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

#431

Post by KoolKat23 » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 7:59 PM UTC

cmiles74 wrote: post #425

KoolKat23 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they are not selling this or distributing this. The model is very different.

I have to disagree, without all the copyrighted input data there would be no output data for these companies to sell. This output data is the product and they are distributing it for dollars.

Copyright is concerned with the the actual physical copy. The model isn't this. The end user would have to carefully prompt the models algorithm to output a copyright infringing piece.

This argument is more along the lines of: blaming Microsoft Word for someone typing characters into the word processors algorithm, and outputting a copy of an existing book. (Yes, it is a lot easier, but the rationale is the same). In my mind the end user prompting the model would be the one potentially infringing.

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

#432

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 8:00 PM UTC

recursive wrote: post #428

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Needing a copy of one book you're going to spend a week reading has a lot less overhead than needing a copy of every book that you're going to process with a computer in bulk.

I like to glance at the cover art. I can do ten per second when I really get into my flow state. Sometimes I read them also, but that's incidental.

If you go to the book store and glance at all the cover art without buying any of them, do you expect to be sued for this?

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

#433

Post by impossiblefork » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 8:00 PM UTC

CaptainFever wrote: post #320

impossiblefork wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So do I, then I found this reasoning I presented in my comment and realised that piracy was actually quite bad.

Ordinary property is much worse than copyright, which is both time limited and not necessarily obtained through work, and which is much more limited in availability than the number of sequences.

When someone owns land, that's actually a place you stumble upon and can't enter, whereas you're not going to ever stumble upon the story of even 'Nasse hittar en stol' (swedish 'Nasse finds a chair') a very short book for very small children.

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

#434

Post by franczesko » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 8:01 PM UTC

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…

Is fruit of the poisonous tree rule applicable here?

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

#435

Post by damnesian » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 8:01 PM UTC

seems like the "mis" is missing from the name.

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

#436

Post by MrJohz » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 8:02 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #424

MrJohz wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are two separate actions that Anthropic did: * They downloaded a massive online library of pirated books that someone else was distributing illegally. This was not fair use. * They then digitised a bunch of books that they physically owned copies of. This was fair use. This part of the ruling is pretty much existing law. If you have a physical book (or own a digital copy of a book), you can largely do what you…

> This part of the ruling is pretty much existing law. If you have a physical book (or own a digital copy of a book), you can largely do what you like with it within the confines of your own home, including digitising it. But you are not allowed to distribute those digital copies to others, nor are you allowed to download other people's digital copies that you don't own the rights to. Can you point me to the US Supre…

I cannot point to the case, because my entire knowledge about the legality of this stuff comes from vaguely following the articles about this case. But feel free to read the judgement in this case where it will be spelled out in much more detail.

Also, I don't quite understand how your example is relevant to the case. If you give a book to a friend, they are now the owner of that book and can do what they like with it. If you photocopy that book and give them the photocopy, they are not the owner of the book and you have reproduced it without permission. The same is, I believe, true of digital copies - this is how ebook libraries work.

In this case, Anthropic were the legal owners of the physical books, and so could do what they wanted with them. They were not the legal owners of the digital books, which means they can get prosecuted for copyright infringement.

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

#437

Post by sershe » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 8:05 PM UTC

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…

Im not sure how I feel about what anthropic did on merit as a matter of scale, but from a legalistic standpoint how is it different from using the book to train the meat model in my head? I could even learn bits by heart and quote them in context.

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

#438

Post by wmeredith » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 8:05 PM UTC

stocksinsmocks wrote: post #420

bgwalter wrote: post #119

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

Anthropic isn’t selling copies of the material to its users though. I would think you couldn’t lock someone up for reading a book and summarizing or reciting portions of the contents. Seven years for thumbing your nose at Autodesk when armed robbery would get you less time says some interesting things about the state of legal practice.

> summarizing or reciting portions of the contents

This absolutely falls under copyright law as I understand it (not a lawyer). E.g. the disclaimer that rolls before every NFL broadcast. The notice states that the broadcast is copyrighted and any unauthorized use, including pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game, is prohibited. There is wiggle room for fair use by news organizations, critics, artists, etc.

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

#439

Post by freejazz » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 8:05 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #415

freejazz wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and that kind of efficiency loss is the sort of thing fair use exists to prevent. No it's not. And you ever heard of a publishing house? They don't need to negotiate with every single author individually. That's preposterous.

It kind of is though? It's not the only reason fair use exists, but it's the thing that allows e.g. search engines to exist, and that seems pretty important. > And you ever heard of a publishing house? They don't need to negotiate with every single author individually. That's preposterous. There are thousands of publishing houses and millions of self-published authors on top of that. Many books are also out of print…

>It kind of is though?

No, it kinda isn't. Show me anything that supports this idea beyond your own immediate conjecture right now.

>It's not the only reason fair use exists, but it's the thing that allows e.g. search engines to exist, and that seems pretty important.

No, that's the transformative element of what a search engine provides. Search engines are not legal because they can't contact each licensor, they are legal because they are considered hugely transformative features.

>There are thousands of publishing houses and millions of self-published authors on top of that. Many books are also out of print or have unclear rights ownership.

Okay, and? How many customers does Microsoft bill on a monthly basis?

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

#440

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 8:11 PM UTC

badlibrarian wrote: post #413

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's for criminal laws where prosecutorial discretion can then (in principle) be used in borderline cases to prevent unjust outcomes. If you give people a claim for damages which is an order of magnitude larger than their actual damages, it encourages litigiousness and becomes a vector for shakedowns because the excessive cost of losing pressures innocent defendants to settle even if there was a 90% chance they wou…

Statutory damages were written into the first federal copyright law in 1790, and earlier in state law (specified in Pounds because the dollar hadn't been invented yet).

The first federal copyright law in 1790:

https://copyright.gov/about/1790-copyright-act.html

Specified in dollars because dollars had been invented (in 1789), but in the amount of one half of one dollar, i.e. $0.50. That's 1790 dollars, of course, so a little under $20 today. (There was basically no inflation for the first 100+ years of that because the US dollar was still backed by precious metals then; a dollar was worth slightly more in 1900 than in 1790.)

That seems more like an attempt to codify some amount of plausible actual damages so people aren't arguing endlessly about valuations, rather than an attempt to impose punitive damages. Most notably because -- unlike the current method -- it scales with the number of sheets reproduced.