4 ms·

Punitive measures. Narrow tariffs, competitive subsidies, sanctions, divestment, export restrictions are all viable deterrents. Aside from this behavior, Chin

by fny 2y ago

Punitive measures. Narrow tariffs, competitive subsidies, sanctions, divestment, export restrictions are all viable deterrents. Aside from this behavior, China has been subsidizing industries and dumping products into economic rivals for years. Never mind all the IP theft. It’s absurd the US has responded so weakly for the last 30 years.

sofixa 2y ago
US-based companies do the same (scraping content and training models on it, regardless of copyright or licenses or attribution). US subsidises and protects tons of industries (agriculture, chips, automobiles, aerospace). Does that mean that other countries can impose tariffs and sanctions on the US to punish this obviously anticompetitive and anti-free market behaviour? Or is it just the normal stuff we'd expect a country to do?
- nonethewiser 2y ago
  > Does that mean that other countries can impose tariffs and sanctions on the US to punish this obviously anticompetitive and anti-free market behaviour? Of course they can. They already do.
- capitainenemo 2y ago
  Personally it wasn't licenses or attribution that was the problem with ByteDance's scraping, it was that, unlike every other robot visiting our system they completely ignored robots.txt to the point of overloading systems. Which is why their chunk of amazon asia is currently behind a ban. I kinda feel like when people say "indiscriminate" they really mean it. There is no regard for courtesy or common sense.
  - red_admiral 2y ago
    For someone who has the resources, I can think of a lot more fun things than a ban. I think there was a story a while ago, possibly apocryphal, about someone who ran a disposable email service with a bunch of random looking domains, and they noticed bot traffic repeatedly hitting the page that shows one of their domains but not clicking through to actually activate an address. Guessing that the scraper was trying to find and block all these domains from being used to sign up for their services, the admin of the disposable email site added a function where if it detected bot traffic it would occasionally return domains like "gmail.com" in the text field.
VHRanger 2y ago
The proper response to a foreign country subsidizing something is to just buy a lot of it. They're losing money on the unit economics, you can profit from it by buying. We've known for decades that protectionist policies and subsidies make industries less competitive, not more. It is literally textbook stuff [1]. A typical result of protectionism is somethint like GM in the US, where they grow uncompetitive as they don't have to compete with foreign markets for domestic demand. You get similar uncompetitive dependent behavior from subsidies - just look at Intel right now. 1. https://web.pdx.edu/~ito/Krugman-Obstfeld-Melitz/8e-text-PDF/M10_KRUG3040_08_SE_C10.pdf https://web.pdx.edu/~ito/Krugman-Obstfeld-Melitz/8e-text-PDF... Note the author here is Paul Krugman, who literally won a Nobel Prize for his work on infant industry protection.
- georgeburdell 2y ago
  What subsidies has Intel received to date?
  - dymk 2y ago
    https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/us-chips-act-intel-direct-funding.html#gs.frcfl4 https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/us-chi... Google Intel subsidy
    - georgeburdell 2y ago
      I wrote, what subsidies has Intel received? That press release does not indicate Intel has received any money. Furthermore, any subsidy received in 2024 would not explain why Intel has been falling behind for the past 8 years, per your assertion that subsidies encourage waste.
      - dymk 2y ago
        “Per your assertion” Where did I make that assertion?
- nonethewiser 2y ago
indymike 2y ago
> Narrow tariffs, competitive subsidies, sanctions, divestment, export restrictions are all viable deterrents. The only thing that stops this is when a nation has more to lose than to gain... and that will happen soon as other emerging economies follow the grand tradition of cheating their way to prosperity. Then slowing down the comepetition will be the only play. All of us born after 1970 have seen Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong (before being re-absorbed), and China run the cheat your way to the top playbook and will see it at least a few more times.
- MrsPeaches 2y ago
  As you say it’s a well trodden path: American industry was built on IP theft[1] British empire was built on IP theft [2] Byzantine empire was built on IP theft [3] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater [2] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-great-british-tea-heist-9866709/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-great-british-tea... [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_silk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_silk
  - indymike 2y ago
    This is the truth. We shouldn't act surprised when an emerging economy "blatantly ignores" IP norms for established nations.
mschuster91 2y ago
At the point and scale we're at, I'd classify China's actions as cyberwarfare and would add similar responses to your list.

