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“We had already pointed out to your client that our client is entitled to claims for damages in accordance with Section 97a (4) UrhG in the event of an unjustif

“We had already pointed out to your client that our client is entitled to claims for damages in accordance with Section 97a (4) UrhG in the event of an unjustified claim,” writes the lawyers acting on behalf of LAION. OK, so they're legally entitled to throw this back into the faces of whoever makes these kind of requests. Still - it does seem rather petty. Common sense (and basic decency) would tell us to take a less knee-jerk approach. A simple form letter (explaining the lack of legal merit to their claim) should suffice to quell at least 80 percent of these claims. If the claimant persists, then yeah, you could thrown down the gauntlet like this. Otherwise, it comes off as rather haughty and aggressive (and as the Germans would say, zickig) to breathe acid at (apparently simply uninformed) claimants like these.

Imnimo 4y ago
>“At the time, our client had refrained from asserting this claim, but now feels unable to be lenient here. She incurred legal fees for defending against the obviously unjustified warning you issued, which our client will not bear herself.”
- lisasays 4y ago
  The issue is definitely not obvious to a non-tech person. It isn't even obvious to me why text-image pairs should be considered, by default, public domain and fully commercializable by any and all. The bigger point is that in all probability, the client's costs were minor (<10k), and these kinds of bumps and scrapes that happen (and what one needs to budget for) when choosing to to push forward with a large-scale and obviously controversial project. So discretion (and concern for the project's overall public image) would call for using a feather rather than a sledgehammer here, as I see it.
  - sheepdestroyer 4y ago
    For a mostly solo volunteer projet, supported by an individual who works as a high school teacher (so, not crazy-silicon-valley-rich), any such abusive costs are probably unsustainable. Your figure of "<10k" that you consider as "minor" shows that you have no idea how people get by. They were kind enough to explain in advance how they would proceed if the complainant pursued in their misguided attack, how more agreeable do you want them to be without similar complaints drowning them out?
    - lisasays 4y ago
      According to https://laion.ai/team/ https://laion.ai/team/ the project has mushroomed a bit and (if I recall from other sources) has something of a budget. And it sure looks like they are positioning themselves to spin this off into some kind of financially self-sustaining entity (even if they aren't interested in selling out just yet). So when I said "minor" not in comparison to his day job salary but as in, you know, the scheme of things. You have no idea how people get by. Gosh, it seems you know everything about me.

Imnimo 4y ago

>“At the time, our client had refrained from asserting this claim, but now feels unable to be lenient here. She incurred legal fees for defending against the obviously unjustified warning you issued, which our client will not bear herself.”

lisasays 4y ago
The issue is definitely not obvious to a non-tech person. It isn't even obvious to me why text-image pairs should be considered, by default, public domain and fully commercializable by any and all. The bigger point is that in all probability, the client's costs were minor (<10k), and these kinds of bumps and scrapes that happen (and what one needs to budget for) when choosing to to push forward with a large-scale and obviously controversial project. So discretion (and concern for the project's overall public image) would call for using a feather rather than a sledgehammer here, as I see it.
- sheepdestroyer 4y ago
  For a mostly solo volunteer projet, supported by an individual who works as a high school teacher (so, not crazy-silicon-valley-rich), any such abusive costs are probably unsustainable. Your figure of "<10k" that you consider as "minor" shows that you have no idea how people get by. They were kind enough to explain in advance how they would proceed if the complainant pursued in their misguided attack, how more agreeable do you want them to be without similar complaints drowning them out?
  - lisasays 4y ago
    According to https://laion.ai/team/ https://laion.ai/team/ the project has mushroomed a bit and (if I recall from other sources) has something of a budget. And it sure looks like they are positioning themselves to spin this off into some kind of financially self-sustaining entity (even if they aren't interested in selling out just yet). So when I said "minor" not in comparison to his day job salary but as in, you know, the scheme of things. You have no idea how people get by. Gosh, it seems you know everything about me.