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Judge approves $1.5B Anthropic settlement for pirated books used to train Claude

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Re: Judge approves $1.5B Anthropic settlement for pirated books used to train Claude

#11

Post by wgjordan »

BeetleB wrote: post #5
exabrial wrote: post #2

that number is missing a zero or two in front of the decimal point

As was pointed out, the settlement is for piracy, not training. They had already ruled that Anthropic's use of copyrighted material for training fell within fair use. As such, if you pirated a book and had to pay $3000 for that one instance, I don't think you'd like it if I said you should have paid $30K or $300K instead. If anything, this is analogous to the ridiculous fines people had to pay when pirating music. (N…

> As such, if you pirated a book and had to pay $3000 for that one instance, I don't think you'd like it if I said you should have paid $30K or $300K instead.

If you pirated a book for personal use the amount of liability wouldn't match a company whose profit could be attributed to pirating the same book. In US copyright law, a copyright infringer could be liable for "any profits of the infringer that are attributable to the infringement" [1] (if the copyright owner elects to recover actual damages and profits instead of statutory damages).

[1] 17 U.S.C. § 504(b), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/504

Re: Judge approves $1.5B Anthropic settlement for pirated books used to train Claude

#12

Post by renlo »

Varelion wrote: post #8

I sincerely don't understand what the point of these laws are, when the cost of flagrant violations is no more than a slap on the wrist -- these really meager sums that serve as nothing more than something to point at and say "Look, we did something!" Cover-your-ass strategy, and nothing more. Who, besides the ones at fault, are ever happy with these mean-nothing fines? The justice system really needs an overhaul wit…

the irony is that all of this money will go to rent-seeking publishers who won't pass it on to the artists; basically a dispute between the wealthy you're upset with

Re: Judge approves $1.5B Anthropic settlement for pirated books used to train Claude

#13

Post by Ritewut »

Varelion wrote: post #8

I sincerely don't understand what the point of these laws are, when the cost of flagrant violations is no more than a slap on the wrist -- these really meager sums that serve as nothing more than something to point at and say "Look, we did something!" Cover-your-ass strategy, and nothing more. Who, besides the ones at fault, are ever happy with these mean-nothing fines? The justice system really needs an overhaul wit…

The laws are for you and me not companies like Anthropic and Meta.

Re: Judge approves $1.5B Anthropic settlement for pirated books used to train Claude

#14

Post by [deleted] »

wgjordan wrote: post #11
BeetleB wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As was pointed out, the settlement is for piracy, not training. They had already ruled that Anthropic's use of copyrighted material for training fell within fair use. As such, if you pirated a book and had to pay $3000 for that one instance, I don't think you'd like it if I said you should have paid $30K or $300K instead. If anything, this is analogous to the ridiculous fines people had to pay when pirating music. (N…

> As such, if you pirated a book and had to pay $3000 for that one instance, I don't think you'd like it if I said you should have paid $30K or $300K instead. If you pirated a book for personal use the amount of liability wouldn't match a company whose profit could be attributed to pirating the same book. In US copyright law, a copyright infringer could be liable for "any profits of the infringer that are attributabl…

[deleted]

Re: Judge approves $1.5B Anthropic settlement for pirated books used to train Claude

#15

Post by trentor »

BeetleB wrote: post #5
exabrial wrote: post #2

that number is missing a zero or two in front of the decimal point

As was pointed out, the settlement is for piracy, not training. They had already ruled that Anthropic's use of copyrighted material for training fell within fair use. As such, if you pirated a book and had to pay $3000 for that one instance, I don't think you'd like it if I said you should have paid $30K or $300K instead. If anything, this is analogous to the ridiculous fines people had to pay when pirating music. (N…

Thomas-Rasset got 80k per song and Tennenbaum got 22k per song. The law says up to 150k per work. It was a gift.

Re: Judge approves $1.5B Anthropic settlement for pirated books used to train Claude

#16

Post by EmoteSupportBot »

jdlshore wrote: post #4

To be clear, the issue is not that the books were used to train Claude, but that they were pirated.

A critical distinction, because they were going to to find terabytes of not pirated books to train on that contained the sum history of humanities knowledge /s

Re: Judge approves $1.5B Anthropic settlement for pirated books used to train Claude

#18

Post by PunchyHamster »

Varelion wrote: post #8

I sincerely don't understand what the point of these laws are, when the cost of flagrant violations is no more than a slap on the wrist -- these really meager sums that serve as nothing more than something to point at and say "Look, we did something!" Cover-your-ass strategy, and nothing more. Who, besides the ones at fault, are ever happy with these mean-nothing fines? The justice system really needs an overhaul wit…

To keep users paying for content while companies do whatever they want - and if that's not the reason that's certainly an effect.

> The justice system really needs an overhaul with how it tackles "justice" between the wealthy, the connected, the corporations, and the rest. Though I am unsure what that would look like. Minimum net wealth per category of infraction across the board?

% of annual turnover seems like decent strategy. Caps the amount company can sue mere mortal for copyright infringement while at billion dollar company scale can wipe quite a bit

But main problem is enforcement and lobbying, not the size of the fine

Re: Judge approves $1.5B Anthropic settlement for pirated books used to train Claude

#19

Post by Aurornis »

Varelion wrote: post #8

I sincerely don't understand what the point of these laws are, when the cost of flagrant violations is no more than a slap on the wrist -- these really meager sums that serve as nothing more than something to point at and say "Look, we did something!" Cover-your-ass strategy, and nothing more. Who, besides the ones at fault, are ever happy with these mean-nothing fines? The justice system really needs an overhaul wit…

This is a settlement that the authors and Anthropic agreed upon.

They agreed on the amount last year. The judge approved it now.

The lawsuit was for the way the books were acquired. They already ruled that it's not infringement to use the books.

The award was $3,000 per book, which is about 100X higher than it would have cost to buy the books.

It's never going to appease the people who demand companies be sued into collapse, but given that both parties came to an agreement and the damages are 100X higher than what a book costs, it looks reasonable to me.

Re: Judge approves $1.5B Anthropic settlement for pirated books used to train Claude

#20

Post by amanaplanacanal »

EmoteSupportBot wrote: post #16
jdlshore wrote: post #4

To be clear, the issue is not that the books were used to train Claude, but that they were pirated.

A critical distinction, because they were going to to find terabytes of not pirated books to train on that contained the sum history of humanities knowledge /s

They could have purchased the books instead. It was easier to pirate.
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