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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

#421

Post by mptest »

bigtimesink wrote: post #389
escapecharacter wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I dislike the idea of individual copyright owners, like visual artists or writers, having their works scraped for AI without compensation… If this does break the stranglehold that copyright has over creative acts, especially in the US, this feels like a net good.

What's your test for when a use is ok and being held back by copyright law versus when it's damaging? Why is one ok but not the other?

I've seen the most people take the most issue with the insane "authors life + Xx years" that copyright lasts for, not really components of fair use.

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

#422

Post by rasz »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #393
ninalanyon wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else could it be?

An original composition based on a statistical analysis of the training data. Statistical data about a copyrighted work obviously isn't necessarily a derivative of that work. Otherwise Tolkien could sue me for telling you how many times The Lord of the Rings uses the word "the".

Can it reproduce training data? Then its not analysis but compression, lossy compression.

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

#423

Post by thrance »

card_zero wrote: post #165
lordloki wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very simple, Americans believe that the individual is responsible for themselves while most of the rest of the world wants to be "protected" by a restrictive government. One leads to innovation and one stifles it. We would rather be responsible for discovering the truth on our own, than trust a central authority to decide what is and isn't true(or propaganda). I find it funny how Europeans think their government…

Not sure European governments do much to combat external propaganda anyway.

Sadly very true, I hope the hostility American officials recently showed toward our values and institutions will prompt them to do something. Not to mention America siding with Putin a few days ago.

A ban on X and Meta would be a start.

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

#424

Post by londons_explore »

plorg wrote: post #321
londons_explore wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The contractors whose job is collecting lists of people downloading films generally make sure to download at least a viewable clip of the film direct from your client so it could be shown in court. "Yes, your honor, here is the evidence we retrieved direct from the defendant".

Sure, but AIUI they generally are not leading with a lawsuit, they're sending a cease and desist notice to your ISP, which doesn't require that kind of proof. Operators like Comcast won't require that to drop you - in fact they may give you a warning for simply downloading torrents at all, even if they are literally, actually, Linux ISOs.

Evidence is generally collected for every detected violation in case it ends up in court.

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

#425

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #385
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 3600 bytes/hr. 60seconds per minute and 60minutes per hour. 60*60*1byte. Not to be condescending but the math here really isn't hard.

I mistyped a letter (thanks for indirectly pointing it out, fixed) and I get this flippant response. I guess this really is reddit.My real answer is close enough, I don't need to delineate on the level of bytes. Either way this is oedantry. My point doesn't change; it depends on what kind of book you download.

Further, compression makes this all substantially more complicated, i imagine you could compress flat text down to extreme levels using a hashtable and leveraging book specifics (lack of Unicode characters, etc).

Either way, the argument is moot, most torrent clients set a minimum upload rate of 1-5kb/s.

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

#426

Post by pdonis »

rvense wrote: post #362
pdonis wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know any "free speech absolutists" who argue that fraud should be legal. Misrepresentation of a product or service you're selling is fraud. We already have laws against that.

This has actually been a fairly common position among American libertarians. Alan Greenspan, for instance, was strongly against fraud laws until some time after the financial crisis. The idea was that the market would sort it out. (And no, I don't understand how this is a serious position that serious people can seriously hold, but then that is how I feel about libertarianism in general.)

> American libertarians

The term "libertarian" I feel is almost useless as a description of the political views of Americans, because it gets used to describe views that don't make any sense with that label. Greenspan, for instance, often described himself as a libertarian (or "libertarian Republican", whatever that means), but that seems a bit rich for someone who was chairman of one of the most powerful central planning organizations on the planet for so long. If central planning is libertarian then I'm a blue whale.

The term "free market" gets misused just as much. It's not a free market if the government (or the Fed, which is just an arm of the government) has its thumb on the scales.

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

#427

Post by rvense »

pdonis wrote: post #426
rvense wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has actually been a fairly common position among American libertarians. Alan Greenspan, for instance, was strongly against fraud laws until some time after the financial crisis. The idea was that the market would sort it out. (And no, I don't understand how this is a serious position that serious people can seriously hold, but then that is how I feel about libertarianism in general.)

