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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

#411

Post by throw_m239339 »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #397
micromacrofoot wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we have to play this purity game where we take a situation, remove context, and wag our finger at each other? There's an ENORMOUS difference between college students pirating some movies or albums and the company worth $2 trillion doing it programmatically across millions of works and then reselling the laundered data . This is a completely unserious discussion without considering context.

The difference being... what? Just scale? To be clear, Meta didn't "[resell] the laundered data": or at least they're claiming there's no proof of seeding.

The difference is scale AND that META does it for profit, violating plenty of licensing terms in the process as well.

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

#412

Post by IshKebab »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #163
IshKebab wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So, if Meta were found to have been seeding or making copyrighted materials available to others without permission, that's a slam dunk, I think. But Meta's contention is 'you don't have any proof of that'. I think there is enough existing case law and ambiguity in the law as it's written that Meta stand a reasonable (although not a good ) chance of being able to argue that they did not commit any crime because a.) th…

> a.) they did not create the infringing copy (or that the infringing copy that they received was a technical copy, and they did not create an infringing copy themselves)

Copyright protects against making copies of the work, which they definitely did.

> There's an argument that copyright infringement occurs only upon distribution

Not in most countries. Certainly not in America.

> b.) they did not infringe for private or financial gain (the models they trained on this material were released to the public for free).

They definitely gained from it. If their argument rests on that then they're screwed.

> Meta may also be able to argue that their use of the material could be considered 'fair', as it is non-commercial, transformative, and that the use of the material does not harm the market for the original work.

Probably their best bet but it's hard to see how that would fly given that it is commercial even if they released it for free, and fair use normally depends on how much of the work you use; they used all of everything.

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

#413

Post by tiahura »

anonym29 wrote: post #301
tiahura wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amendments protect the rights as they existed at the time the amendment was passed. I.e. how would the plain text of the text be interpreted by a reasonable person in 1791. E.g., re 2nd, what did militia mean? Thus, the 1A locks in speech rights as they existed in 1791. Because there was no right to slander, or threaten, or commit treason, or "share" in 1791, Congress retained the power to regulate.

>Because there was no right to slander, or threaten, or commit treason, or "share" in 1791, Congress retained the power to regulate. You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose and intentions of the constitution. Slander and fighting words are exceptions to the first amendment that were determined through the legislative process. Essentially the entire US constitution is negative rights - the right…

"In interpreting this text, we are guided by the principle that “[t]he Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.” United States v. Sprague, 282 U. S. 716, 731 (1931) ; see also Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 188 (1824). Normal meaning may of course include an idiomatic meaning, but it excludes secret or technical meanings that would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation." District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008).

Interpreted as an ordinary voter would have interpreted it.

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

#414

Post by wkat4242 »

bee_rider wrote: post #355
knowitnone wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know Musk but why would he make this happen? He's for corporate interests is he not?

None of his corporations is a media one, and his social media company probably has some vague interest in not having too much enforcement of copyright. Actually this is something that has always perplexed me about corporations that want to meddle in our government. Obviously they must know that it is going to involve the government following the interest of… some corporation. The voters are pretty fickle and having t…

Also he is big into AI. So he'd want the same as meta.

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

#415

Post by icedchai »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #373
icedchai wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 byte per second would give you a couple of pages every few hours. So probably not.

I byte pee second translates to a little over 3KB/hr. Depends on the book.

One page is like 2K. It would need to be an incredibly short book.

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

#416

Post by thaumasiotes »

dylan604 wrote: post #371
thaumasiotes wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Man, that's such an ignorant type of thing to say. Copy does not only mean the act of making a duplicate. Copy also means the words/text directly. Terms like copy editor refer to those that make edits to the copy=>words/text, not those that make edits to the duplicates. Maybe you are unfamiliar with the use of the word in that manner, but that's not the rest of the world's problem. That's a limited knowledge proble…

what does that even mean? your sarcasm is so strained it can't even be followed.

Why do you think that the meaning "text" is relevant to the element in copyright? The fact that a word has a particular sense doesn't mean that that sense appears in every use of the word.

And in this case we know that copyright refers to the production of copies, not of copy:

> the Statute of Anne is formally titled "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of Copies, during the Times therein mentioned"

( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne#Text )

There are no controls other than on making printed copies.

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

#417

Post by papercrane »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #402
Ajedi32 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your position is that it is illegal for me to watch a movie on Netflix that they don't have the rights to? Just that I wouldn't be prosecuted because I didn't intend to break the law? Unless perhaps I knew they didn't have the rights to it but watched it anyway?

That the judge will say you did not break the law because you reasonably believed you were following the law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea

Copyright infringement is a strict liability offence, so not having intent isn't a defense.

However, in this scenario you'd very likely have a good "innocent infringement" defense, which would allow the judge to lower the statutory damages to as low as $200. Since the damages available are so low it wouldn't be worth suing over.

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

#418

Post by throw101010 »

aurea wrote: post #194
delroth wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common misconception: there are some exceptions for certain types of media, but for example downloading copyrighted software (including games) without authorization is not legal in Switzerland. And some of those exceptions are more constrained than others.

Can you point to any official document which states it is illegal? Or any document which mentions any exceptions?

Art. 19, Paragraph 4 of the Copyright Act (CopA [1]).

The article lists the "Published works [that] may be used for private use" and that paragraph closes it with:

> This Article does not apply to computer programs.

[1] https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1993/1798_1798_1798/en#ar...

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

#419

Post by nadermx »

Its funny because courts are split on the making available theory since it was pushed during the napster/grokster days. So I do think this is a decent approach of attack since they are saying there can be no proof they made anything available and I'm not so sure meta wants to settle this at all.

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

#420

Post by rasz »

wkat4242 wrote: post #253
mrcode007 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m waiting for this precedent to be set in favor of META and then enjoying all the movie torrents I can get my hands on. Without seeding of course.

With Musk in the White House (who has similar interests) that might actually happen.

Especially considering it would disproportionally harm California, last bastion of Democrats?
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