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Alibaba to ban Claude Code in workplace over alleged backdoor risks, source says

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Re: Alibaba to ban Claude Code in workplace over alleged backdoor risks, source says

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember how Kim Dotcom got destroyed for criminal copyright infringement? One would think the big tech CEOs would face the same fate, that police officers would rappel down helicopters, storm their mansions and bring them out in cuffs. Instead the AI companies reached these absurd settlements with publishers that made a mockery out of all the previous copyright enforcement victims.

Reminds me, did the AI companies redistribute that copyrighted material to others and make their money that way? Did Kim use the copyrighted material to generate something novel from it? copyright law literally says something isn’t infringement if it is a novel transformation. I get the jokes and criticism about AI companies fighting and complaining about competitors distilling, but this is a much weirder comparison.

They redistributed the statistical patterns of those copyrighted materials. Which perhaps should be treated similarly nos

As for your "technically not copyright infringement" defense. Those laws are from a time when those patterns couldnt be derived and dostributed at scale. A human had to learn and teach them. That made it different. The scale enabled my modern tech makes it a whole dofferent situation. The same way how one person standing a street corner people watching for a bit isnt that bad, but a whole constellation of flock cameras costantly montioring everyones movements and making it available to any of their customers is really really bad. The law will have to catch up to this

Re: Alibaba to ban Claude Code in workplace over alleged backdoor risks, source says

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I read Harry Potter I will remember some parts verbatim. Others I will tecall in only an abridged and lossy way. Does that make my brain copyright infringement? Does Disney now own all my output forever because some small part of me now has Harry Potter embedded?

Can you remember every part? Can you do this for every book in a library? Can you remember all that forever? If you just ignore anything that's inconvenient for your argument, you can make any argument you want.

>Can you remember every part? Can you do this for every book in a library? Can you remember all that forever?

None of those are relevant factors when it comes to copyright law. You don't get a pass for copyright infringement just because you're not copying the entire work. Same goes for a copy that's transient. You can't set up a bootleg movie theater in your home, even if you delete the movie file afterwards, and there's no trace of the movie aside from the viewers' vague memories.

Re: Alibaba to ban Claude Code in workplace over alleged backdoor risks, source says

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I read Harry Potter I will remember some parts verbatim. Others I will tecall in only an abridged and lossy way. Does that make my brain copyright infringement? Does Disney now own all my output forever because some small part of me now has Harry Potter embedded?

Does the law really not distinguish between mechanical processing of data, and humans learning from it? It seems surprising to be if every person who read a textbook is copyright infringing. It also seems surprising if something like a lossy compression algorithm is enough to protect you from copyright law. Somewhere between the two a line must be drawn… where we’d want to put that line, I guess, if up for quibbling.…

>Does the law really not distinguish between mechanical processing of data, and humans learning from it? It seems surprising to be if every person who read a textbook is copyright infringing. It also seems surprising if something like a lossy compression algorithm is enough to protect you from copyright law.

The google books and google thumbnails cases have so far upheld that even mechanical reproductions are allowed, depending on the context/usage.

Re: Alibaba to ban Claude Code in workplace over alleged backdoor risks, source says

#164
post #160
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Aaron Swartz did it for the benefit of other people. These fine people did it to uphold american values and enrich themselves at the expense of others. The law is clearly on their side.

This but unironically. "did it for the benefit of other people" is redistribution, which is straightforward copyright infringement, even if you think it's a laudable act. AI training was the reverse, because courts have so far ruled is fair use. When AI companies were engaging in piracy, they were sanctioned as well.

> When AI companies were engaging in piracy, they were sanctioned as well.

Some token settlement for an insignificant fraction of their revenue is not in any way a "sanction".

Re: Alibaba to ban Claude Code in workplace over alleged backdoor risks, source says

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don’t actually care, you just want them punished out of spite because some other guy was for doing something similar but not the same?

Correct. I'm one of the copyright abolitionists the other person alluded to. It's the selective enforcement that's disgusting. I mean, what is this? Their balls suddenly drop off? They only have the audacity to prosecute random people? Smaller companies? When they're up against trillion dollar AI companies they suddenly become cowards? That's so incredibly disgusting, and it made me completely lose even the small amo…

So you believe a dude was wrongly punished, and to you justice would be for everyone else to also be wrongly punished? Kind of dumb tbh

Re: Alibaba to ban Claude Code in workplace over alleged backdoor risks, source says

#166
post #31

[flagged]

The corollary is that there are no morals once the stakes are in the $ billions, let alone hundreds of billions. This isn't even about a single person or personality. Very few people in such position could stand fast by their moral code. In any case, an environment that favors profit above everything will naturally select for individuals who are unencumbered by such hindrances. There might've been 100s of Altmans and…

> The corollary is that there are no morals once the stakes are in the $ billions, let alone hundreds of billions.

terrifying

Re: Alibaba to ban Claude Code in workplace over alleged backdoor risks, source says

#167

Considering their massive distillation, if US companies stop publishing new models to the public, would China still be able to develop new open weight models?

Look at all of the software that has been developed as an alternative (and often an upgrade to) software in the west. (Baidu, Wechat, etc)

Many of the top AI researchers at western companies are from China, and many are returning.

Re: Alibaba to ban Claude Code in workplace over alleged backdoor risks, source says

#168
post #118
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Alibaba reuses the IP anthropic used to train the model that's more akin to historical Chinese reverse engineering methods and disrespect of IP Why is this any worse than Anthropic's disrepect of IP? You've apparently drawn a distinction between the two here, but I'm failing to see what it actually is.

Copyright law and IP law is not the same although everyone seem to conflate the two. Search engines for example historically ignored copyright law by copying excerpts or serving other site images, it doesn't mean someone copying Google's code has some moral frepass

> Search engines for example historically ignored copyright law by copying excerpts or serving other site images, it doesn't mean someone copying Google's code has some moral frepass

Not sure that's the best example as they lost that battle and had to pay, eventually it's been codified in law in most countries.

Re: Alibaba to ban Claude Code in workplace over alleged backdoor risks, source says

#169
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This but unironically. "did it for the benefit of other people" is redistribution, which is straightforward copyright infringement, even if you think it's a laudable act. AI training was the reverse, because courts have so far ruled is fair use. When AI companies were engaging in piracy, they were sanctioned as well.

> When AI companies were engaging in piracy, they were sanctioned as well. Some token settlement for an insignificant fraction of their revenue is not in any way a "sanction".

That just feels like more of a general complaint about how the justice system is set up. The same logic applies to how a $300 speeding ticket "is not in any way a "sanction"" for someone making $1M/year, or even a well paid SWE reading HN.

Re: Alibaba to ban Claude Code in workplace over alleged backdoor risks, source says

#170

Considering their massive distillation, if US companies stop publishing new models to the public, would China still be able to develop new open weight models?

It doesn't matter, the only models getting compared are the public ones.

If Anthropic had a super secret model that nobody has access to, I'm not sure why I should care about it since I can't access it.

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