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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

#51

Post by 999900000999 »

bgwalter wrote: post #25
ndiddy wrote: post #5

The 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 s…

The RIAA lawyers never had to demonstrate that copying a DVD cratered the sales of their clients. They just got high penalties for infringers almost by default. Now that big capital wants to steal from individuals, big capital wins again. (Unrelatedly, has Boies ever won a high profile lawsuit? I remember him from the Bush/Gore recount issue, where he represented the Democrats.)

Meta needs these books.

They seek to convert them into more products. The needs of the copyright holders , who are relatively small businesses and individuals are outweighed by the needs of Meta.

Sarah wanting to watch a movie or listen to music... Too bad she doesn't have an elite team of lawyers to justify whatever she wants.

In practice Meta has the money to stretch this out forever and at most pay inconsequential settlements.

YouTube largely did the same thing, knowingly violate copyright law, stack the deck with lawyers and fix it later.

Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI

#52

Post by danaris »

kazinator wrote: post #23
TimPC wrote: post #3

I 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…

Do you not understand that "fair use" is not some copyright free-for-all which lets you use works wholesale without attribution as if they were suddenly public domain? To make fair use of a book's passage, you have to cite it. The except has to be reasonably small. Without fair use, it would not be possible to write essays and book reviews that give quotes from books. That's what it's for. Not for having a machine re…

> To make fair use of a book's passage, you have to cite it.

That's not true. That's what's required for something not to be plagiarism, not for something not to be copyright infringement.

Fair use is not at all the same as academic integrity, and while academic use is one of the fair use exceptions, it's only one. The most you would have to do with any of the other fair use exceptions is credit where you got the material (not cite individual passages), because you're not necessarily even using those passages verbatim.

Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI

#53

Post by trinsic2 »

labrador wrote: post #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?" https://archive.is/Hg4Xr

> Can you prove harm?

Where was this argument when Napster was being sued?

Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI

#54

Post by Zambyte »

kranke155 wrote: post #32
bgwalter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The RIAA lawyers never had to demonstrate that copying a DVD cratered the sales of their clients. They just got high penalties for infringers almost by default. Now that big capital wants to steal from individuals, big capital wins again. (Unrelatedly, has Boies ever won a high profile lawsuit? I remember him from the Bush/Gore recount issue, where he represented the Democrats.)

Copyright was invented (in its modern form) by corporations. It will be uninvented if need be for corporations.

I'm curious what you mean by "in it's modern form". You seem to suggest there was a previous form that was not invented by corporations, but I don't believe that is the case.

Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI

#55

Post by Lerc »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #50

Let me make a clarifying statement since people confuse (purposely or just out of ignorance) what violating copyright for AI training can refer to: 1. Training AI on freely available copyright - Ambiguous legality, not really tested in court. AI doesn't actually directly copy the material it trains on, so it's not easy to make this ruling. 2. Circumventing payment to obtain copyright material for training - Unambiguo…

I'm not sure if Meta did anything illegal in 2. either.

I thought the copyright infringement was by the people who provided the copyrighted material when they did not have the rights to do so.

I may be wrong on this, but it would seem a reasonable protection for consumers in general. Meta is hardly an average consumer, but I doubt that matters in the case of the law. Having grounds to suspect that the provider did not have the rights might though.

Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI

#56

Post by A_D_E_P_T »

anshumankmr wrote: post #33
bgwalter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The RIAA lawyers never had to demonstrate that copying a DVD cratered the sales of their clients. They just got high penalties for infringers almost by default. Now that big capital wants to steal from individuals, big capital wins again. (Unrelatedly, has Boies ever won a high profile lawsuit? I remember him from the Bush/Gore recount issue, where he represented the Democrats.)

Interesting figure that guy. Here's this: >Boies also was on the Theranos board of directors,[2][74] raising questions about conflicts of interest.[75] Boies agreed to be paid for his firm's work in Theranos stock, which he expected to grow dramatically in value.[75][3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Boies That was one of the decisions of all time.

He was also the primary villain of John Carreyrou's account of Theranos' rise and fall -- Bad Blood -- as his firm attempted to bully and hound whistleblowers, and intimidate their families with baseless legal threats. Not a very nice or ethical guy.

Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI

#57

Post by internetter »

matkoniecz wrote: post #38
internetter wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meta did pirate the works but may be entitled to use them under fair use What fair use? Were the books promised to them by god or something?

"fair use" is a specific legal term

I'm aware. I was unsure what doctrine of fair use meta's behaviour could be defended as.

What am I, if not an LLM, ingesting copyrighted materials so that I may improve my own future outputs? Why is my own piracy not protected in the same manner?

Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI

#58

Post by ryoshu »

Zambyte wrote: post #54
kranke155 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright was invented (in its modern form) by corporations. It will be uninvented if need be for corporations.

I'm curious what you mean by "in it's modern form". You seem to suggest there was a previous form that was not invented by corporations, but I don't believe that is the case.

Copyright was first established by governments and the Church prior to the invention of corporations.

Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI

#59

Post by flessner »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #50

Let me make a clarifying statement since people confuse (purposely or just out of ignorance) what violating copyright for AI training can refer to: 1. Training AI on freely available copyright - Ambiguous legality, not really tested in court. AI doesn't actually directly copy the material it trains on, so it's not easy to make this ruling. 2. Circumventing payment to obtain copyright material for training - Unambiguo…

If the former ever gets tested in court, it's the end of the road. All major AI companies have trained on copyrighted work, one way or another.

What is inspiration? What is imitation? What is plagiarism? The lines aren't clearly drawn for humans... much less for LLMs.

Re: Judge said Meta illegally used books to build its AI

#60

Post by nickpsecurity »

flessner wrote: post #59
Workaccount2 wrote: post #50

Let me make a clarifying statement since people confuse (purposely or just out of ignorance) what violating copyright for AI training can refer to: 1. Training AI on freely available copyright - Ambiguous legality, not really tested in court. AI doesn't actually directly copy the material it trains on, so it's not easy to make this ruling. 2. Circumventing payment to obtain copyright material for training - Unambiguo…

If the former ever gets tested in court, it's the end of the road. All major AI companies have trained on copyrighted work, one way or another. What is inspiration? What is imitation? What is plagiarism? The lines aren't clearly drawn for humans... much less for LLMs.

The FairTrained models claim to train with only public domain and legal works. Companies are also licensing works. This company has a lawful, foundation model:

https://273ventures.com/kl3m-the-first-legal-large-language-...

So, it's really the majority of companies breaking the law who will be affected. Companies using permissible and licensed works will be fine. The other companies would finally have to buy large collections of content, too. Their billions will have go to something other than GPU's.

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