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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

#321

Post by DrillShopper »

redcobra762 wrote: post #289
DrillShopper wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole point of copyright is to ensure you're paid for your work. No. The point of copyright is that the author gets to decide under what terms their works are copied. That's the essence of copyright. In many cases, authors will happily sell you a copy of their work, but they're under no obligation to do so. They can claim a copyright and then never release their work to the general public. That's perfectly with…

We're operating under a model where the owner of the copyright has already sold their work. And while it's within their rights to stipulate conditions of the sale, they did not do that, and fair use of the work as governed under the laws the book was sold under encompasses its conversion into an LLM model. If the author didn't want their work to be included in an LLM, they should not have sold it, just like if an aut…

> fair use of the work as governed under the laws the book was sold under encompasses its conversion into an LLM model

If that were the case then this court case would not be ongoing

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

#322

Post by whycome »

xdennis wrote: post #314
redcobra762 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Those damn kind readers and libraries. Giving their single copy away when they just paid for the single.

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

#323

Post by seadan83 »

redcobra762 wrote: post #286
codedokode wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To load a printed book into a computer one has to reproduce it in digital form without authorization. That's making a copy.

Making a digital copy of a physical book is fair use under every legal structure I am aware of. When you do it for a transformative purpose (turning it into an LLM model) it's certainly fair use. But more importantly, it's ethical to do so, as the agreement you've made with the person you've purchased the book from included permission to do exactly that.

Per the ruling, the problem is the books were not purchased, they were downloaded from black market websites. It's akin to shoplifting, what you do later with the goods is a different matter.

Reasonable minds could debate the ethics of how the material was used, this ruling judged the usage was legal and fair use. The only problem is the material was in effect stolen.

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

#324

Post by AlotOfReading »

jasonlotito wrote: post #278
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You skipped quotes about the other important side: > But Alsup drew a firm line when it came to piracy. > "Anthropic had no entitlement to use pirated copies for its central library," Alsup wrote. "Creating a permanent, general-purpose library was not itself a fair use excusing Anthropic's piracy." That is, he ruled that - buying, physically cutting up, physically digitizing books, and using them for training is fair…

From my understanding: > pirating the books for their digital library is not fair use. "Pirating" is a fuzzy word and has no real meaning. Specifically, I think this is the cruz: > without adding new copies, creating new works, or redistributing existing copies Essentially: downloading is fine, sharing/uploading up is not. Which makes sense. The assertion here is that Anthropic (from this line) did not distribute the…

The legal context here is that "format shifting" has not previously been held to be sufficient for fair use on its own, and downloading for personal use has also been considered infringing. Just look at the numerous media industry lawsuits against individuals that only mention downloading, not sharing for examples.

It's a bit surprising that you can suddenly download copyrighted materials for personal use and and it's kosher as long as you don't share them with others.

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

#325

Post by hadlock »

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.

It's copyright infringement, which is not theft, they're legally distinct in the eyes of the law. This is partly why the "you wouldn't download a car" copyright ads were so widely mocked.

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

#326

Post by KoolKat23 »

codedokode wrote: post #259
adolph wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That a service incorporating the authors' works exists is not at issue. The plaintiffs' claims are, as summarized by Alsup: First, Authors argue that using works to train Claude’s underlying LLMs was like using works to train any person to read and write, so Authors should be able to exclude Anthropic from this use (Opp. 16). Second, to that last point, Authors further argue that the training was intended to memorize…

Computers cannot learn and are not subjects to laws. What happens, is a human takes a copyrighted work, makes an unauthorized digital copy, and loads it into a computer without authorization from copyright owner.

And they are not selling this or distributing this.

The model is very different.

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

#327

Post by eikenberry »

jasonlotito wrote: post #278
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You skipped quotes about the other important side: > But Alsup drew a firm line when it came to piracy. > "Anthropic had no entitlement to use pirated copies for its central library," Alsup wrote. "Creating a permanent, general-purpose library was not itself a fair use excusing Anthropic's piracy." That is, he ruled that - buying, physically cutting up, physically digitizing books, and using them for training is fair…

From my understanding: > pirating the books for their digital library is not fair use. "Pirating" is a fuzzy word and has no real meaning. Specifically, I think this is the cruz: > without adding new copies, creating new works, or redistributing existing copies Essentially: downloading is fine, sharing/uploading up is not. Which makes sense. The assertion here is that Anthropic (from this line) did not distribute the…

Given that downloading requires you to copy the data to download it, I'd think it would fall under "adding new copies".

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

#328

Post by accrual »

admissionsguy wrote: post #203
downrightmike wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, piracy sounds better than copyright violation. “Piracy” is mostly a rhetorical term in the context of copyright. Legally, it’s still called infringement or unauthorized copying. But industries and lobbying groups (e.g., RIAA, MPAA) have favored “piracy” for its emotional weight.

Does piracy have negative connotations? I thought everyone thought pirates were cool

Everyone but the person(s) affected by the pirates, I suppose.

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

#329

Post by KoolKat23 »

armada651 wrote: post #301
JimDabell wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> illegally copying and selling pirated software This is very different to what Anthropic did. Nobody was buying copies of books from Anthropic instead of the copyright holder.

I wouldn't be so sure about that statement, no one has ruled on the output of Anthropic's AI yet. If their AI spits out the original copy of the book then it is practically the same as buying a book from them instead of the copyright holder. We've only dealt with the fairly straight-forward legal questions so far. This legal battle is still far from being settled.

It is extremely likely this will be declared fair use in the end.

There's already one decision on a competitor.

It makes sense, if you think of how the model works.

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

#330

Post by seadan83 »

YPPH wrote: post #47
pyman wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Stealing" isn't an apt term here. Stealing a thing permanently deprives the owner of the thing. What you're describing is copyright infringement, not stealing. In this context, stealing is often used as a pejorative term to make piracy sound worse than it is. Except for mass distribution, piracy is often regarded as a civil wrong, and not a crime.

Then it is not possible to 'steal' an idea? Afaik 'to steal'is simply to take without permission. If the thing is abstract, then you might not have deprived the original owner of that thing. If the thing is a physical object, then the implication is tou now have physical possession (in which case your definition seemingly holds)

edit/addendum: considering this a bit more - the extent to which the original party is deprived of the stolen thing is pertinent for awarding damages. For example, imagine a small entity stealing from a large one, like a small creator steals dungeon and dragons rules. That doesn't deprive Hasbro of DnD, but it is still theft (we're assuming a verbatim copy here lifted directly from DnD books)

The example that I was pondering were shows in russia that were almost literally "the sampsons." Did that stop the Simpson's from airing in the US, its primary market? No, but it was still theft, something was taken without permission.

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