Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI
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Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI
#2"Chhabria is cutting through the moral noise and zeroing in on economics. He doesn't seem all that interested in how Meta got the data or how “messed up” it feels—he’s asking a brutally simple question: Can you prove harm?"
Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI
#3I think the headline is a bit misleading. Mets did pirate the works but may be entitled to use them under fair use. It seems like the authors are setting up for failure by making the case about whether the AI generation hinders the market for books. AI book writing is such a tiny segment what these models do that if needed Meta would simply introduce guard rails to prevent copying the style of an author and continue to ingest the books. I also don’t think AI generated fiction is anywhere near high quality enough to substantially reduce the market for the original author.
Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI
#4[flagged]
Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI
#5The title for this submission is somewhat misleading. The judge didn't make any sort of ruling, this is just reporting on a pretrial hearing. He also doesn't seem convinced as to how relevant downloading books from LibGen is to the case:
> At times, it sounded like the case was the authors’ to lose, with [Judge] Chhabria noting that Meta was “destined to fail” if the plaintiffs could prove that Meta’s tools created similar works that cratered how much money they could make from their work. But Chhabria also stressed that he was unconvinced the authors would be able to show the necessary evidence. When he turned to the authors’ legal team, led by high-profile attorney David Boies, Chhabria repeatedly asked whether the plaintiffs could actually substantiate accusations that Meta’s AI tools were likely to hurt their commercial prospects. “It seems like you’re asking me to speculate that the market for Sarah Silverman’s memoir will be affected,” he told Boies. “It’s not obvious to me that is the case.”
> When defendants invoke the fair use doctrine, the burden of proof shifts to them to demonstrate that their use of copyrighted works is legal. Boies stressed this point during the hearing, but Chhabria remained skeptical that the authors’ legal team would be able to successfully argue that Meta could plausibly crater their sales. He also appeared lukewarm about whether Meta’s decision to download books from places like LibGen was as central to the fair use issue as the plaintiffs argued it was. “It seems kind of messed up,” he said. “The question, as the courts tell us over and over again, is not whether something is messed up but whether it’s copyright infringement.”
Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI
#6I think the headline is a bit misleading. Mets did pirate the works but may be entitled to use them under fair use. It seems like the authors are setting up for failure by making the case about whether the AI generation hinders the market for books. AI book writing is such a tiny segment what these models do that if needed Meta would simply introduce guard rails to prevent copying the style of an author and continue…
The problem is that "harm" as defined by copyright law is strictly limited to loss of sales due to breach of that copyright; it makes no allowment (that I know of) to livelihoods lost by the theft of the work indefinitely, as AI boosters suggest their tools can do (replace people). The way this court case is going, it's an uphill battle for the plaintiffs to prove concrete harm in that very narrow context, when the real harm is the potential elimination of their future livelihoods through theft, rather than immediately tangible harms.
As a (creative) friend of mine flatly said, they refuse to use an LLM until it can prove where it learned something from/cite its original source. Artists and creatives can cite their inspirational sources, while LLMs cannot (because their developers don't care about credit, only output) by design. To them, that's the line in the sand, and I think that's a reasonable one given that not a single creative in my circles has been cut payment from these multi-billion-dollar AI companies for the unauthorized use of their works in training these models.
Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI
#7I'm wondering if authors are making the same mistakes that the music industry did with Napster and kazaa. Using AI has led to more book purchases for me. If I discover and enjoy a book via AI I'm more inclined to buy it. The cats out of the bag, so pet him.
Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI
#8Whether or not Meta wins this case, I'm never going to support any government that supports both LLMs and IP. Like we have to put up with IP despite having no clear value to a digital society but as soon as it becomes inconvenient it goes out the window? Nah, let's just trash the state and start over.
It's going to take centuries to undo the damage wracked by IP-supported private enterprise. And now we also have to put up with fucking chatbots. This is the worst timeline.
Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI
#9I think the headline is a bit misleading. Mets did pirate the works but may be entitled to use them under fair use. It seems like the authors are setting up for failure by making the case about whether the AI generation hinders the market for books. AI book writing is such a tiny segment what these models do that if needed Meta would simply introduce guard rails to prevent copying the style of an author and continue…
The problem is that "harm" as defined by copyright law is strictly limited to loss of sales due to breach of that copyright; it makes no allowment (that I know of) to livelihoods lost by the theft of the work indefinitely, as AI boosters suggest their tools can do (replace people). The way this court case is going, it's an uphill battle for the plaintiffs to prove concrete harm in that very narrow context, when the r…
Github does give free copilot access to open source developers it considers important enough (which is a pretty low bar). While not the same as actually paying, it's the only example I can think of where the company that used people's copyrighted material actually gave something back to those people.
Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that "harm" as defined by copyright law is strictly limited to loss of sales due to breach of that copyright; it makes no allowment (that I know of) to livelihoods lost by the theft of the work indefinitely, as AI boosters suggest their tools can do (replace people). The way this court case is going, it's an uphill battle for the plaintiffs to prove concrete harm in that very narrow context, when the r…
Github does give free copilot access to open source developers it considers important enough (which is a pretty low bar). While not the same as actually paying, it's the only example I can think of where the company that used people's copyrighted material actually gave something back to those people.
What you’re describing is the Extend phase of Microsoft’s plan.