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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

#311

Post by 827a »

redcobra762 wrote: post #258
codedokode wrote: post #246

If AI companies are allowed to use pirated material to create their products, does it mean that everyone can use pirated software to create products? Where is the line? Also please don't use word "learning", use "creating software using copyrighted materials". Also let's think together how can we prevent AI companies from using our work using technical measures if the law doesn't work?

It's abusive and wrong to try and prevent AI companies from using your works at all. The whole point of copyright is to ensure you're paid for your work. AI companies shouldn't pirate, but if they pay for your work, they should be able to use it however they please, including training an LLM on it. If that LLM reproduces your work, then the AI company is violating copyright, but if the LLM doesn't reproduce your work…

Current copyright law is not remotely sophisticated enough to make determinations on AI fair use. Whether the courts say current AI use is fair is irrelevant to the discussion most people on this side would agree with: That we need new laws. The work the AI companies stole to train on was created under a copyright regime where the expectation was that, eh, a few people would learn from and be inspired from your work, and that feels great because you're empowering other humans. Scale does not amplify Good. The regime has changed. The expectations under what kinds of use copyright protects against has fundamentally changed. The AI companies invented New Horrors that no one could have predicted, Vader altered the deal, no reasonable artist except the most forward-thinking sci-fi authors would have remotely guessed what their work would be used for, and thus could never have conciously and fairly agreed to this exchange. Very few would have agreed to it.

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

#312

Post by buildbot »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #297
zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they really steal if they didn't deprive anyone of their copy? I don't think copying is theft.

You may not think it is but the law does.

The law says it’s copyright infringement, not theft.

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

#313

Post by OkayPhysicist »

platunit10 wrote: post #284

Every time an article like this surfaces, it always seems like the majority of tech folks believe that training AI on copyrighted material is NOT fair use, but the legal industry disagrees. Which of the following are true? (a) the legal industry is susceptible to influence and corruption (b) engineers don't understand how to legally interpret legal text (c) AI tech is new, and judges aren't technically qualified to d…

There's a lot of conflation of "should/shouldn't" and "is/isn't". The comments by tech folk you're alluding to mostly think that it "shouldn't" be fair use, out of concern about the societal consequences, whereas judges are looking at it and saying that it "is" fair use, based on the existing law.

Any reasonable reading of the current state of fair use doctrine makes it obvious that the process between Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and "A computer program that outputs responses to user prompts about a variety of topics" is wildly transformative, and thus the usage of the copyrighted material is probably covered by fair use.

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

#314

Post by xdennis »

redcobra762 wrote: post #258
codedokode wrote: post #246

If AI companies are allowed to use pirated material to create their products, does it mean that everyone can use pirated software to create products? Where is the line? Also please don't use word "learning", use "creating software using copyrighted materials". Also let's think together how can we prevent AI companies from using our work using technical measures if the law doesn't work?

It's abusive and wrong to try and prevent AI companies from using your works at all. The whole point of copyright is to ensure you're paid for your work. AI companies shouldn't pirate, but if they pay for your work, they should be able to use it however they please, including training an LLM on it. If that LLM reproduces your work, then the AI company is violating copyright, but if the LLM doesn't reproduce your work…

> It's abusive and wrong to try and prevent AI companies from using your works at all.

People don't view moral issues in the abstract.

A better perspective on this is the fact that human individuals have created works which megacorps are training on for free or for the price of a single book and creating models which replace individuals.

The megacorps are only partially replacing individuals now, but when the models get good enough they could replace humans entirely.

When such a future happens will you still be siding with them or with individual creators?

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

#315

Post by freejazz »

superfrank wrote: post #247
throwawayffffas wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So all they have to do is go and buy a copy of each book they pirated. They will have ceased and desisted.

I'm trying to find the quote, but I'm pretty sure the judge specifically said that going and buying the book after the fact won't absolve them of liability. He said that for the books they pirated they broke the law and should stand trial for that and they cannot go back and un-break in by buying a copy now. Found it: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/federal-judge-rules-c... > “That Anthropic later bought a cop…

They also argued that they in no way could ever actually license all the materials they ingested

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

#316

Post by [deleted] »

zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #287
superfrank wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to find the quote, but I'm pretty sure the judge specifically said that going and buying the book after the fact won't absolve them of liability. He said that for the books they pirated they broke the law and should stand trial for that and they cannot go back and un-break in by buying a copy now. Found it: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/federal-judge-rules-c... > “That Anthropic later bought a cop…

Did they really steal if they didn't deprive anyone of their copy? I don't think copying is theft.

[deleted]

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

#317

Post by marapuru »

reaperducer wrote: post #193
marapuru wrote: post #31

Apparently it's a common business practice. Spotify (even though I can't find any proof) seems to have build their software and business on pirated music. There is some more in this Article [0]. https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-beta-used-pirate-mp3-files... Funky quote: > Rumors that early versions of Spotify used ‘pirate’ MP3s have been floating around the Internet for years. People who had access to the service in…

Apparently it's a common business practice. It's not a common business practice. That's why it's considered newsworthy. People on the internet have forgotten that the news doesn't report everyday, normal, common things, or it would be nothing but a listing of people mowing their lawns or applying for business loans. The reason something is in the news is because it is unusual or remarkable. "I saw it online, so it mu…

You are right on that. I’ll edit my post to reflect that.

Edit: Apologies, I can’t edit it anymore.

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

#318

Post by js8 »

pyman wrote: post #18
ramon156 wrote: post #10

Pirate and pay the fine is probably hell of a lot cheaper than individually buying all these books. I'm not saying this is justified, but what would you have done in their situation? Sayi "they have the money" is not an argument. It's about the amount of effort that is needed to individually buy, scan, process millions of pages. If that's done for you, why re-do it all?

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…

> 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 think this is a fantasy. My father cowrote a Springer book about physics. For the effort, he got like $400 and 6 author copies.

Now, you might say he got a bad deal (or the book was bad), but I don't think hundreds of thousands of authors do significantly better. The reality is, people overwhelmingly write because they want to, not because of money.

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

#319

Post by whycome »

codedokode wrote: post #246

If AI companies are allowed to use pirated material to create their products, does it mean that everyone can use pirated software to create products? Where is the line? Also please don't use word "learning", use "creating software using copyrighted materials". Also let's think together how can we prevent AI companies from using our work using technical measures if the law doesn't work?

But the AI used the content to learn how to copy and recreate it. Is ‘re-creation’ a better concept for us?

People already use pirated software for product creation.

Hypothetical:

I know a guy who learned photoshop on a pirated copy of Photoshop. He went on to be a graphic designer. All his earnings are ‘proceeds from crime’

He never used the pirated software to produce content.

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

#320

Post by CaptainFever »

impossiblefork wrote: post #100
x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright infringement is not stealing.

It's very similar to theft of service. There's so many texts, and they're so sparse that if I could copyright a work and never publish it, the restriction would be irrelevant. The probability that you would accidentally come upon something close enough that copyright was relevant is almost infinitesimal. Because of this copyright is an incredibly weak restriction, and that it is as weak as it is shows clearly that an…

> Consequently I think copyright infringement might actually be worse than stealing.

I remember when piracy wasn't theft, and information wanted to be free.

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