SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 hours ago
Shorter and more reasonably copyright lengths would make this a moot point because then there would sufficient literature in the public domain to pull from.
These kind of charges are what put thee Pirate Bay admins in prison and caused Aaron Swartz to kill himself because of a threat of lifetime in prison. The claim that they did this either with the goal of profit or actually successful profit. Neither TPB or Swartz at that point in time had ever moved as much data as Meta has for these claims, nor did they ever have the profit or possibility of profit Meta aims to make from their AI offerings.
Now Meta is claiming they’ve profited so hard you can’t possibly hold them accountable.
It will be the biggest “fuck you” in history to anyone ever hit with civil charges for piracy in the early 2000s, let alone the TPB admins and Swartz, if they let this go. Which means they probably will because in America, apparently if you crime hard enough and big enough they stop putting you in prison and start patting you on the back and calling it good business sense.
in America, apparently if you crime hard enough and big enough they stop putting you in prison and start patting you on the back and calling it good business sense.
If you owe the bank $100 you have a problem. If you owe the bank $100,000,000, the bank has a problem.
If the ruling goes the wrong way, like with many cases like this (drug use is a good example), it won’t help those in the past. However, it will open a door for everyone in the future.
My guess is every DCMA entity on the planet has already sent this judge a letter saying that allowing this defense is a terrible idea. I am honestly torn on this one since there are so many unknowns, and if Meta loses it will mostly be publishers that benefit vs authors.
If heaven and hell are real I hope God and Satan give Swartz a sabbatical so he can go torture Zuck for a while, periodically.
It’s weird that your take away is “Meta needs to get it” and not “Clearly, these laws work for no one”. You don’t get better copyright laws by cheering for the copyright companies.
Literally the first thing I said was regards to more sensible copyright making this all a moot point but you do you.
We don’t get better laws if everyone is cheering for the copyright industry. Everything after your first point goes against that. Goliath, the same one that beat up Aaron, finally has a match in his own weight category, and you are hoping he wins.
What kind of “better law” do you think will come out of this? That regular people like us will be able to share freely?
You think that the law being applied on poor people but not on the wealthy is a healthy way to get a better law?
Get the fuck real and nobody is asking for the copyright cabal to win as much as we are saying “look, if this is the how the law is going to be applied, apply it evenly, don’t just fuck over poor people but give the wealthy a pass.”
And poor people who don’t have the weight and money of Meta aren’t going to be able to prove that they need the same amount of data to train an LLM so they probably will still have the law held against them. Get fucking real man.
What country do you think you live in? One where laws are applied evenly or rationally? Or one where fascists have taken over the god damned government? Because guess what it’s the latter and the laws are effectively meaningless for the wealthy but still held against the poor. Sure, if that’s what you want, go for it, but it damn sure won’t suddenly get us better laws or let regular people torrent without worry. Congress has been deadlocked for decades and does nothing but hurt common people and give corporations a ticket to do whatever and you think better laws will come out of this? Seriously, once again, get fucking real.
I read this as setting precedent that others couldn’t. Court cases like this are one way to make it possible for everyone to break an absurd law.
Precedent only applies equally if we are able to prove the same in court. Are you going to need petabytes of pirated data to train your AI? Can you afford a team of top quality lawyers to fight your case and prove you were training a small locally-hosted AI at home? Do you think Meta, of all companies, really is fighting for you to be able to do the same as them? You will still get taken to court, you will still have to fight your case, “precedent” isn’t an automatic get out of jail free card. Do you have the money to fight massive copyright holders with endless money? Of course you don’t, none of us do.
Airfried@piefed.social 16 hours ago
There’s a story about Alexander the great capturing a pirate and scolding him for raiding villages along the coast line. Alexander asked if the pirate feels ashamed and wants to beg for forgiveness. However, the pirate had something else to say. He said that Alexander was doing the same thing, but infinitely worse. The only difference was that Alexander called himself king and plundered entire lands while the pirate only raided small villages. The pirate reminded Alexander of the many lives he had destroyed in his conquest. So the pirate’s only crime was not to be the biggest baddie in the hood, so to speak.
Alexander replied by stating that the title of king forces his hand and that he couldn’t just stop what he was doing. The pirate on the other hand was just an individual who could easily change course. And so Alexander set the pirate free, stating that he himself will start changing his own ways right there and then if the pirate makes a fresh start first.
I don’t know if there is any truth to this but it’s a fable often used to explain how legitimacy changes the perception people have of wrong doing and heroism on a fundamental level. Alexander’s reply sounds like an excuse and I think that’s on purpose. The pirate outwitted him in the end by stating a basic truth.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 hours ago
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQBWGo7pef8
This is where I first remember hearing this tale, in this old Schoolhouse Rock parody that was in protest of the War in Iraq.