They’re the same issue tho. Piracy and using books for corporate AI training both should be fine. They same people going after data freedom are pushing this AI drama too. There’s too much money in copyright holding and it’s not being held by your favorite deviantart artists.
Comment on Meta admits using pirated books to train AI, but won't pay for it
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
“To the extent a response is deemed required, Meta denies that its use of copyrighted works to train Llama required consent, credit, or compensation,” Meta writes.
The authors further stated that, as far as their books appear in the Books3 database, they are referred to as “infringed works”. This prompted Meta to respond with yet another denial. “Meta denies that it infringed Plaintiffs’ alleged copyrights,” the company writes.
When you compare the attitudes on this and compare them to how people treated The Pirate Bay, it becomes pretty fucking clear that we live in a society with an entirely different set of rules for established corporations.
The main reason they were able to prosecute TPB admins was the claim they were making money. Arguably, they made very little, but the copyright cabal tried to prove that they were making just oodles of money off of piracy.
Meta knew that these files were pirated. Everyone did. The page where you could download Books3 literally referenced Bibliotik, the private torrent tracker where they were all downloaded. Bibliotik also provides tools to strip DRM from ebooks, something that is a DMCA violation.
They knew full well the provenance of this data, and they didn’t give a flying fuck. They are making money off of what they’ve done with the data. How are we so willing to let Meta get away with this while we were literally willing to let US lawyers turn Swedish law upside-down to prosecute a bunch of fucking nerds with hardly any money? Probably because money.
Fuck this sick broken fucking system.
drmoose@lemmy.world 5 months ago
kibiz0r@lemmy.world 5 months ago
It’s not the same issue at all.
Piracy distributes power. It allows disenfranchised or marginalized people to access information and participate in culture, no matter where they live or how much money they have. It subverts a top-down read-only culture by enabling read-write access for anyone.
Large-scale computing services like these so-called AIs consolidate power. They displace access to the original information and the headwaters of culture. They are for-profit services, tuned to the interests of specific American companies. They suppress read-write channels between author and audience.
One gives power to the people. One gives power to 5 massive corporations.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
Extremely well-said.
Also, it’s important to point out that the one that empowers people is the one that is consistently punished far more egregiously.
We have governments blocking the likes of Sci-Hub, Libgen, and Annas-Archive, but nobody is blocking Meta’s LLMs for the same.
drmoose@lemmy.world 5 months ago
It’s the opposite. Closing down public resources would be regulatory capture and that would be consolidation of power.
Who do you think can afford to pay billions in copyright to produce models? Only mega corporations and pirates. No more small AI companies.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
So why are Meta, and say, Sci-Hub are treated so differently? I don’t necessarily disagree, but it’s interesting that we legally attack people who are sharing data altruistically (Sci-Hub gives research away for free so more research can be done, scientific research should be free to the world, because it benefits all of mankind), but when it comes to companies who break the same laws to just make more money, that’s fine somehow.
It’s like trying to improve the world is punished, and being a selfish greedy fucking pig is celebrated and rewarded.
SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 5 months ago
To me it always seems to come back to nobility. Big corpo is the new nobility and they have certain privileges not available to the common folk. In theory it shouldn’t exist but in practice it most certainly does.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
The aristocracy never died, it just got a new name.
I mean the US is literally built on the fact that the aristocracy in the US didn’t actually want to lose station, so they included many anti-democratic measures from the Senate to the Electoral College to only allowing land-owning white men to vote.
How people do not see this is a complete farce.
General_Effort@lemmy.world 5 months ago
So why are Meta, and say, Sci-Hub treated so differently?
They are not. Meta is being sued, just like Sci-Hub was sued. So, one difference is that the suit involving Meta is still ongoing.
In any case, Meta did not create the dataset. IDK if they even shared it. The researcher who did is also being sued. The dataset has been taken down in response to a copyright complaint. IDK if it is available anywhere anymore. So the dataset was treated just like Sci-Hub. The sharing of the copyrighted material was stopped.
Meta downloading these books for AI training seems fairly straight-forward fair use to me. I don’t see how what Meta did is anything like what Sci-Hub did.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
So ISPs are blocking Meta because of their breaking copyright?
Because ISPs block Sci-Hub.
antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
Meta downloading these books for AI training seems fairly straight-forward fair use to me.
They pirated the books. Is that not legally relevant?
TheHobbyist@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding, but it sounds like you’re suggesting we side with Meta to put a precedence in which pirating content is legal and allows websites like TPB to keep existing but legitimally? Or are you rather taking the opposite stand, which would further entrench the illegality of TPB activities and in the same swoop prevent meta from performing these actions?
I don’t know if we can simultaneously oppose meta while protecting TPB, is there?
Tedrow@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I think what they are saying is that Meta is powerful enough to get away with it. You are attempting to equate two different things.
Meta isn’t using the books for entertainment purposes. They are using another IP to develop their own product. There has to be a distinction here.
TheHobbyist@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
We are in agreement, but I was attempting to launch a discussion about how we want the laws to actually be applied and possibly how they should be reformulated.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
I’m advocating that if we’re going to have copyright laws (or laws in general) that they’re applied consistently and not just siding with who has the most money.
When it’s small artists needing their copyright to be defended? They’re crushed, ignored, and lose their copyright.
Even when Sony was suing individuals for music piracy in the early 2000’s, artists had to sue Sony to see any money from those lawsuits. Those lawsuits were ostensibly brought by Sony for the artists, because the artists were being stolen from. Interesting that none of that money made it to artists without the artists having to sue Sony.
Sony was also behind the rootkit disaster and has been sued many times for using unlicensed music in their films.
It is well documented that copyright owners constantly break copyright to make money, and because they have so much fucking money, it’s easy for them to just weather the lawsuits. (“If the punishment for the crime is a fine, the punishment is only aimed at the poor.”)
We literally brought US courtroom tactics to a foreign country and bought one of their judges to get The Pirate Bay case out the fucking door. It was corruption through and through.
We prosecute people who can’t afford to defend themselves, and we just let those who have tons of money do whatever the fuck they want.
The entire legal system is a joke of “who has the most money wins” and this is just one of many symptoms of it.
It certainly feels like the laws don’t matter. We’re willing to put down people just trying to share information, but people trying to profit off of it insanely, nah that’s fine.
I’m just asking for things to be applied evenly and realistically. Because right now corporations just make up their own fucking rules as they go along, stealing from the commons and claiming it was always theirs.
TheHobbyist@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
Of course we should have consistent laws, but which way should we have it? We can either defend pirates and Meta, or none of them, so what are you saying? Unless there’s a third option I’m missing?
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
Are you really so thick that you think suddenly when Meta is let off the hook they’ll change tack and let Sci-Hub/Libgen/etc off the hook as well?
Like I said elsewhere, I’d be happy to defend Meta in a world where governments aren’t trying to kick altruistic sharing sites off the internet, while allowing selfish greedy sites to proliferate and make money off their piracy.
However, that won’t change if Meta wins this case, it will just mean big corporations can get away with it and individuals and altruistic groups will still be prosecuted.
ElBarto@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
yesdogishere@kbin.social 5 months ago
The only solution is vigilante justice. Bezos and all the directors and snr execs. Bring them all to justice. Exile to Mars.
kibiz0r@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I think in the Darknet Diaries episode about TPB, the guy said they never even made enough off of ads to pay for the server costs.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
He also said as much in their documentary TPB AFK.