Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem

[trappedslider]

who am i supposed to cheer for?

ISP Will Unmask 100 Alleged BitTorrent Pirates in RIAA Lawsuit * TorrentFreak

Altice, parent company of Internet provider Optimum, must disclose the personal details of a hundred alleged music pirates.

torrentfreak.com

US copyright groups push for internet site blocking to combat piracy

The symposium brought together prosecutors, industry representatives, and anti-piracy experts to discuss the latest piracy trends and potential solutions. TorrentFreak reports that when it came to new...

www.techspot.com

Another big ISP wants the US Supreme Court to intervene in its piracy battle with the majors

US ISP Grande, which lost a $47 million legal battle with the major record companies over its failure to deal with its music pirating customers, wants the US Supreme Court to review the case. It’s the second ISP to ask the Supreme Court to intervene on the copyright liabilities of internet companies

completemusicupdate.com

Is it ever OK? Not really my place to put a line in the sand.

we all have our own line in the sand.

 

[Scribe]

who am i supposed to cheer for?

I mean you can go all cyberpunk if you like, but if you want to cheer for the mega-corps, thats between you and God at this point lol

 

[trappedslider]

I mean you can go all cyberpunk if you like, but if you want to cheer for the mega-corps, thats between you and God at this point lol

I mean am I supposed to cheer for the folks breaking copyright law or do i cheer for enforcement? It's a very confusing time we live in. For what it's worth I honestly see it as whack-a-mole and in the end futile.

 

[Scribe]

I mean am I supposed to cheer for the folks breaking copyright law or do i cheer for enforcement? It's a very confusing time we live in. For what it's worth I honestly see it as whack-a-mole and in the end futile.

 

[Umbran]

Its a bad faith argument.

Stop right there.
People can be wrong, or have a difference of opinion, without being anywhere near "bad faith".
If you aren't open to that difference, this discussion should not continue.

 

[ASchmidt]

We've all seen the phrase "free for personal use", generally on software but I've also seen it on licenses for things like clipart. That's because otherwise, to use someone's work (specifically anything that's covered under registered IP) requires a license. A lot of licenses describe the ways the work may be used. But now and then technology comes along that wasn't even an idea to be considered when the licenses were drawn up. A good example is when video recorders came along and licences and contracts based on the idea that their work would only ever be broadcast or projected onto a screen weren't dealing well with the new distribution methods and making sure that creators were reimbursed for their work. Same thing happened again with streaming. There weren't (there are now) licenses for work that specified whether it was free for use for training AIs or if that was specifically prohibited.

I'm going to quote from a book that I've got a physical copy of but pretty much every book out there has something like this in the first couple pages. The copyright statement.

"Copyright (c) 1995 by IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book (including interior design, cover design, and illustrations) may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. For authorization to photocopy items for internal corporate use, personal use, or for educational and/or classroom use, please contact...."

The bolding and italics are mine. But does any part of that sound like it gives the ok to someone to use that work to train an LLM? And that was from 30 years ago.

 

[MoonSong]

Yes, making money off it is worse, but the student download still represents lost income for the creator.

The basic idea is simple - if you want content someone worked to create, you should pay them for that work. This is true if you are a megacorp, or a university student. Nobody is entitled to content, other than Fair Use.

Not exactly because the college kid is an actual human person. For real people, piracy can be a gateway drug to a lifetime of spending. Downloading that first song back when I was a teen with no money led me to become hooked into that band so now that I have money, I spend it on discs concerts and merch. So not exactly lost money to the band because without that first song, I would be completely unaware of that band even existing.

A corporation is the opposite case because when they do it, they not only negate that author the purchase, they are also looking to deprive thar author of future revenue.

 

[Umbran]

Not exactly because the college kid is an actual human person. For real people, piracy can be a gateway drug to a lifetime of spending. Downloading that first song back when I was a teen with no money led me to become hooked into that band so now that I have money, I spend it on discs concerts and merch. So not exactly lost money to the band because without that first song, I would be completely unaware of that band even existing.

With respect, the choice to have material out there as a "loss leader" should be the creator's, and not the consumer's. It is, simply, not our right to choose. Literally - this is about rights to material.

 

[overgeeked]

Discussion about “AI” always brings out the weirdest arguments.

Illegally downloading a book is piracy. Full stop. There’s no debate to be had. Existing laws are quite clear on this.

We don’t need to wait for new laws on the books, we just need existing laws enforced…against mega-corporations instead of regular people for a change. Which we all know will never happen.

Fair use does not now, nor has it ever covered commercial use. However the mega-corps got the training data (it was illegally, see piracy above), they’re quite clearly pushing to make money off their “AI” programs and LLMs.

The only real questions are: 1) whether what the “AI” programs produce would be considered derivative works in violation of copyright rather than ruled similar enough to what human artists do, and; 2) whether what the “AI” programs produce would themselves be covered by copyright, and if so, who owns that copyright.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I mean am I supposed to cheer for the folks breaking copyright law or do i cheer for enforcement? It's a very confusing time we live in. For what it's worth I honestly see it as whack-a-mole and in the end futile.

What about cheering for the creators, artists, and writers who should be recognized and compensated for their work?