6 ms·

I stole a lot of books too, reading them and all. Just integrated them into my worldview, and don't pay a license fee when I use the ideas in new contexts. Some

by joshe 2y ago

I stole a lot of books too, reading them and all. Just integrated them into my worldview, and don't pay a license fee when I use the ideas in new contexts. Sometimes I even quote from them. A lot of them I didn't even pay for, I borrowed them from libraries or friends.

maeil 2y ago
Didn't know Meta paid for them or borrowed them from libraries. In fact, I don't think they did.
- furyofantares 2y ago
  Maybe not but even if Meta did buy 1 copy of every book I doubt it would stop anyone from making bad analogies to theft. (Not that the analogy on the other side to a human reading is any better.)
  - aprilthird2021 2y ago
    Yes because using the books to train a book-replicating machine is a legally grey area.
  - nicce 2y ago
    What if we could buy the books for one human, make the human read all the books, and somehow we would be able to clone this human in a way that they remember the book contents. Now, would that be a fair use of the books?
    - GuB-42 2y ago
      That's what storytelling is, and if you have twins, you even have the "clone" part. Ok, it doesn't tell much about AI and fair use, but I find it funny that your thought experiment is actually something you can do in real life.
    - hnfong 2y ago
      I think we should pay authors a fair wage based on some measure of the quality of the content instead of how well the book sells. There's no reason for Harry Potter for example being 10000 times more valuable than a book on quantum mechanics only because the former is more popular and the latter is on a more obscure topic.
  - corobo 2y ago
    Isn't that literally what copyright is? You have bought the text so you have the readright, but you do not the copyright.
    - gruez 2y ago
      >You have bought the text so you have the readright, but you do not the copyright. You do however, have the right to make derivative works based on the contents of the book. You reading a physics textbook doesn't mean you can't write a blog post about gravity or whatever, and you reading harry potter doesn't mean you can't write a series of fantasy books involving a young wizard trying to fight an evil wizard.
      - yencabulator 2y ago
        Last I looked, machines are considered unable to create copyrightable content, so your attempt to compare that to LLMs might not work in court. > The application was denied because, based on the applicant’s representations in the application, the examiner found that the work contained no human authorship. After a series of administrative appeals, the Office’s Review Board issued a final determination affirming that the work could not be registered because it was made “without any creative contribution from a human actor.” https://www.copyright.gov/ai/ai_policy_guidance.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/ai/ai_policy_guidance.pdf
        gruez 2y ago
        >Last I looked, machines are considered unable to create copyrightable content, so your attempt to compare that to LLMs might not work in court. That just means whatever they produce can't be copyrighted, not that they can't produce derivative works. Courts have upheld the right for google to produce thumbnails of copyrighted works, even though the procedure for producing thumbnails is done by a computer and thus can't be copyrighted.
    - furyofantares 2y ago
      Sure, which is a thing we've sort of agreed on as a society based on human consumption and creativity. Not that we all agree, and not that this agreement is free of influence from megacorps. But the context in which we've enacted copyright law is based on values related to human consumption and creativity. Maybe we will end up agreeing that we just want to stick with those same laws for machine consumption and creativity. But maybe we won't since they are quite different things.
SecretDreams 2y ago
I can't tell if your implication is what meta did is fine or just that your brain is as good as an AI? Could you clearly speak your point?
- Guthur 2y ago
  Honestly, if people continue to conflate human development with a mega corps trawling copyright material to build a mathematical model and then wrap it up and charge a subscription for it, then there's really not much you, I or anyone else can do to avoid the inevitable fallout and we really deserve everything we get for it.
  - maeil 2y ago
    > and we really deserve everything we get for it. Those people who conflate them deserve it. You and me don't. > there's really not much you, I or anyone else can do We can make our own community. And Bluesky is very much not it.
  - SecretDreams 2y ago
    > and we really deserve everything we get for it. I agree with you until this part. There comes a time where I don't think I deserve to get my eyes poked out just because other people find that fashionable.
- 23B1 2y ago
  OP is making the spurious argument that technology should have the same ethical entitlements as humans. It's on par with "information wants to be free".
  - SecretDreams 2y ago
    My thoughts as well. I just prefer to remove the nuance on these types of things. If OP wants to draw a line and clearly state "I'm with the corpo robots" that's fine. Just state it plainly so I can proceed accordingly.
  - nicce 2y ago
anileated 2y ago
Have you considered that you have some traits that make you eligible to read books and access information freely in the country you live in*? Something about being a conscious human being enjoying human rights, perhaps? An implement that does the same but (A) at scale and (B) without thought or free will or agency, completely at the bidding of its operator, for profit, has no such protections. Instead, the operator carries all responsibility (in this case, Meta). If a software service had legal protections like that, sure, I could build one that returns you any book you request and say that the service had integrated it into its worldview. Who can check, eh? * Actually, in some countries you could be in trouble for reading a book and incorporating it into your worldview, to say nothing about quoting it, but let’s set that aside.
- gruez 2y ago
  >Have you considered that you have some traits that make you eligible to read books and access information freely in the country you live in*? Something about being a conscious human being enjoying human rights, perhaps? Not a relevant factor when it comes to copyright law. Fair use (the law that's most applicable here) applies regardless if you're a student using incorporating news articles into your work, or google making thumbnails and displaying them on their search results.
  - anileated 2y ago
    This is not a good analogy. Google does not display the contents to any significant degree (you have to visit the search result). And even then it was/is in legal trouble, in fact (in some countries like Australia* more than others). Furthermore: > Examples of fair use in United States copyright law include commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, and scholarship. I do not see “automated generation of derivative works of arbitrary nature” in it. * https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55760673.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55760673.amp
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      > I do not see “automated generation of derivative works of arbitrary nature” in it The “automated” isn’t really key. If you read a book, and learn from it, and are able to use that knowledge in other contexts, should you pay a licensing fee? It doesn’t matter if “you” is a human or machine.
recursivecaveat 2y ago
The "and then fed them into an AI" part of "facebook pirated a bunch of books and then fed them into an AI" part is irrelevant. It would be equally illegal if they pirated them and then sat around reading them. Unless you somehow hope that the entirety of copyright will be overturned by this court case (not a chance) then you should strongly hope that facebook loses, because the alternative is literally "rules for thee but not for me" where corps can pirate whatever they want, but nothing changes for ordinary citizens.
ClumsyPilot 2y ago
So first there was this ‘corporations are people’ and not we have ‘computers are people’. So I expect to see that either you are no longer allowed to own computer software Or a return of slavery. Also if we find indecent portrayal of minors in a data centre I expect that we treat it as a strict liability crime and the entire data centre or corporation that owns it gets a long prison sentence, just like a human would. However that is suppose to work.
irjustin 2y ago
> I stole a lot of books too, reading them and all. Just integrated them into my worldview, and don't pay a license fee when I use the ideas in new contexts. That... doesn't make it okay... > A lot of them I didn't even pay for, I borrowed them from libraries or friends. This 2nd sentence doesn't fit your first. What is your message?
philistine 2y ago
Did you get those books through torrents? That's what's at stake. Distribution, not the parsing, which might (might!) have been legal.

