as far as the law is concerned they didn't do anything illegal. >Taxi companies sued Uber in numerous American cities, alleging that Uber's policy of violating taxi regulations was a form of unfair competition or a violation of antitrust law.[80] Although some courts did find that…

If you or I started a similar company, we'd be shut down. Apparently the difference between "violated the rules" and "illegal" is how many billions you have backstopping your efforts. American laws have enough loopholes that a convicted felon running for the highest office in the land is a "legal gray area".

>If you or I started a similar company, we'd be shut down.

This is asserted without evidence or justification.

>Apparently the difference between "violated the rules" and "illegal" is how many billions you have backstopping your efforts.

Legality is not binary. It exists on a spectrum. What uber did was in a gray zone, because they technically weren't taxis in the sense that only did prearranged pickups (as opposed to picking up fares hailing from the street). Is what they're doing actually illegal? You could argue either way. If you got sued by the city and were poor, couldn't afford a lawyer to represent you and rebut the city's claim, or couldn't pay your bills while the ligation was ongoing, that would very well have been the end of line for you. Conversely, if you could afford a bunch high powered lawyers that can do a bunch of research and write persuasive arguments, you might have been able to get a decision in your favor. While there's a difference between being poor and rich, it's not exactly the same as "the difference between "violated the rules" and "illegal" is how many billions you have backstopping your efforts", because persuasive arguments only get you so far. It only helps you in marginal cases, and doesn't mean you can murder people in broad daylight and get away with it, which is what your statement implies.

Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#185

Post by tgma »

sfink wrote: post #170
tgma wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you define "fairness" as always following the rules as is. That's objectively false. Many historical examples.

It sounded more like defining fairness as having the rules apply equally to everyone in practice . Which is a pretty decent definition, IMHO.

The reality is that small companies also have advantages in not following the law in its strictest sense than big ones in some areas mainly because no one cares about them.

Ignoring that dimension, here's another possibility: it is very possible that the utilization of AI and the licensing structure that Schmidt predicts here will increase the total licensing revenue that copyright holder pockets in aggregate despite their resistance today. It could be a win-win in the end. Wouldn't that be more than fair?

Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#186

Post by portpecos »

xivzgrev wrote: post #124
omoikane wrote: post #17

It's hard to tell if what Eric Schmidt was saying was a joke, an observation, or a recommendation. One interpretation from the context of the transcript seem to be "AI can make/steal stuff and manual intervention (lawyers) can clean those up later". Another interpretation from the context of Eric Schmidt being a savvy businessman is that people should go ahead and solve all the technical challenges first, and everyth…

He’s dead serious. Uber got its start by flouting taxi rules. By the time the backlash started uber/lyft were too popular for governments to shut down so instead most governments created an awkward different category for them, so there’s at least some regulation applying to them. If Uber had tried to work thru the regulation they would have never gotten off the ground or have been as loved by users. Taxis in many way…

>Uber got its start by flouting taxi rules.

No they got their start because the yellow cabs were late, never arrived, started their timer before I even got into the car, took me a long routes to my destination. It was waaaay worse with yellow cabs. And when I first heard of Uber, I immediately switched.

I may be in the minority, but I’m a happy Uber/Lyft customer.

Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#187

Post by nothercastle »

BobbyJo wrote: post #165
sillyfluke wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is kind of an amusing point to consider since we were talking about Kim Dotcom's extradition just moments ago. So is the point to try it if you've got Napster level success but not Megaupload level success? And since there is no way to know which level of success you are going to achieve beforehand, the note of caution still makes sense I guess?

Kim Dotcom made the mistake of not knowing when to quit. Napster shut down when it got told to shut down. Megaupload hopped around hoping to outsmart the law after it was told to shut down, and the executive branch doesn't let that go.

He also tried his hand at politics with musk level finesse. That didn’t help

Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#188

Post by nothercastle »

choppaface wrote: post #77
omoikane wrote: post #17

It's hard to tell if what Eric Schmidt was saying was a joke, an observation, or a recommendation. One interpretation from the context of the transcript seem to be "AI can make/steal stuff and manual intervention (lawyers) can clean those up later". Another interpretation from the context of Eric Schmidt being a savvy businessman is that people should go ahead and solve all the technical challenges first, and everyth…

Schmidt oversaw lots of “stealing” at Google, from Google Books (Author’s Guild), to Image Search (e.g. Perfect10 etc, before even Getty), the French press .. all before Viacom vs Youtube and others. Schmidt was also notably part of the tech no-poach / wage suppression scheme ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust... ). He knows very well the spectrum of stealing and liability. In this talk he…

YouTube was built on copyrighted works. Organic YouTube was an afterthought that happened to work out

Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#189

Post by tornato7 »

portpecos wrote: post #186
xivzgrev wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s dead serious. Uber got its start by flouting taxi rules. By the time the backlash started uber/lyft were too popular for governments to shut down so instead most governments created an awkward different category for them, so there’s at least some regulation applying to them. If Uber had tried to work thru the regulation they would have never gotten off the ground or have been as loved by users. Taxis in many way…

>Uber got its start by flouting taxi rules. No they got their start because the yellow cabs were late, never arrived, started their timer before I even got into the car, took me a long routes to my destination. It was waaaay worse with yellow cabs. And when I first heard of Uber, I immediately switched. I may be in the minority, but I’m a happy Uber/Lyft customer.

Taxis only got that way because of the rules that created an artificial scarcity / monopoly on Taxi rides. Uber flouted those rules, and it was much better than a Taxi, so their lawyers cleaned up the mess later.

Re: Ex-Google CEO: AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to 'clean up the mess'

#190

Post by h_tbob »

omoikane wrote: post #17

It's hard to tell if what Eric Schmidt was saying was a joke, an observation, or a recommendation. One interpretation from the context of the transcript seem to be "AI can make/steal stuff and manual intervention (lawyers) can clean those up later". Another interpretation from the context of Eric Schmidt being a savvy businessman is that people should go ahead and solve all the technical challenges first, and everyth…

Honestly what google was doing - scraping websites and keeping a database of them - was probably gray area of copyright law.

So he’s probably saying that it worked out for Google.

However, websites benefit from google doing that. It’s hard to see how TikTok would be ok with that.

So I think the general rule is that if publishers benefit then you will be ok in the end.

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