> American libertarians The term "libertarian" I feel is almost useless as a description of the political views of Americans, because it gets used to describe views that don't make any sense with that label. Greenspan, for instance, often described himself as a libertarian (or "libertarian Republican", whatever that means), but that seems a bit rich for someone who was chairman of one of the most powerful central pla…

> It's not a free market if the government... has its thumb on the scales

See, this is why libertarianism doesn't make sense. If there's no government intervention, then monopolies, incumbents, and rich and powerful people in general take their place. The point of having democratic institutions intervene in the market instead is to keep the intervention under control and in check. The alternative is Oliver Twist, ecological disaster, maybe even feudalism.

But we agree that there's a lot of hypocrisy on the Right in general. A lot of insider trading and "I'm a free speech absolutist" and then buying up mass media to censor people who don't agree with you.

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

#428

Post by opo »

withinboredom wrote: post #230
papercrane wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US Constitution grants congress the power to give authors and inventors time-limited exclusive rights to their works/discoveries (Art1.S8.C8). This moots the 1st amendment argument. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-8...

Once you tell someone a secret, you need to be prepared to beat them up if they share it. — dad, 1996 This gives you the right “to beat them up” but not the right to learn a secret. You can take a patent and build that thing in your house. The government can’t stop you, neither the inventor. It’s when you try to sell it that they can come after you.

>...You can take a patent and build that thing in your house. The government can’t stop you, neither the inventor. It’s when you try to sell it that they can come after you.

I don't think that is correct. The patent act states:

>...Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent.

https://codes.findlaw.com/us/title-35-patents/35-usc-sect-27...

Note where it says "makes, uses". In practice, it is highly unlikely that someone would know about the infringement if it was just done for personal use, but that doesn't mean it isn't infringement.

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

#429

Post by opo »

mrguyorama wrote: post #396
anonym29 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>It seems abundantly clear from even a cursory analysis that the founders explicitly designed the constitution to limit and restrict the power of a centralized federal government, as treasonous, violent disregard for a powerful centralized federal government is quite literally the premiere founding principle baked into the US's history. Which is why we immediately replaced a loose federation of Strong States with a n…

>...There were plenty of anti-federalists around during this time. They got to air their complaints and opinions. Nobody listened to them because the articles of confederation, and the loose, weak federal government it built was just that useless and broken.

Nobody listened to them? I think most historians would agree that they were instrumental in getting the bill of rights added to the constitution. For example:

>...Anti-Federalists in Massachusetts, Virginia and New York, three crucial states, made ratification of the Constitution contingent on a Bill of Rights. In Massachusetts, arguments between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists erupted in a physical brawl between Elbridge Gerry and Francis Dana. Sensing that Anti-Federalist sentiment would sink ratification efforts, James Madison reluctantly agreed to draft a list of rights that the new federal government could not encroach.

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-anti-federalists-and...

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

#430

Post by d1sxeyes »

IshKebab wrote: post #412
d1sxeyes wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

I agree. But a good lawyer might be able to argue that they only received a copy, they didn’t make one themselves.

> Not in most countries. Certainly not in America.

I think the law itself is clear that reproduction is its own right, but I couldn’t find any case law where someone was prosecuted only for reproduction. There are certainly some concerns with the law as it’s written (such as the first sale doctrine, or home ripping of CDs, etc.).

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

Yes but were the gains private and financial? Again, a good lawyer might be able to argue that actually, Facebook invested a lot (financially) into training the models, and then released for free, so are net negative financially.

> fair use normally depends on how much of the work you use

Fair use is a very difficult one to put an exact definition on, and whatever definitions exist do not determine based purely on the amount of the work used. There is case law that a full work can be considered fair use, and that even minimal parts of the work are not. Again, a good lawyer could perhaps make this argument successfully.

I don’t think anyone without access to a legal team that costs millions would stand much of a chance here, but Meta might.

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