by joshe 2y ago

maeil 2y ago

Didn't know Meta paid for them or borrowed them from libraries. In fact, I don't think they did.

furyofantares 2y ago
Maybe not but even if Meta did buy 1 copy of every book I doubt it would stop anyone from making bad analogies to theft. (Not that the analogy on the other side to a human reading is any better.)
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  Yes because using the books to train a book-replicating machine is a legally grey area.
- nicce 2y ago
  What if we could buy the books for one human, make the human read all the books, and somehow we would be able to clone this human in a way that they remember the book contents. Now, would that be a fair use of the books?
  - GuB-42 2y ago
    That's what storytelling is, and if you have twins, you even have the "clone" part. Ok, it doesn't tell much about AI and fair use, but I find it funny that your thought experiment is actually something you can do in real life.
  - hnfong 2y ago
    I think we should pay authors a fair wage based on some measure of the quality of the content instead of how well the book sells. There's no reason for Harry Potter for example being 10000 times more valuable than a book on quantum mechanics only because the former is more popular and the latter is on a more obscure topic.
- corobo 2y ago
  Isn't that literally what copyright is? You have bought the text so you have the readright, but you do not the copyright.
  - gruez 2y ago
    >You have bought the text so you have the readright, but you do not the copyright. You do however, have the right to make derivative works based on the contents of the book. You reading a physics textbook doesn't mean you can't write a blog post about gravity or whatever, and you reading harry potter doesn't mean you can't write a series of fantasy books involving a young wizard trying to fight an evil wizard.
    - yencabulator 2y ago
      Last I looked, machines are considered unable to create copyrightable content, so your attempt to compare that to LLMs might not work in court. > The application was denied because, based on the applicant’s representations in the application, the examiner found that the work contained no human authorship. After a series of administrative appeals, the Office’s Review Board issued a final determination affirming that the work could not be registered because it was made “without any creative contribution from a human actor.” https://www.copyright.gov/ai/ai_policy_guidance.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/ai/ai_policy_guidance.pdf
      - gruez 2y ago
        >Last I looked, machines are considered unable to create copyrightable content, so your attempt to compare that to LLMs might not work in court. That just means whatever they produce can't be copyrighted, not that they can't produce derivative works. Courts have upheld the right for google to produce thumbnails of copyrighted works, even though the procedure for producing thumbnails is done by a computer and thus can't be copyrighted.
  - furyofantares 2y ago
    Sure, which is a thing we've sort of agreed on as a society based on human consumption and creativity. Not that we all agree, and not that this agreement is free of influence from megacorps. But the context in which we've enacted copyright law is based on values related to human consumption and creativity. Maybe we will end up agreeing that we just want to stick with those same laws for machine consumption and creativity. But maybe we won't since they are quite different things.

