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Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

arstechnica.com

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Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#121

Post by IshKebab »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #84
mrweasel wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Meta going to be battling the full legal team of the entertainment industry with this argument? I think Meta did something stupid with this argument, because there is no way that Hollywood or the music industry is going be pleased with a precedence for legally downloading copyrighted material. They will now do everything in their power to get Meta found guilty.

Or, more likely, drop the case to avoid establishing a precedent. Sounds like Meta are banking on the entertainment industry looking at it and deciding that the risk of losing this case is too high given Meta’s almost infinitely deep pockets to mount a legal defence.

Maybe. But it's hard to see how they could possibly win this case no matter how good their defence team is.

Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#122

Post by anilakar »

Disclaimer: not American.

Copyright agencies that monitor torrents here have actually verified that peers offer at least one offending chunk on protocol level and the Market Court has decided it's the minimum that can be considered sharing. As far as I know, nobody has yet claimed their client has been modified to download without seeding.

Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#123

Post by Alex_L_Wood »

trilbyglens wrote: post #111
codetrotter wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why you often see people getting fines for torrenting (Germany is extremely notorious for this for example), but fines for using Usenet, IPTV, streaming or book download services are a lot more rare (which doesn't mean they're nonexistent)! It’s a lot easier to find out who is torrenting than to find out who is using Usenet for example though. With torrents you can see the IP addresses of peers. And then I…

Germany is wild. You will get a knock on your door within hours of firing up a torrent client

What? No, you will not. You could get fined for seeding some popular stuff, but even then no one is knocking on your door, it'll probably come in the form of a letter, and even then it's not a guarantee.

Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#124

Post by IshKebab »

ashu1461 wrote: post #18
throw310822 wrote: post #14

In fairness, I don't think Meta would have (had) any trouble paying the fair price of every book they downloaded (the price of exactly one copy) if that had been possible to do at scale.

Paying the price of one copy does not imply that you can use it for training, right ?

That is still an open question.

Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#125

Post by cowl »

amelius wrote: post #67
pyrale wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since there is no such thing as training rights, they would have a reasonable claim.

I think it is more reasonable for content owners to say what can and cannot be done with their data. After all, content is what make AI possible, and content owners could easily start their own LLM if they wanted to since a lot of it is open source now.

they are not content "owners" though. they have a a copyright that regulates who can copy and distribute that data. they don't have a say how that content is used when acquired legally as long as you activity doesn't constitute a distribution.

Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#126

Post by goodpoint »

arboles wrote: post #13
close04 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their point is that they are not.

It would set the precedent for everyone. The real difference is that they can beg the question and people like Aaron Schwartz couldn't.

No, this is a case of "rules for thee but not for me".

Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#127

Post by Mekoloto »

In germany its saver to illegally download through usenet because you don't upload and the cost a rights owner can make is only the cost of the product and not an aribrary number of (you puloaded it and created damage of x).

It doesn't make it legal at all, it just makes it no longer interesting for IP owners to sue you.

Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#128

Post by [deleted] »

trilbyglens wrote: post #111
codetrotter wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why you often see people getting fines for torrenting (Germany is extremely notorious for this for example), but fines for using Usenet, IPTV, streaming or book download services are a lot more rare (which doesn't mean they're nonexistent)! It’s a lot easier to find out who is torrenting than to find out who is using Usenet for example though. With torrents you can see the IP addresses of peers. And then I…

Germany is wild. You will get a knock on your door within hours of firing up a torrent client

[deleted]

Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#129

Post by shakna »

yreg wrote: post #108
shakna wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sites copied by Google Search explicitly allow it. The books copied by Meta, explicitly disallow it, and require payment for distribution.

Information wants to be free.

Perhaps. However, information won't be produced, if the already tenuous financial positions of authors is removed.

Things should be free, as in speech, not as in beer. Especially in this case. The giants of Silicon Valley could in fact purchase these rights.

Few authors care about people personally enjoying a product through otherwise means. They do care about mass distribution without attribution, without royalty, and without regard.

Re: Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding

#130

Post by fazeirony »

so trying to understand here. when metallica et. al. went after kids (well, i guess ppl my age all those years ago lol) for using napster and downloading their music...they made this very clear distinction right?

i'm beyond sick and tired of these large corpos arguing 'rules for thee but not for me.' unfortunately, in this country with no meaningful legislation around privacy or really, anything digital, it's a game of 'who has the slickest lawyers to pull one over on the judge/jury' it would seem.

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