Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is it something else? It's the same analogy. The problem with it is that the harm from the alleged theft doesn't require any use of the original material in order to happen, since that "harm" is competition rather than expropriation. The attempt to distinguish them is through copying, but that's the part that isn't depriving anyone of anything.
The main point here is _using_ copyrighted materials to create a commercial product, that you then sell, that may be used as alternative or substitute for the original materials. You’re missing that point and talking about two independent projects competing.
Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement
451–460 of 484 posts
Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement
#452Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's frustrating is all those kids who got criminal charges for running MP3 sites back in the day [1], and this guy rips off every piece of media in existence and will walk away literally because he's too rich to be charged. [1] See, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oink%27s_Pink_Palace#Legal_pro...
https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/23/zuckerstreisand/ Cory Doctorow wrote a nice summary of the Zuckerstreisand book by Sarah Wynn-Williams. "First, Facebook becomes too big to fail. Then, Facebook becomes too big to jail. Finally, Facebook becomes too big to care."
Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement
#453Earlier quoted context omitted.
>But the latest lawsuit alleges that Meta and Zuckerberg deliberately circumvented copyright-protection mechanisms — and had considered paying to license the works before abandoning that strategy at “Zuckerberg’s personal instruction.” The suit essentially argues that the conduct described falls outside protections afforded by fair-use provisions of the U.S. copyright code.
One can allege all manner of things. The title is clickbait at it's worst. The situation around copyright and AI is stock standard "CEO makes a decision in an area that is clear as mud".
Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement
#454Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The book isn't in the LLM. An LLM is essentially a lossy compression of the training data. The book absolutely is in there, it’s just mangled to the point of unrecognizability.
The wood tends to have an impression of the hammer that hits it. The book isn't in there, the weights are just shaped by what tools were used to form it. When large quantities of source material are replicable by prompting its a bug not a feature.
Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement
#455Earlier quoted context omitted.
To continue your analogy, I had to pay for Windows before I was allowed to create something with it, or acquire a license for under terms they set forth. If AI companies stopped at the public domain, then my argument wouldn't really hold up, but they didn't do that. They acquired everyone's copyrighted works without regard for the license and now they're, in the most charitable interpretation, using them to create de…
>To continue your analogy, I had to pay for Windows before I was allowed to create something with it, or acquire a license for under terms they set forth. Yep and so far it looks like the issue with the meta case is they didnt pay for the book. Not that they used it in training data. >in the most charitable interpretation, using them to create derivative works. Yeah in the same way I use a hammer to create a derivati…
Let's not sane-wash what they did here, they didn't just 'forgot to pay for the books', they deliberately and illegally downloaded and used material that wasn't theirs to use.
If you or I did that, we would be jailed or sued into destitution. In a fair world we either should change copyright laws (allowing for anyone to freely pirate all media), or Zuckerberg needs to go to jail.
Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement
#456All those lawsuits against students who downloaded but didn't even redistribute mp3s. Less than a fair use transformation. Just the file download itself. ... Lesson learned: those students should have stolen millions instead!
Actually, it was the uploads that were a problem. Not downloads.
No shit.
Of course, the excuse doesn't even apply: the offense of the tech bosses is not training these models (they had that declared legal the second it became clear only the big companies would be training big models), the offense of all these tech companies is running a piracy site. Taking copyrighted works, storing them, reproducing them and then publishing the results to third parties, in many cases for payment, and organizing this practice knowingly, willingly as a company. Paying others to help them do it. This is the worst copyright offense one can possibly commit. It is what one public prosecutor referred to in the Nappster case as "organizing a criminal cartel to violate criminal law on a huge scale".
Tech bosses weren't sued for downloading, in other words, they were sued for uploading. For asking payment for publishing copyrighted works, without any money going to the authors.
When Kim Dotcom did that, in the words of the US Attorney general, this is "charges of criminal copyright infringement, racketeering, and money laundering" (you see, getting paid for criminal activity is money laundering, a charge that was also made against teenagers selling warez cds)
ChatGPT tells me, unaware and unwilling to discuss the INCREDIBLE unfairness, that in the US, first-time offenders can face up to 5 years in prison, while repeat offenders can face up to 10 years PER OFFENCE. ChatGPT is unwilling to discuss it.
The courts are also unwilling to discuss this, but no worries! New technicality: only a public prosecutor gets to ask ...
Dario Amodei wilfully committed large scale copyright infringement, as did all the tech bosses from Musk to Bezos ... and "strangely" nobody in any court even mentioned how much 10 years times 500,000 is, despite systematically threatening that punsihment repeatedly in the cases against teenagers.
Note that the law is extremely clear that company management IS NOT shielded if ordering criminal actions (violating criminal law, as opposed to violating a contract). In that case, company management carries full criminal culpability, INCREASED from if they did it themselves. Of course, this is only ever applied for refusing to pay tax or court fees.
If the law were applied alike and fairly to individuals and tech bosses, Amodei would have to be VERY lucky the human race still exists by the time his corpse leaves prison.
Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement
#457Earlier quoted context omitted.
You pirate other people’s works for profit all the time?
Since when has Meta profited off of this shit? I don't know why their stock price hasn't cratered yet, but it's not because they're raking in the big cash training LLMs on 40 yr old cookbooks.
Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement
#458Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a copyright abolitionist. I don't care at all that they're training AIs on copyrighted works. I care a lot that they're not getting relentlessly hunted down by the copyright industry for it like all the "pirates" that came before them. The copyright industry has actually ruined lives by litigating their "infringement" nonsense. It's only fair that they go after this guy as well. His constant violation of people's…
"X shouldn't be illegal at all" and "I want this person or company I hate to be ruined for having done X" aren't mutually reasonable positions. Even less so when the person or company you hate has committed real crimes. Grow up.
Anything less than this means it's rules for thee and not for me. Laws cease to have meaning when people realize and internalize the idea that they are just tools of the elite to keep the poors in line instead of proper instruments of justice that apply to everyone equally. That's an extremely dangerous thing for the public to realize and internalize, for obvious reasons.
Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement
#459Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trump is a rapist, per the courts, per Ivana Trump, and per statements of Epstein victims. Trump is the most corrupt president in US history, by a few orders of magnitude. Trump lies continuously, obviously, ridiculously. Hell, how many times has the Iran war "ended" in the last 2 months, per Trump? You do not have decent morals if you excuse Trump. Fuck off with your calm fascist game.
None of those words carry any weight, sorry. That whole line of attack is just not credible. It’s comical that anyone could possibly think it would be effective in 2026.
Trump's been a known sex pest, liar, and cheat since the 80s. He hasn't changed in the decades since.
Re: Zuckerberg 'Personally Authorized and Encouraged' Meta's Copyright Infringement
#460HN really loves the copyright lobby when it's against someone they hate, huh
I think it's more that the little guy gets the book thrown at them while the rich bitch gets a slap on the wrist. This is widespread, and is BAD regardless of your personal opinion on copyright.