SecretDreams 2y ago

I can't tell if your implication is what meta did is fine or just that your brain is as good as an AI? Could you clearly speak your point?

Guthur 2y ago
Honestly, if people continue to conflate human development with a mega corps trawling copyright material to build a mathematical model and then wrap it up and charge a subscription for it, then there's really not much you, I or anyone else can do to avoid the inevitable fallout and we really deserve everything we get for it.
- maeil 2y ago
  > and we really deserve everything we get for it. Those people who conflate them deserve it. You and me don't. > there's really not much you, I or anyone else can do We can make our own community. And Bluesky is very much not it.
- SecretDreams 2y ago
  > and we really deserve everything we get for it. I agree with you until this part. There comes a time where I don't think I deserve to get my eyes poked out just because other people find that fashionable.
23B1 2y ago
OP is making the spurious argument that technology should have the same ethical entitlements as humans. It's on par with "information wants to be free".
- SecretDreams 2y ago
  My thoughts as well. I just prefer to remove the nuance on these types of things. If OP wants to draw a line and clearly state "I'm with the corpo robots" that's fine. Just state it plainly so I can proceed accordingly.
- nicce 2y ago

anileated 2y ago

Have you considered that you have some traits that make you eligible to read books and access information freely in the country you live in*? Something about being a conscious human being enjoying human rights, perhaps? An implement that does the same but (A) at scale and (B) without thought or free will or agency, completely at the bidding of its operator, for profit, has no such protections. Instead, the operator carries all responsibility (in this case, Meta). If a software service had legal protections like that, sure, I could build one that returns you any book you request and say that the service had integrated it into its worldview. Who can check, eh? * Actually, in some countries you could be in trouble for reading a book and incorporating it into your worldview, to say nothing about quoting it, but let’s set that aside.

gruez 2y ago
>Have you considered that you have some traits that make you eligible to read books and access information freely in the country you live in*? Something about being a conscious human being enjoying human rights, perhaps? Not a relevant factor when it comes to copyright law. Fair use (the law that's most applicable here) applies regardless if you're a student using incorporating news articles into your work, or google making thumbnails and displaying them on their search results.
- anileated 2y ago
  This is not a good analogy. Google does not display the contents to any significant degree (you have to visit the search result). And even then it was/is in legal trouble, in fact (in some countries like Australia* more than others). Furthermore: > Examples of fair use in United States copyright law include commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, and scholarship. I do not see “automated generation of derivative works of arbitrary nature” in it. * https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55760673.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55760673.amp
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    > I do not see “automated generation of derivative works of arbitrary nature” in it The “automated” isn’t really key. If you read a book, and learn from it, and are able to use that knowledge in other contexts, should you pay a licensing fee? It doesn’t matter if “you” is a human or machine.

recursivecaveat 2y ago

The "and then fed them into an AI" part of "facebook pirated a bunch of books and then fed them into an AI" part is irrelevant. It would be equally illegal if they pirated them and then sat around reading them. Unless you somehow hope that the entirety of copyright will be overturned by this court case (not a chance) then you should strongly hope that facebook loses, because the alternative is literally "rules for thee but not for me" where corps can pirate whatever they want, but nothing changes for ordinary citizens.

ClumsyPilot 2y ago

So first there was this ‘corporations are people’ and not we have ‘computers are people’. So I expect to see that either you are no longer allowed to own computer software Or a return of slavery. Also if we find indecent portrayal of minors in a data centre I expect that we treat it as a strict liability crime and the entire data centre or corporation that owns it gets a long prison sentence, just like a human would. However that is suppose to work.

irjustin 2y ago

> I stole a lot of books too, reading them and all. Just integrated them into my worldview, and don't pay a license fee when I use the ideas in new contexts. That... doesn't make it okay... > A lot of them I didn't even pay for, I borrowed them from libraries or friends. This 2nd sentence doesn't fit your first. What is your message?

philistine 2y ago

Did you get those books through torrents? That's what's at stake. Distribution, not the parsing, which might (might!) have been legal.