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Uploading Pirated Books via BitTorrent Qualifies as Fair Use, Meta Argues

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Re: Uploading Pirated Books via BitTorrent Qualifies as Fair Use, Meta Argues

#131

Post by AlienRobot »

Sayrus wrote: post #7

> Anyone who uses BitTorrent to transfer files automatically uploads content to other people, as it is inherent to the protocol. In other words, the uploading wasn’t a choice, it was simply how the technology works. What an argument to make in court. It can be proved false in minutes by the plaintiffs.

My client didn't "buy" illegal drugs. He received illegal drugs. But anyone who makes a drug deal automatically sends money to the drug dealer, as inherent of the protocol. In other words, "giving money for drugs" wasn't a choice, it was simply how drug deals work.

Re: Uploading Pirated Books via BitTorrent Qualifies as Fair Use, Meta Argues

#132

Post by gzread »

muyuu wrote: post #108
gzread wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and the protocol doesn't enforce you upload anything. The original design called for some kind of tit-for-tat algorithm, but it's long obsolete and you get whatever bandwidth the seeder has.

If you try to download any significant file with zero-upload, you will run out of peers that will share with you much earlier than you will download the file. It's not practical. Most people that speak of leeching or not seeding really are talking about not seeding at all after they've completed. In fact, most clients will let you set upload speeds to a trickle but not zero (zero means unlimited in most clients). Fro…

Seeders don't know how much data you shared with other leechers.

Re: Uploading Pirated Books via BitTorrent Qualifies as Fair Use, Meta Argues

#133

Post by Hamuko »

mikkupikku wrote: post #57
dizzy9 wrote: post #35

Some of us are old enough to remember when the RIAA sued children for downloading Metallica albums on filesharing networks. They sued for $100,000 per song, an absurd amount when you consider that even stealing a physical album would amount only to around $1 per song. What was bizarre was that courts took the figure seriously, even if they typically settled cases for around $3,000, still around 30x actual damages. Th…

Remember that Metallica band members played an active driving role in those lawsuits against their own underage fans. It wasn't just the RIAA / record company organizations behaving cruelly, it was Metallica themselves. Fuck Metallica.

Not that surprising considering that James Hetfield has no qualms about his music being used for literal torture.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/19/usa.guantanamo

Re: Uploading Pirated Books via BitTorrent Qualifies as Fair Use, Meta Argues

#134

Post by themafia »

tzs wrote: post #87
dizzy9 wrote: post #35

Some of us are old enough to remember when the RIAA sued children for downloading Metallica albums on filesharing networks. They sued for $100,000 per song, an absurd amount when you consider that even stealing a physical album would amount only to around $1 per song. What was bizarre was that courts took the figure seriously, even if they typically settled cases for around $3,000, still around 30x actual damages. Th…

You are off a bit on the numbers. First, though, the RIAA suits were not for downloading. The suits were for distribution. Here is how their enforcement actions generally went. 1. They would initially send a letter asking for around $3 per song that was being shared, threatening to sue if not paid. This typically came to a total in the $2-3k range. There were a few where the initial request was for much more such as…

> the RIAA suits were not for downloading

They were not all the same, some were fairly complicated cases, and one was undoubtedly for distribution.

`The court’s instructions defined “reproduction” to include “[t]he act of downloading copyrighted sound recordings on a peer-to-peer network.”'

From:

https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/11-282...

Re: Uploading Pirated Books via BitTorrent Qualifies as Fair Use, Meta Argues

#135

Post by AlienRobot »

everdrive wrote: post #122

Everyone's pointing out the obvious hypocrisy here, but I think it's more interesting if Meta succeeds in making this argument: can I just steal any book I want and share it with anyone? Does the same apply to music, movies, TV shows, and video games?

Only if you are Facebook.

Re: Uploading Pirated Books via BitTorrent Qualifies as Fair Use, Meta Argues

#136

Post by muyuu »

gzread wrote: post #132
muyuu wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you try to download any significant file with zero-upload, you will run out of peers that will share with you much earlier than you will download the file. It's not practical. Most people that speak of leeching or not seeding really are talking about not seeding at all after they've completed. In fact, most clients will let you set upload speeds to a trickle but not zero (zero means unlimited in most clients). Fro…

Seeders don't know how much data you shared with other leechers.

Yes. So?

Re: Uploading Pirated Books via BitTorrent Qualifies as Fair Use, Meta Argues

#137

Post by AlienRobot »

iririririr wrote: post #117

"i shoot them as it was fair use to taking their wallet. that's how the protocol work." how much you have to bribe a judge to even begin to consider saying that in a defense?

Every pirate website can claim fair use in its footer. Doesn't mean the judge will take it seriously.

Re: Uploading Pirated Books via BitTorrent Qualifies as Fair Use, Meta Argues

#138

Post by themafia »

jazz9k wrote: post #39
dizzy9 wrote: post #35

Some of us are old enough to remember when the RIAA sued children for downloading Metallica albums on filesharing networks. They sued for $100,000 per song, an absurd amount when you consider that even stealing a physical album would amount only to around $1 per song. What was bizarre was that courts took the figure seriously, even if they typically settled cases for around $3,000, still around 30x actual damages. Th…

Children can commit crimes too. It's funny, because now in the age of AI, many of the people that support piracy are now trying to stop AI companies from doing the same thing.

We support copyright reform not piracy. The reason we do is because corporate giants have weaponized the system for their own ends and not for our useful promotion of the arts and sciences.

So.. I don't think it's appropriate for billion dollar companies to abuse copyrighted authored material for their own profit streams. They have the money. They can either pay or not use the material.

Re: Uploading Pirated Books via BitTorrent Qualifies as Fair Use, Meta Argues

#139

Post by unforgivenpasta »

I wonder if big companies will now start paying shadow libraries like annas archive for direct access, to minimize publicity of how training data was acquired, like Nvidia supposedly did?

Few tens of thousands of dollars is a rounding error in Meta's bottom line but if this case goes anything like the Anthropic one, I would see it likely.

Of course it wouldn't prevent authors from asking LLM's for content from their books and suing Meta again but I imagine authors would be less likely to with less evidence.

Re: Uploading Pirated Books via BitTorrent Qualifies as Fair Use, Meta Argues

#140

Post by bryan_w »

muyuu wrote: post #110
blamestross wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"tit-for-tat" trading of chunks only happens between peers that both are actively downloading. Seeding nodes just let anybody leech. You totally CAN disable all uploads in the torrent protocol. Just set the "upload budget" to zero in most clients. Just nobody realizes they can do that. Bittorrent is wildly successful in part because every popular client makes it nontrivial to "opt out" of it's more socialist componen…

Tit-for-tat kicks in. It's fine for smaller files to just jump peers with zero upload, but i reckon Meta would have found it challenging to download very large files without sharing. It's certainly much faster if you don't get throttled or banned by many peers.

Would you say that generally books would be considered a small file or a BIG file?
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