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Anthropic cut up millions of used books, and downloaded 7M pirated ones – judge

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Re: Anthropic cut up millions of used books, and downloaded 7M pirated ones – judge

#101

If the AI movement will manage to undermine Imaginary Property, it would redeem it's externalities threefold.

It's true that intellectual property is a flawed and harmful mechanism for supporting creative work, and it needs to change, but I don't think ensuring a positive outcome is as simple as this. Whether or not such a power struggle between corporate interests benefits the public rather than just some companies will be largely accidental.

I do support intellectual property reform that would be considered radical by some, as I imagine you do. But my highest hopes for this situation are more modest: if AI companies are told that their data must be in the public domain to train against, we will finally have a powerful faction among capitalists with a strong incentive to push back against the copyright monopolists when it comes to the continuous renewal of copyright terms.

If the "path of least resistance" for companies like Google, Microsoft, and Meta becomes enlarging the public domain, we might finally begin to address the stagnation of the public domain, and that could be a good thing.

But I think even such a modest hope as that one is unlikely to be realized. :-\

Re: Anthropic cut up millions of used books, and downloaded 7M pirated ones – judge

#102
post #29
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't "pirating" a felony with jail time, though? That's what I remember from the FBI warning I had to see at the beginning of every DVD I bought (but not "pirated" ones).

[flagged]

A court just ruled on Anthropic and said an LLM response wasn't a form of counterfeiting (ie, essentially selling pirate books on the black market). Although tbf that is the most radical interpretation still being put forward by the lawyers of publishers like NYTimes, despite the obvious flaws.

Re: Anthropic cut up millions of used books, and downloaded 7M pirated ones – judge

#103

If the AI movement will manage to undermine Imaginary Property, it would redeem it's externalities threefold.

I don’t think that’s gonna happen. I think they will manage to get themselves out of trouble for it, while the rest of us will still face serious problems if we are caught torrenting even one singular little book.

The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls

Re: Anthropic cut up millions of used books, and downloaded 7M pirated ones – judge

#104
post #7

These are the people shaping the future of AI? What happened to all the ethical values they love to preach about? We've held China accountable for counterfeiting products for decades and regulated their exports. So why should Anthropic be allowed to export their products and services after engaging in the same illegal activity?

One rule for you, one rule for me ...

You never noticed the hypocrite behavior all over society?

* O, you drunk drive, big fine, lots of trouble. * O, you drunk drive and are a senator, cop, mayor, ... Well, lets look the other way.

* You have anger management issues and slam somebody to the ground. Jail time. * You as a cop have anger management issues and slams somebody to the ground. Well, paid time off while we investigate and maybe a reprimand. Qualified immunity boy!

* You tax fraud for 10k, felony record, maybe jail time. * You as a exec of a company do tax fraud for 100 million. After 10 years lawyering around, maybe you get something, maybe, ... o, here is a fine of 5 million.

I am sorry but the idea of everybody being equal under the law has always been a illusion.

We are holding China accountable for counterfeiting products because it hurts OUR companies, and their income. But when its "us vs us", well, then it becomes a bit more messy and in general, those with the biggest backing (as in $$$, economic value, and lawyers), tends to win.

Wait, if somebody steal my book, i can sue that person in court, and get a payout (lawyers will cost me more but that is not the point). If some AI company steals my book, well, the chance you win is close to 1%, simply because lots of well paid lawyers will make your winning hard to impossible.

Our society has always been based upon power, wealth and influence. The more you have of it, the more you get away (or reduced) with things, that gets other fined or jailed.

Re: Anthropic cut up millions of used books, and downloaded 7M pirated ones – judge

#105
I've begun to wonder if this is why some large torrent sites haven't been taken down. They are essentially able to crowdsource all the work. There are some users who spend ungodly amounts of time and money on these sites that I suspect are rich industry benefactors.

Re: Anthropic cut up millions of used books, and downloaded 7M pirated ones – judge

#106
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of startups gone legitimate. Society underestimates the chasm that exists between an idea and raising sufficient capital to act on those ideas. Plenty of people have ideas. We only really see those that successfully cross it. Small things EULA breaches, consumer licenses being used commercially for example.

There's no credible evidence Spotify built their company and business on pirated music. This is a narrative that gets passed around in certain circles to justify stealing content.

> There's no credible evidence Spotify built their company and business on pirated music.

That's a statement carefully crafted to be impossible to disprove. Of course they shipped pirated music (I've seen the files). Of course anyone paying attention knew. Nothing in the music industry was "clean" in those days. But, sure, no credible evidence because any evidence anyone shows you you'll decide is not credible. It's not in anyone's interests to say anything and none of it matters.

Re: Anthropic cut up millions of used books, and downloaded 7M pirated ones – judge

#107

If the AI movement will manage to undermine Imaginary Property, it would redeem it's externalities threefold.

Yup.

My response to this whole thread is just “good”

Aaron Swartz is a saint and a martyr.

Re: Anthropic cut up millions of used books, and downloaded 7M pirated ones – judge

#108

If the AI movement will manage to undermine Imaginary Property, it would redeem it's externalities threefold.

What are your feelings about how the small fish is stripped of their arts, and their years of work becomes just a prompt? Mainly comic artists and small musicians who are doing things they like and putting out for people, but not for much money?

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Re: Anthropic cut up millions of used books, and downloaded 7M pirated ones – judge

#109
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this thinking is that hundreds of thousands of teachers who spent years writing great, useful books and sharing knowledge and wisdom probably won't sue a billion dollar company for stealing their work. What they'll likely do is stop writing altogether. I'm against Anthropic stealing teacher's work and discouraging them from ever writing again. Some teachers are already saying this (though probably no…

They won't be needed anymore, once singularity is reached. This might be their thought process. This also exemplifies that the loathed caste system found in India is indeed in place in western societies. There is no equality, and seemingly there are worker bees who can be exploited, and there are privileged ones, and of course there are the queens.

> They won't be needed anymore, once singularity is reached.

And it just so happens that that belief says they can burn whatever they want down because something in the future might happen that absolves them of those crimes.

Re: Anthropic cut up millions of used books, and downloaded 7M pirated ones – judge

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think I have worded my question wrong. I asked about not about how AI affects the financials of these smaller artists, but their wellbeing in general. There are many small artists who do this not for money, but for fun and have their renowned styles. Even their styles are ripped off by these generative AI companies and turned into a slot machine to earn money for themselves. These artists didn't consent to that, an…

I see your point, "AI art" sucks in general and this is ethically sketchy as hell, but AIAK style copying has never been covered by copyright in the first place. Yea, it sucks to be alienated form your works. That's one of the externalites I mentioned in the original comment. But there is simply no remedy there. That's how the reality is.
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