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XCancel service is suspended until further notice

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Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No kidding. I dunno what kind of traffic loss Wikipedia has had but SO is really dead these days If they weren't competing with AI then why is AI killing it?

There's a difference between creating a market for something better, so that nobody wants the old thing, and competing _in_ the market for the old thing by copying it directly.

I don't really buy this.

It's like saying "toaster oven/air fryer combos" don't actually compete with toaster ovens or air fryers because they are creating a market for something better

Of course they complete.

Toaster ovens compete with toasters. Microwaves compete with toaster ovens.

Just because it's not the exact same product doesn't mean it's not competing

Would I be allowed to steal LG's designs for a microwave and make a "superwave" that does laundry and heats food? Would you claim those products don't compete because the superwave is "something better"?

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#282
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should visiting a page on your computer count as copying? Because there's no physical mechanism for the information to be transmitted over a computer network other than by copying the bytes . Note this is distinct from broadcast systems like analog television or radio. Packet switching networks only function by copying information and storing multiple copies around the internet, including in your computer's RAM…

> Because there's no physical mechanism for the information to be transmitted over a computer network other than by copying the bytes. Your response seems to ignore everything in my comment other than the second sentence. I was asking why that detail should matter as far as the law is concerned, and I gave some reasons I don't think that would be good or practical.

There's the matter of linking to copyrighted works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_aspects_of_hyperlink...

If your link is set up to make the image display immediately (that is, you wrap it in image tags, or as in one case, embed Instagram posts) then you may be violating copyright. What's more, in Europe, just a hyperlink to a copyrighted work violates copyright.

Conclusion: copyright is not about copying, it's about access.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember the golden rule of the golden rules: Who has the gold makes the rules.

If a society operates under a rule like this, it is no better than Russia or any other tyranny where law is for me but not for thee. This is not how it should work in a supposedly free and lawful country.

That’s how works everywhere

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Xcancel scrapes and then competes directly with X, whereas LLM labs scrape the internet to make an agentic intelligent bot, a transformative use of the scraped content. It seems unreasonable to stop there though; the agentic bots are designed and marketed as able to compete with the initially-scraped sources. I'm not convinced that a competitive use at one remove should be treated as not competitive.

I think that's more true in image generation than in text? At least, all the money is in LLMs that write code, not LLMs that write O'Reilley-style coding books.

If you have a websites that offers guides, how-tos or tutorials, LLMs directly compete with you. StackOverflow would also have a really good case

After all LLMs don't just code, they also answer questions and give step-by-step instructions. In terms of total userbase those features are used a lot more than writing code

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#285
post #99

Maybe instead of trying to get rid of services that provide a more convenient access to X to non-logged-in users, they should realize that there is a real market behind these services - users that will likely never sign up to X, but who want to read/watch some content without the incessant nagging and limitations that X subjects non-logged-in users to?

> without the incessant nagging and limitations that X subjects non-logged-in users to

That is directly the result of the evil pull of advertising. "Logged in" users are more valuable than "non-logged in" users to advertisers (because logged in ones are identified) and so what you are seeing as "nagging" is Shitter (formerly X, formerly Twitter) desperately trying to increase its ad revenue at your expense. You are watching enshittification right before your eyes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what free speech is.

Yes, it is. It seems self-evident to me that the speech on Twitter is more free when it isn't behind a login wall. How could it not be? If you'd like to provide an actual counter-argument, I'd be happy to consider it.

Free Speech isn’t about who is listening, it’s about who is speaking. Just because you can’t hear it doesn’t necessarily mean the person did not speak freely.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in theory if you took twitter content and then transformed it so it "summarizes" all tweets with an AI rather than posting the exact text, would that be allowed? Because that's stupid. These laws are stupid.

That's exactly the way UK courts are heading, see Getty vs Stability AI. The court ruled that there's no infringment because the model doesn't store exact copies, just derived weights, and therefore when it generates new images those aren't copies of protected works.

That's stupid, these courts are stupid

It should have nothing to do with storing copies it should have to do with what the models can produce. And it's clear they can produce copyrighted works, they've just been tuned so they don't.

That shouldn't satisfy anyone.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No kidding. I dunno what kind of traffic loss Wikipedia has had but SO is really dead these days If they weren't competing with AI then why is AI killing it?

There's a difference between creating a market for something better, so that nobody wants the old thing, and competing _in_ the market for the old thing by copying it directly.

If LLMs only made SO redundant by writing code and solving my technical problems autonomously so I never have to think about it, I would agree. But often I do ask LLMs technical questions, and they answer in great detail. And that part is a very direct SO competitor

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the way UK courts are heading, see Getty vs Stability AI. The court ruled that there's no infringment because the model doesn't store exact copies, just derived weights, and therefore when it generates new images those aren't copies of protected works.

That's stupid, these courts are stupid It should have nothing to do with storing copies it should have to do with what the models can produce. And it's clear they can produce copyrighted works, they've just been tuned so they don't. That shouldn't satisfy anyone.

[deleted]

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#290
it's going to be a cat and mouse game for as long as X can legally afford to keep it going (i.e. til the heat death of the universe)

regardless, no matter how hard elon turns the screws on their customers, people will continue to use twitter/X because "that's where everyone is" and places like HN will continue to allow these links because "that's where the news is" despite healthier alternatives like the Mastodon network and Bluesky existing.

whatever. i've redirected x to 0.0.0.0 when the first warning shot was fired and called it a day. rocks are looking like a great place to live under right about now anyway.

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