Meta has won against Kadrey et al — the authors’ case against Meta training their Llama LLM on the authors’ books, including on pirate copies. [Order, PDF; case docket] Both sides brought motions f…
@diz I admit, it would be challenging. I don’t think it’s cope, though, because I think there are practical reasons not to cede victory. I think once “AI is fair use” becomes a meme, many will assume it to mean “AI is ethical”, and belief that there are no open legal questions will increase adoption.
Like, the literal fact of the matter is that the courts haven’t decided this categorically. Why get ahead of ourselves and pretend they have, just because it seems inevitable? What’s the benefit?
It’s not about ceding victory, it’s about whether we accept shit talking plaintiff’s lawyers as an adequate substitute for a slap on the wrist, or not. Clearly the judge wants to appear impartial.
Plaintiff made a perfectly good argument that meta downloaded the books illegally, and that this downloading wasn’t necessary to enable a (fair or not) use. A human critic does not get a blanket license to pirate any work he might want to criticize, even though critique is fair use.
If I pirated a book and wrote a review of it, would that make the review copyright infringement? How is it relevant to the case? The plaintiffs essentially argue the market to sell licences to review their books (train LLMs) was disrupted when they should have been arguing that the market for their book was.
If I pirated a book and wrote a review of it, would that make the review copyright infringement?
That would leave pirating the book be copyright infringement. But if you used AI (trained on the pirated book) to write a review, then pirating the book wouldn’t be copyright infringement, at least according to this judge.
Re Anthropic, their ruling was that downloading itself was copyright infringement, regardless of whether Anthropic distributed works while torrenting them.
In Meta’s case the plaintiffs will likely find it impossible to demonstrate that the data which Meta uploaded contained specifically their books. Maybe all the other torrent users who were downloading that torrent were downloading other parts of it.
@diz Sorry, I was under the impression that Anthropic was fined for seeding torrents, but I must have gotten a wire crossed. Some countries only seem to consider seeding to be copyright infringement on the seeder’s part. The meta judge’s ruling seemed consistent with that, but if downloading is infringement in the US, I guess not.
For what it’s worth, however the courts decide, I think the path forward is the same: creatives further organising and developing slop resistant spaces and markets.
@diz I admit, it would be challenging. I don’t think it’s cope, though, because I think there are practical reasons not to cede victory. I think once “AI is fair use” becomes a meme, many will assume it to mean “AI is ethical”, and belief that there are no open legal questions will increase adoption.
Like, the literal fact of the matter is that the courts haven’t decided this categorically. Why get ahead of ourselves and pretend they have, just because it seems inevitable? What’s the benefit?
It’s not about ceding victory, it’s about whether we accept shit talking plaintiff’s lawyers as an adequate substitute for a slap on the wrist, or not. Clearly the judge wants to appear impartial.
Plaintiff made a perfectly good argument that meta downloaded the books illegally, and that this downloading wasn’t necessary to enable a (fair or not) use. A human critic does not get a blanket license to pirate any work he might want to criticize, even though critique is fair use.
@diz
If I pirated a book and wrote a review of it, would that make the review copyright infringement? How is it relevant to the case? The plaintiffs essentially argue the market to sell licences to review their books (train LLMs) was disrupted when they should have been arguing that the market for their book was.
I think the judgement on whether Meta distributed works while torrenting, as Anthropic did, hasn’t happened yet, see the last paragraph of the judgement.
https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zgvozmrynpd/META%20AI%20COPYRIGHT%20LAWSUIT%20ruling.pdf
That would leave pirating the book be copyright infringement. But if you used AI (trained on the pirated book) to write a review, then pirating the book wouldn’t be copyright infringement, at least according to this judge.
Re Anthropic, their ruling was that downloading itself was copyright infringement, regardless of whether Anthropic distributed works while torrenting them.
In Meta’s case the plaintiffs will likely find it impossible to demonstrate that the data which Meta uploaded contained specifically their books. Maybe all the other torrent users who were downloading that torrent were downloading other parts of it.
@diz Sorry, I was under the impression that Anthropic was fined for seeding torrents, but I must have gotten a wire crossed. Some countries only seem to consider seeding to be copyright infringement on the seeder’s part. The meta judge’s ruling seemed consistent with that, but if downloading is infringement in the US, I guess not.
For what it’s worth, however the courts decide, I think the path forward is the same: creatives further organising and developing slop resistant spaces and markets.