Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#961

Post by semiquaver » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 3:00 PM UTC

sealeck wrote: post #772

semiquaver wrote: post #739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IP infringement is not theft . There’s a whole “you wouldn’t download a car” meme about this. Intellectual property has always been a made up idea that has been abused for years by big companies far in excess of its societal value. I’m not sad that the force of IP restrictions seems to be weakening, but I am surprised to see so many people in tech that previously were pretty lassez faire on IP to suddenly take it so…

I think this comment is quite disingenous -- it's like if there's a rule that says "nobody can walk on the grass" that you object to because you'd like to have a picnic with some friends; your claim is that if someone gets out a bulldozer and drives it across the lawn to make a parking lot followed by an army of lawyers that anyone who wanted to picnic is objecting purely because it's a convenient way to criticise th…

I’m not being disingenuous. This genuinely is my opinion. Did you mean to say “I disagree and here is why?”

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#962

Post by semiquaver » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 3:03 PM UTC

collinmcnulty wrote: post #769

semiquaver wrote: post #739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IP infringement is not theft . There’s a whole “you wouldn’t download a car” meme about this. Intellectual property has always been a made up idea that has been abused for years by big companies far in excess of its societal value. I’m not sad that the force of IP restrictions seems to be weakening, but I am surprised to see so many people in tech that previously were pretty lassez faire on IP to suddenly take it so…

Which is why OpenAI and Anthropic think it’s fair play for other companies to distill their models, right?

They are free to use the mechanisms available to them to act (within the law) in their own best interest, exactly as every independent entity is. You and I are free to criticize stances that look like hypocrisy (and I’ll certainly stipulate that the behavior you point out is hypocritical) and vote for reps that will respond appropriately.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#963

Post by ryukoposting » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 3:34 PM UTC

joe_mamba wrote: post #893

ryukoposting wrote: post #736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the caricature of Silicon Valley made real. It doesn't matter how much money Liu had, it isn't enough. It will never be enough. The entire culture is fixated on maximizing growth. Whether that's growth of the corporation or growth of one's own wealth. The Reagan-era "greed is good" thing never really died here (among other places).

> The Reagan-era "greed is good" thing never really died here (among other places). "Greed is good" is the MO everywhere on the planet now. Everyone I know in EU is trying to cash in as much as they can while the going is still good because they feel the ladder constantly being pulled from them (layoffs and wage stagnation everywhere, housing costs massively outpacing wage growth, etc). Either from scamming their com…

> Everyone I know in EU is trying to cash in as much as they can while the going is still good because they feel the ladder constantly being pulled from them

Your friends probably aren't engaging in "greed is good" themselves, just responding to the economic conditions created by people who are engaging in it.

In the American cultural headspace, "greed is good" refers to a very specific brand of robber-baron capitalism. It's a doctrine that was first given academic legitimacy by the University of Chicago's school of economics, then put into practice in the 1980s under the Reagan administration, and nowadays its loudest proponents are Musk and Thiel. It's an economic theory that lionizes extractive behavior by the economic elite, with some bullshit trickle-down argument that's too convoluted to be worth explaining here.

It creates an environment where everyone had to do evil shit just to put a roof over their heads, a self-regulating race to the bottom. Your friends are likely just unwilling participants, a side effect of "greed is good" rather than doers of it.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#964

Post by Henchman21 » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 3:47 PM UTC

breppp wrote: post #888

Henchman21 wrote: post #876

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was no evidence for “poor people are evil”. But there’s ample evidence for “rich people are evil”. What makes a person think they deserve more than another? What makes a person ignore laws and norms to make a buck? At the expense of others? Evil . Yes it’s fashionable. Doesn’t make it untrue.

> There was no evidence for “poor people are evil”. Most thieves, murderers, etc were poor, they weren't? Then they were explained as special cases. When you come with a premade conclusion based on ideology it is usually very easy to find "proofs". Think it a different way, most of the people reading this forum are at the world's top 1%. I venture to guess you as well, are you evil for hoarding all that cash? Was you…

Specifically to the questions about my status and wealth: All yes. Absolutely all yes. Am I evil for being part of the 1%? Yes. Am I evil for hoarding? Yes. Is/was the work evil on its face? Yes.

I am honest these days about my life, choices, etc. I have done much that is flatly wrong and I would love to somehow make up for it. I cannot. Society is structured in such a way to promote evil and suppress good. That structure is continually reinforced by evil people seeking to retain their advantage.