by fny 2y ago

sofixa 2y ago

US-based companies do the same (scraping content and training models on it, regardless of copyright or licenses or attribution). US subsidises and protects tons of industries (agriculture, chips, automobiles, aerospace). Does that mean that other countries can impose tariffs and sanctions on the US to punish this obviously anticompetitive and anti-free market behaviour? Or is it just the normal stuff we'd expect a country to do?

nonethewiser 2y ago
> Does that mean that other countries can impose tariffs and sanctions on the US to punish this obviously anticompetitive and anti-free market behaviour? Of course they can. They already do.
capitainenemo 2y ago
Personally it wasn't licenses or attribution that was the problem with ByteDance's scraping, it was that, unlike every other robot visiting our system they completely ignored robots.txt to the point of overloading systems. Which is why their chunk of amazon asia is currently behind a ban. I kinda feel like when people say "indiscriminate" they really mean it. There is no regard for courtesy or common sense.
- red_admiral 2y ago
  For someone who has the resources, I can think of a lot more fun things than a ban. I think there was a story a while ago, possibly apocryphal, about someone who ran a disposable email service with a bunch of random looking domains, and they noticed bot traffic repeatedly hitting the page that shows one of their domains but not clicking through to actually activate an address. Guessing that the scraper was trying to find and block all these domains from being used to sign up for their services, the admin of the disposable email site added a function where if it detected bot traffic it would occasionally return domains like "gmail.com" in the text field.

VHRanger 2y ago

The proper response to a foreign country subsidizing something is to just buy a lot of it. They're losing money on the unit economics, you can profit from it by buying. We've known for decades that protectionist policies and subsidies make industries less competitive, not more. It is literally textbook stuff [1]. A typical result of protectionism is somethint like GM in the US, where they grow uncompetitive as they don't have to compete with foreign markets for domestic demand. You get similar uncompetitive dependent behavior from subsidies - just look at Intel right now. 1. https://web.pdx.edu/~ito/Krugman-Obstfeld-Melitz/8e-text-PDF/M10_KRUG3040_08_SE_C10.pdf https://web.pdx.edu/~ito/Krugman-Obstfeld-Melitz/8e-text-PDF... Note the author here is Paul Krugman, who literally won a Nobel Prize for his work on infant industry protection.

georgeburdell 2y ago
What subsidies has Intel received to date?
- dymk 2y ago
  https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/us-chips-act-intel-direct-funding.html#gs.frcfl4 https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/us-chi... Google Intel subsidy
  - georgeburdell 2y ago
    I wrote, what subsidies has Intel received? That press release does not indicate Intel has received any money. Furthermore, any subsidy received in 2024 would not explain why Intel has been falling behind for the past 8 years, per your assertion that subsidies encourage waste.
    - dymk 2y ago
      “Per your assertion” Where did I make that assertion?
nonethewiser 2y ago

indymike 2y ago

> Narrow tariffs, competitive subsidies, sanctions, divestment, export restrictions are all viable deterrents. The only thing that stops this is when a nation has more to lose than to gain... and that will happen soon as other emerging economies follow the grand tradition of cheating their way to prosperity. Then slowing down the comepetition will be the only play. All of us born after 1970 have seen Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong (before being re-absorbed), and China run the cheat your way to the top playbook and will see it at least a few more times.

MrsPeaches 2y ago
As you say it’s a well trodden path: American industry was built on IP theft[1] British empire was built on IP theft [2] Byzantine empire was built on IP theft [3] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater [2] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-great-british-tea-heist-9866709/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-great-british-tea... [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_silk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_silk
- indymike 2y ago
  This is the truth. We shouldn't act surprised when an emerging economy "blatantly ignores" IP norms for established nations.

mschuster91 2y ago

At the point and scale we're at, I'd classify China's actions as cyberwarfare and would add similar responses to your list.