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

#41

Post by omnimus » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 11:23 AM UTC

pyman wrote: post #24

1oooqooq wrote: post #21

[flagged]

He downloaded millions of academic articles and the government charged him with multiple felonies. The difference is, Aaron Swartz wasn't planning to build massive datacenters with expensive Nvidia servers all over the world.

It's even worse considering all he downloaded was in public domain so it was much less problematic considering copyright.

Lesson is simple. If you want to break a law make sure it is very profitable because then you can find investors and get away with it. If you play robin hood you will be met with a hammer.

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

#42

Post by pyman » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 11:23 AM UTC

motbus3 wrote: post #35

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…

They had a second company (which I don't remember the name) that allowed users to backup and share their music. When they were exposed they dug that as deep as they could

No. There's no credible evidence Spotify had any secret second company that allowed users to back up and share music without authorisation

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

#43

Post by pyman » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 11:26 AM UTC

KoolKat23 wrote: post #40

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…

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.

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

#44

Post by lofaszvanitt » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 11:26 AM UTC

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…

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.

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

#45

Post by Imustaskforhelp » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 11:27 AM UTC

pyman wrote: post #8

originalvichy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least most pirates just consume for personal use. Profiting from piracy is a whole other level beyond just pirating a book.

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 favourite charity is and donate their or join their patreon/a direct way to support them.

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

#46

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 11:27 AM UTC

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…

"recording obtained unofficially" and "doesn't have rights to the recording" are separate things. So they could well have got a license to stream a publisher's music but that didn't come with an actual copy of some/all of the music.

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

#47

Post by YPPH » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 11:27 AM UTC

pyman wrote: post #43

KoolKat23 wrote: post #40

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.

"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.

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

#48

Post by pyman » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 11:32 AM UTC

lofaszvanitt wrote: post #44

pyman wrote: 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.

:D

Note: My definition of singularity isn't the one they use in San Francisco. It's the moment founders who stole the life's work of thousands of teachers finally go to prison, and their datacentres get seized.

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

#49

Post by lofaszvanitt » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 11:33 AM UTC

pyman wrote: 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?

This is the underlying caste system coming to life right before your eyes :D.

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

#50

Post by j_w » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 11:36 AM UTC

KoolKat23 wrote: post #27

originalvichy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least most pirates just consume for personal use. Profiting from piracy is a whole other level beyond just pirating a book.

This isn't really profiting from piracy. They don't make money off the raw input data. It's no different to consuming for personal use. They make money off the model weights, which is fair use (as confirmed by recent case law).

This is absurd. Remove all of the content from the training data that was pirated and what is the quality of the end product now?