A thing is what it is.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#965

Post by throw10920 » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 3:47 PM UTC

Closi wrote: post #765

inexcf wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) This is a legit point although i don't see Valve as a big problem in that area. They invented lootboxes but refused to be as bad as others who followed them. Today with valve these things are restricted purely to cosmetics. 2) is weak. The 30% rate was set in 2003 when Steam had zero market power and was identical to the rate used by Apple, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo. Valve later added tiered reductions (25%…

The reason the 30% rate is sustained though IS the abuse of market power with the PMFN clause, which ensures that competitors cannot price lower. Everything else is an attempt to stay the primary shopfront. Sure you can sell your game and give away steam keys - but you can't sell it for a lower price than on Steam, and we still want you to encourage your users to come to steam and buy things. We will give you free ma…

> should get c25% of all transactions for offering very little value

"Very little value"? It's clear that you've never developed a game before. Don't speak so confidently out of complete and total ignorance - it leads to making utterly insane and totally factually wrong statements like this one.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#966

Post by reactordev » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 3:47 PM UTC

testaburger wrote: post #367

reactordev wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When espionage was your goal all along...

assuming these employees are not just trying to shift the blame to OpenAI to cover their asses.. that's the beauty of American civil courts and the discovery process. An accusation was made. We'll find out through a transparent court process which side is telling the truth (or more likely to be telling the truth in the case of balance of probabilities).

yeah the more information that has been leaked about what has transpired, the worse this whole situation gets. Apple has a ton of evidence in this case.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#967

Post by jjfremont » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

ryukoposting wrote: post #963

joe_mamba wrote: post #893

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Reagan-era "greed is good" thing never really died here (among other places). "Greed is good" is the MO everywhere on the planet now. Everyone I know in EU is trying to cash in as much as they can while the going is still good because they feel the ladder constantly being pulled from them (layoffs and wage stagnation everywhere, housing costs massively outpacing wage growth, etc). Either from scamming their com…

> Everyone I know in EU is trying to cash in as much as they can while the going is still good because they feel the ladder constantly being pulled from them Your friends probably aren't engaging in "greed is good" themselves, just responding to the economic conditions created by people who are engaging in it. In the American cultural headspace, "greed is good" refers to a very specific brand of robber-baron capitali…

> "greed is good" refers to a very specific brand of robber-baron capitalism.

It does not. It refers to the Eighties brand of corporate raiders and excess Capitalism. It's a quote from the film, "Wall Street". That whole paragraph is wrongly conflating ideas.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#968

Post by wrsh07 » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 5:38 PM UTC

keoneflick wrote: post #874

wrsh07 wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These examples don't really add up to me. You can continue to enjoy the books and articles etc They are just also used to create a new thing In the picnic example, the picnickers can't use the lawn anymore. As an aside: as somebody who lives in a dense area, I also would stay off the lawn. There's a utilitarian element where you have to rotate which lawns are used, and avoid using them when wet etc so as to maximize…

> You can continue to enjoy the books and articles etc No you can't, because those people have stopped creating because the creation economy was destroyed by AI. We just keep getting recycled slop based on what existed in 2025.

I think this is confused

All of the people who I was reading and listening to and watching before AI are all still creating. Many of them are even creating new things or new types of things

I imagine breaking into the creative industry is "harder" today than it was five years ago and much harder than it was ten years ago etc, but in some ways everything is still so new.

This dismissal of creativity or people's drive to create or anything created after "the ChatGPT moment" is simply wrong and lazy thinking

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#969

Post by spwa4 » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 6:51 PM UTC

swiftcoder wrote: post #577

embedding-shape wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know, the very same comment mentions that the person was earning 6 figures. What does that mean for where and how the person live though? How much money were they realistically having left at the end of the month? 6 figures surely means a lot in some places, in others not so much and maybe they didn't have much left after all. Even with 1K left in a month on average, that's 95 months (~8 years) of saving fo…

> What does that mean for where and how the person live though? It means they lived somewhere where a 6-figure income is feasible, which already puts it on the expensive end of the spectrum. If they are fleeing to somewhere where 95k looks like retirement money, that's not going to be a place where replacing that 6-figure income is feasible (especially with a default judgement against them blocking access to the whol…

Is that allowed to be discussed? That the main factor in income is not even job, but merely location and access to work visa?

Talk about deeply unfair ...

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#970

Post by overgard » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 7:21 PM UTC

msabalau wrote: post #895

overgard wrote: post #841

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Anthropic pay like $3 billion dollars or something for their IP theft? And yes, I'm going to keep calling it theft. Comparing a kid stealing a song off limewire to a company stealing the entire internet is not the same thing.

Yes, they paid for actually using pirated books for their training. They were like the kid, except that it was worth suing them. At the same time, more broadly, judge in the Anthropic case found that training LLMs was "exceedingly transformative" and “among the most transformative we will see in our lifetimes” Copyright doesn't protect ideas or let IP owners lock up knowledge, it protects specific expression.

Yes, I understand how copyright law works. Disagree with the judge -- googling a book summary worked just as well in the past. "It can write a book report" is not that amazing.