Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem

[carputech]

There's no "we"--we don't have to do anything. We put the burden on Meta. Make them pay into a fund which copyright holders can claim from. Logistical issues can be solved; it's whether enforcement will take place that's the problem.

Alternatively, if it costs a ton to pay lawyers to sift through all that and do all that arduous work so that copyright holders can be paid proactively? Again, we put the burden on Meta. It can be done, it's just an expensive task. But it should be their expensive task. That's not even a 'punishment'--it's just making them do what they should have done in the first place for each and every book that they downloaded. The fact that the scale of the task is immense is a mountain of their own making, and is their problem, not ours.

Anyhow. The lawsuits will be incoming. And in those 7.5M books, I bet there's a lot of IP owned by some big players. I haven't checked but if there are Star Wars novels in there or content reiki training owned by other massive corporations, you can bet they'll be stepping up with big lawyers and deep pockets.

This has resulted in millions of pirated texts being used to train AI systems, effectively exploiting writers’ intellectual property to build tools that may one day replace them.

 

[Ryujin]

There's no "we"--we don't have to do anything. We put the burden on Meta. Make them pay into a fund which copyright holders can claim from. Logistical issues can be solved; it's whether enforcement will take place that's the problem.

Alternatively, if it costs a ton to pay lawyers to sift through all that and do all that arduous work so that copyright holders can be paid proactively? Again, we put the burden on Meta. It can be done, it's just an expensive task. But it should be their expensive task. That's not even a 'punishment'--it's just making them do what they should have done in the first place for each and every book that they downloaded. The fact that the scale of the task is immense is a mountain of their own making, and is their problem, not ours.

Anyhow. The lawsuits will be incoming. And in those 7.5M books, I bet there's a lot of IP owned by some big players. I haven't checked but if there are Star Wars novels in there or content owned by other massive corporations, you can bet they'll be stepping up with big lawyers and deep pockets.

Historically if Meta is asked to actually pay for something that they use, they just don't. As in don't pay and don't use it, where their hand has been slapped.

For example I can't read or post news content on Facebook, because of Canada's Online News Act. it was ruled that Meta must pay Canadian news sources when their content is 'rebroadcast' by their platforms. What did they do? They blocked any Canadian accounts from seeing or posting anything that would count as news. I recently found out that includes Snopes, for some odd reason.

I don't know if people in other jurisdictions can post Canadian news links and that would be an interesting experiment.

 

[Morrus]

Historically if Meta is asked to actually pay for something that they use, they just don't. As in don't pay and don't use it, where their hand has been slapped.

For example I can't read or post news content on Facebook, because of Canada's Online News Act. it was ruled that Meta must pay Canadian news sources when their content is 'rebroadcast' by their platforms. What did they do? They blocked any Canadian accounts from seeing or posting anything that would count as news. I recently found out that includes Snopes, for some odd reason.

I don't know if people in other jurisdictions can post Canadian news links and that would be an interesting experiment.

Well them voluntarily stopping is a win, too.

 

[Ryujin]

Well them voluntarily stopping is a win, too.

Except they didn't. They go on a jurisdiction by jurisdiction basis and each would need to hold them accountable, separately.

Could someone in the UK or US please try posting a link to CBC news, on Facebook? If they've globally blocked access, instead of just from/to Canada, it should give an error message and not let you post. If it does allow it, then their block isn't a block at all.

https://www.cbc.ca/news

 

[Morrus]

Except they didn't. They go on a jurisdiction by jurisdiction basis and each would need to hold them accountable, separately.

Sure. Fingers crossed!

 

[Dausuul]

Edit: Posted before I got to the red text. Dropping the subject as requested.

 

[overgeeked]

Except they didn't. They go on a jurisdiction by jurisdiction basis and each would need to hold them accountable, separately.

Could someone in the UK or US please try posting a link to CBC news, on Facebook? If they've globally blocked access, instead of just from/to Canada, it should give an error message and not let you post. If it does allow it, then their block isn't a block at all.

https://www.cbc.ca/news

Most likely they simply hide it so those in the area can’t see it and block those in the area from posting them. Is this is extremely recent? I’ve posted and seen CBC links on Facebook in the last six months.

 

[Ryujin]

Most likely they simply hide it so those in the area can’t see it and block those in the area from posting them. Is this is extremely recent? I’ve posted and seen CBC links on Facebook in the last six months.

It was passed into law June of 2023 and Facebook, in particular, almost immediately blocked any news from being visible to Canadian accounts. I just had a friend in the US check it and they were able to post, see, and have Canadian news articles seen by other American users. So they aren't willing to pay for it, but will freely use what they won't pay for in other jurisdictions.

 

[jian]

It was passed into law June of 2023 and Facebook, in particular, almost immediately blocked any news from being visible to Canadian accounts. I just had a friend in the US check it and they were able to post, see, and have Canadian news articles seen by other American users. So they aren't willing to pay for it, but will freely use what they won't pay for in other jurisdictions.

Yes, I was based in the UK and moved to Canada in 2023, and since then I haven’t been able to see any news content posted on Facebook by anyone else and can’t post if myself. But I believe U.K. friends on Facebook can post and read CBC etc content shared by anyone there.

 

[Scribe]

Thats so rich. Wont serve it up to Canadians, but will gladly take the Canadian paid for news, and serve it up elsewhere.

Just laughable.