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

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

#371

Post by TeMPOraL » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 6:46 PM UTC

xdennis wrote: post #291

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…

> That a service incorporating the authors' works exists is not at issue. It's not an issue because it's not currently illegal because nobody could have foreseen this years ago. But it is profiting off of the unpaid work of millions. And there's very little chance of change because it's so hard to pass new protection laws when you're not Disney.

It's not an issue because it's not what this case was about, as the linked document explicitly states. The Authors did not contest the legality of the model's outputs, only the inputs used in training.

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

#372

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 6:48 PM UTC

blocko wrote: post #345

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealing? In what way? Training a generative model on a book is the mechanical equivalent of having a human read the book and learn from it. Is it stealing if a person reads the book and learns from it?

Depends on how closely that person can reproduce the original work without license or attribution

It actually depends on whether or not they reproduce it and especially what they do with the copy after making it.

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

#373

Post by CamperBob2 » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 6:49 PM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #93

CamperBob2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Shrug) If you want things to stay the same, both art and technology are bad career choices.

(Huh) What if you are in the field to advance it, and somebody steals your work and claims it as their own? e.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44460552

Bummer

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

#374

Post by timeon » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 6:51 PM UTC

whycome wrote: post #319

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.

So can we officially download pirated content to learn stuff now?

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

#375

Post by fortran77 » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 6:52 PM UTC

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 fine that you think that way. But this is a discusion of the laws of the United States of America and ruling by American courts, not a discussion of your own legal theories.

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

#376

Post by CaptainFever » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 6:53 PM UTC

maeln wrote: post #55

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?

If you wanted to be legit with 0 chance of going to court, you would contact publisher and ask to pay a license to get access to their catalog for training, and negotiate from that point. This is what every company using media are doing (think Spotify, Netflix, but also journal, ad agency, ...). I don't know why people in HN are giving a pass to AI company for this kind of behavior.

> I don't know why people in HN are giving a pass to AI company for this kind of behavior.

As mentioned in The Fucking Article, there's a legal difference between training an AI which largely doesn't repeat things verbatim (ala Anthropic) and redistributing media as a whole (ala Spotify, Netflix, journal, ad agency).

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

#377

Post by kenmacd » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 6:55 PM UTC

trinsic2 wrote: post #152

I'm not seeing how this is fair use in either case. Someone correct me if I am wrong but aren't these works being digitized and transformed in a way to make a profit off of the information that is included in these works? It would be one thing for an individual to make person use of one or more books, but you got to have some special blindness not to see that a for-profit company's use of this information to improve…

> to make a profit off of the information that is included in these works?

Isn't that what a lot of companies are doing, just through employees? I read a lot of books, and took a lot of courses, and now a company is profiting off that information.

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

#378

Post by amlib » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 6:55 PM UTC

nh23423fefe wrote: post #175

bgwalter wrote: post #119

Here is how individuals are treated for massive copyright infringement: https://investors.autodesk.com/news-releases/news-release-de...

What point are you making? 20 years ago, someone sold pirated copies of software (wheres the transformation here) and that's the same as using books in a training set? Judge already said reading isnt infringement. This is reaching at best.

Aren't you comparing the wrong things? First example is about the output/outcome, what is the equivalent for LLMs? Also, not all "pirated" things are sold, most are in fact distributed for free.

"Pirates" also transform the works they distribute. They crack it, translate it, compress it to decrease download times, remove unnecessary things, make it easier to download by splitting it in chunks (essential with dial-up, less so nowadays), change distribution formats, offer it trough different channels, bundle extra software and media that they themselves might have coded like trainers, installers, sick chiptunes and so on. Why is the "transformation" done by a big corpo more legal in your views?

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

#379

Post by timeon » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 6:56 PM UTC

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #45

pyman wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone on Twitter said: "Oh well, P2P mp3 downloads, although illegal, made contributions to the music industry" That's not what's happening here. People weren't downloading music illegally and reselling it on Claude.ai. And while P2P networks led to some great tech, there's no solid proof they actually improved the music industry.

I really feel as if Youtube is the best sort of convenience for music videos where most people watch ads whereas some people can use an ad blocker. I use an adblocker and tbh I think so many people on HN are okay with ad blocking and not piracy when basically both just block the end user from earning money. I kind of believe that if you really like a software, you really like something. Just ask them what their favou…

I think that critique of this case is not about piracy in itself but how these companies are treated by courts vs. how individuals are treated.

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

#380

Post by pier25 » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 7:00 PM UTC

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #212

dehrmann wrote: post #195

The important parts: > Alsup ruled that Anthropic's use of copyrighted books to train its AI models was "exceedingly transformative" and qualified as fair use > "All Anthropic did was replace the print copies it had purchased for its central library with more convenient space-saving and searchable digital copies for its central library — without adding new copies, creating new works, or redistributing existing copies…

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…

> buying, physically cutting up, physically digitizing books, and using them for training is fair use

So Suno would only really need to buy the physical albums and rip them to be able to generate music at an industrial scale?