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Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement

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Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement

#261
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would hardly make a dent. And if you hired hundreds of savants, the knowledge would still be spread over hundreds of separate minds. And even if we grant that those savants are also very skilled at creating "market substitutes" based on their training that are capable of competing with the original works, their maximum creative output would only be a relatively small number of new works, because they can only work…

Ok - but if a company were able to hire one million savants, you feel it should be illegal, because why? Can you cite something in the copyright laws themselves that suggest this scale distinction?

Your arguments boil down to "If someone were doing a completely different thing and that's ok, then why isn't this ok?" and "It's not in the text of the law so it's definitely fine."

The one million savants are humans, not machines. Humans get more rights automatically in our world today. That's the moral reason for why your example is not the same. The legal stuff will be worked out in the courts and legislatures of every country in the next 5 years.

Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Stealing/theft requires deprivation of property maybe you should look up the definition of property, which is a set of legally recognized rights over a thing, typically including: * possession (what you're focusing on) * use * exclusion * transfer The last 3 seem like they have been breached, in legally that's theft.

Theft is not the breach of any property right. It's specifically the deprivation of property without consent. Yes, I have checked the definition in my jurisdiction. Getting punched in the face also violates rights, yet isn't murder. Murder is specifically about dying.

You’re splitting hairs over a definition that isn’t relevant here (theft and copyright infringement are different things) to defend something that even you agree is bad.

Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. That's not to say that something damaging wasn't done, but nothing was stolen. Stealing/theft requires deprivation of property. It's like receiving a normal nonlethal punch in the face and calling it murder. Murder requires someone dying. > Theft [...] is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. --- ht…

>> Stealing/theft requires deprivation of property maybe you should look up the definition of property, which is a set of legally recognized rights over a thing, typically including: * possession (what you're focusing on) * use * exclusion * transfer The last 3 seem like they have been breached, in legally that's theft.

Violation of these rights may be criminal without meeting the strict legal definition of theft.

This can even extend to stealing physical property.

Depending on local laws, stealing a car may not actually be theft if the defendent can prove they intended to return it before the owner got home from work, though it would certainly be considered theft in the colloquial sense of the term, and they would still be guilty of a lesser offense like civil and/or criminal conversion.

Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Stealing/theft requires deprivation of property maybe you should look up the definition of property, which is a set of legally recognized rights over a thing, typically including: * possession (what you're focusing on) * use * exclusion * transfer The last 3 seem like they have been breached, in legally that's theft.

Theft is not the breach of any property right. It's specifically the deprivation of property without consent. Yes, I have checked the definition in my jurisdiction. Getting punched in the face also violates rights, yet isn't murder. Murder is specifically about dying.

You forget that laws are made by people and at anytime they can change interpretations are arbitrary, roe vs wade today but not tomorrow.

People seem to think what ai is today is theft. If enough people agree, it will be theft. Big companies dont like this and push the other way. An objectiveness doesnt exist here. It is too wiggly

Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theft is not the breach of any property right. It's specifically the deprivation of property without consent. Yes, I have checked the definition in my jurisdiction. Getting punched in the face also violates rights, yet isn't murder. Murder is specifically about dying.

You’re splitting hairs over a definition that isn’t relevant here (theft and copyright infringement are different things) to defend something that even you agree is bad.

It isn't splitting hairs. The damages are completely different in nature.

With theft, the entire damage is the deprivation. It could be an heirloom or some other object that may have been entrusted to you, something that can never be replaced, memorabilia of loved ones. Something that you may have needed in your posession to survive (e.g. a car to go to your job).

With a given copyright violation, the damage is that maybe[1] you made less profit than you could have. The potential for profit is not property. Profit isn't guaranteed.

[1] The loss is not certain, because there's no guarantee that the ones consuming the copyrighted content could have even afforded it.

Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement

#266
post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it grating that so many AI boosters try to frame pushing back against the AI industry as a sudden about-face for everyone that spent the last 20 years pushing back against the copyright industry. I’m also in favor of decriminalizing or legalizing small amounts of pot for personal use. That doesn’t mean I’m behind industrialized narcotic production on such a huge scale that it that it starts to distort the econ…

It would be disingenuous framing because the argument against copyright stems from a belief that information should be free. Meta does not do things in this spirit. There's no about face needed...

> It would be disingenuous framing because the argument against copyright stems from a belief that information should be free. Meta does not do things in this spirit.

Don't they? They release the llama model weights, they do things like this:

https://www.opencompute.org/wiki/Open_Rack/SpecsAndDesigns

They also make significant contributions to Linux and are the originators of popular open source projects like zstd and React.

They make their money from selling ads, not selling licenses.

Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Stealing/theft requires deprivation of property maybe you should look up the definition of property, which is a set of legally recognized rights over a thing, typically including: * possession (what you're focusing on) * use * exclusion * transfer The last 3 seem like they have been breached, in legally that's theft.

Violation of these rights may be criminal without meeting the strict legal definition of theft. This can even extend to stealing physical property. Depending on local laws, stealing a car may not actually be theft if the defendent can prove they intended to return it before the owner got home from work, though it would certainly be considered theft in the colloquial sense of the term, and they would still be guilty o…

> Depending on local laws, stealing a car may not actually be theft if the defendent can prove they intended to return it before the owner got home from work

I doubt there's even one place where the law works like that.

Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How are these fruits "stolen" if they still have what was allegedley stolen? If you write a book and I take it and embed its knowledge into my product that is so pervasive that no one needs to buy your book any more (and I don't even credit you so no one knows where that knowledge came from), to you really still have what was stolen? And I didn't even buy a copy of your book to copy it.

Yes. That's not to say that something damaging wasn't done, but nothing was stolen. Stealing/theft requires deprivation of property. It's like receiving a normal nonlethal punch in the face and calling it murder. Murder requires someone dying. > Theft [...] is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. --- ht…

My God, I can't believe chodes are still playing this "how many angels can you fit on the head of a pin" navel gazing semantic argument. Thirty years at least, it was all you saw on fin de ciecle Slashdot from anyone with a six-digit UID. No one cares about your hyper literalist meaning of "theft," that's not the goddamn point. Christ, this place looks like Reddit more and more.

This isn't a court of law. We don't have to talk like lawyers. If you replaced "theft" with "copyright infringement" in the comment you had such a problem with, what meaningfully changes besides we all have about five additional brain cells?

Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement

#269

Funny how people are suddenly on Elsevier's side. It's clear to me that AI training is transformative fair use under existing law. Maybe this will be the case to prove it.

It's not settled law so I'm not sure how that's clear to you.

Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement

#270

Funny how people are suddenly on Elsevier's side. It's clear to me that AI training is transformative fair use under existing law. Maybe this will be the case to prove it.

I think this completely misses the point... the point is that Meta pirated the media they used to train their model.

I am not a fan of US copyright law, but if I torrented millions of books, I would be facing a felony charge in criminal court and a (with statutory damages as high as $150,000 per title in cases of willful infringement) multi-billion dollar lawsuit in civil court.

In my opinion, this has nothing to do with whether or not AI training is transformative and this fair use, and everything to do with whether or not the laws apply to everyone equally. If Facebook isn't forced to pay billions and elect a sacrificial executive to serve prison time, then I will remain angry.

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