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

Post by thrance » Fri, Feb 21, 2025, 1:35 PM UTC

bilekas wrote: post #138

This is actually genius from the lawyers of meta. In this way they are pushing the onus onto the question of "what is illegal in regards to torrenting copyright content". They have the money and legal team to push it to any conclusion, but that conclusion would risk so many huge industries in the Us that too many parties would be effected. That would incentivize companies to drop this case against meta and the status…

Post by bilekas » Fri, Feb 21, 2025, 1:37 PM UTC

gampleman wrote: post #139

I'm a little confused about how is it supposed to work otherwise? Do I have an obligation as an internet user to ascertain if a website owner whose website I visit has the all the rights to all the media that the website contains (presumably also working out whatever jurisdictional issues come up)? Like how do you know that (say) Netflix actually has the right to stream you every show that they do? And how do you kno…

Post by michaelt » Fri, Feb 21, 2025, 1:37 PM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #65

guappa wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can just bribe the president.

Probably no need. Elon Musk already did that. And one of his companies just published a shiny new version of grok. I wonder where they get their training material. I'm sure it's all just tweets and no stashes of ebooks or other material got downloaded in some way or otherwise fell of the proverbial wagon. Historically, copyright cases fell in favor of big media corporations based on the notion that they were very ric…

Post by flir » Fri, Feb 21, 2025, 1:40 PM UTC

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.

Post by stogot » Fri, Feb 21, 2025, 1:42 PM UTC

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.