7 ms·

So all they have to do is go and buy a copy of each book they pirated. They will have ceased and desisted.

superfrank 1y ago
I'm trying to find the quote, but I'm pretty sure the judge specifically said that going and buying the book after the fact won't absolve them of liability. He said that for the books they pirated they broke the law and should stand trial for that and they cannot go back and un-break in by buying a copy now. Found it: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/federal-judge-rules-copyrighted-books-are-fair-use-ai-training-rcna214766 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/federal-judge-rules-c... > “That Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the internet will not absolve it of liability for the theft,” [Judge] Alsup wrote, “but it may affect the extent of statutory damages.”
- zoklet-enjoyer 1y ago
  Did they really steal if they didn't deprive anyone of their copy? I don't think copying is theft.
  - badlibrarian 1y ago
    "Tell it to the Judge..."
  - kjkjadksj 1y ago
    You may not think it is but the law does.
    - buildbot 1y ago
      The law says it’s copyright infringement, not theft.
  - axus 1y ago
    Agreed, the judge should avoid slang or even commonly accepted synonyms in an official ruling. The charge is not for theft. Substitute infringement for theft.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - hadlock 1y ago
    It's copyright infringement, which is not theft, they're legally distinct in the eyes of the law. This is partly why the "you wouldn't download a car" copyright ads were so widely mocked.
    - __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
      Fun fact, they didn't have the rights to use the font they used for those commercials: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43775926 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43775926
      - gghffguhvc 1y ago
        Or the music. It was originally made as a one off for a film festival. Movie industry defended the lawsuit over the music.
  - fortran77 1y ago
    It's fine that you think that way. But this is a discusion of the laws of the United States of America and ruling by American courts, not a discussion of your own legal theories.
    - hnlmorg 1y ago
      The GP isn’t talking about some edge case legal dilemma that requires a lawyer or judge to comment. It’s already widely documented that copyright infringement is legally distinct from theft.
  - superfrank 1y ago
    They stole from the amount they would have legally paid to buy a copy from the copyright holder. Think about it like sneaking into a movie theater and watch a movie without paying. The theater was going to play the movie anyway and, assuming it wasn't a packed theatre, I didn't deprive anyone else of their ability to watch. It's still theft because I'm getting something that costs money for free and depriving the theater of the money that they're owed.
- freejazz 1y ago
  They also argued that they in no way could ever actually license all the materials they ingested
  - dmd 1y ago
    I love this argument so much. "But judge, there's no way I could ever afford to buy those jewels, so stealing them must be OK."
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      The argument is more along the lines of, negotiating with millions of individuals each over a single copy of a work would cause the transaction costs to exceed the payments, and that kind of efficiency loss is the sort of thing fair use exists to prevent. It's not socially beneficial for the law to require you to create $2 in deadweight loss in order to transfer $1, and the cost to the author of not selling a single additional copy is not the thing they were really objecting to.
      - exe34 1y ago
        That's right, so I can't individually discuss terms with each and every media creator, so from now on, I can just pirate everything.
        AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        Needing a copy of one book you're going to spend a week reading has a lot less overhead than needing a copy of every book that you're going to process with a computer in bulk.
        recursive 1y ago
        I like to glance at the cover art. I can do ten per second when I really get into my flow state. Sometimes I read them also, but that's incidental.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- irthomasthomas 1y ago
  Is copyright in America different to Britain? There, it is legal to download books you don't own. Only distribution is a crime, which most torrenters break by seeding.
  - rahimnathwani 1y ago
    What do you mean by 'it is legal'? Do you mean: A) It's not a criminal offence? B) The copyright owner cannot file a civil suit for damages? C) Something else?
    - irthomasthomas 1y ago
      > Only distribution is a crime
      - throwawayffffas 1y ago
        Only distribution with the intent to make money is a crime. If you are doing it for free you are not criminally liable. Unless I am missing something.
        codedokode 1y ago
        Any distribution of copyrighted material can cause you a big trouble.
      - rahimnathwani 1y ago
        What relevance does that have to the present case? The judge, in this civil matter, said there would be a trial. He didn't say anything about it being a criminal trial. The strings 'crim' and 'felon' do not appear in the ruling. We will have a trial on the pirated copies used to create Anthropic’s central library and the resulting damages, actual or statutory (including for willfulness).
        Aeolun 1y ago
        There can always be a trial, even if nothing was done to warrant it. I think the distinction between civil and criminal trials is smaller in my home country. The fact that there is a trial at all implies that someone commited a ‘crime’.
dragonwriter 1y ago
> So all they have to do is go and buy a copy of each book they pirated. No, that doesn't undo the infringement. At most, that would mitigate actual damages, but actual damages aren't likely to be important, given that statutory damages are an alternative and are likely to dwarf actual damages. (It may also figure into how the court assigns statutory damages within the very large range available for those, but that range does not go down to $0.) > They will have ceased and desisted. "Cease and desist" is just to stop incurring additional liability. (A potential plaintiff may accept that as sufficient to not sue if a request is made and the potential defendant complies, because litigation is uncertain and expensive. But "cease and desist" doesn't undo wrongs and neutralize liability when they've already been sued over.)
- rockemsockem 1y ago
  > So all they have to do is go and buy a copy of each book they pirated. For anyone else who wants to do the same thing though this is likely all they need to do. Cutting up and scanning books is hard work and actually doing the same thing digitally to ebooks isn't labor free either, especially when they have to be downloaded from random sites and cleaned from different formats. Torrenting a bunch of epubs and paying for individual books is probably cheaper
tzs 1y ago
Generally you don't want laws to work that way. You want to set the penalties so that they discourage violating the law. Setting the penalty to what it would have cost to obey the law in the first place does the opposite.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  That's for criminal laws where prosecutorial discretion can then (in principle) be used in borderline cases to prevent unjust outcomes. If you give people a claim for damages which is an order of magnitude larger than their actual damages, it encourages litigiousness and becomes a vector for shakedowns because the excessive cost of losing pressures innocent defendants to settle even if there was a 90% chance they would have won. Meanwhile both parties have the incentive to settle in civil cases when it's obvious who is going to win, because a settlement to pay the damages is cheaper than the cost of going to court and then having to pay the same damages anyway. Which also provides a deterrent to doing it to begin with, because even having to pay lawyers to negotiate a settlement is a cost you don't want to pay when it's clear that what you're doing is going to have that result. And when the result isn't clear, penalizing the defendant in a case of first impression isn't just either, because it wasn't clear and punitive measures should be reserved for instances of unambiguous wrongdoing.
  - badlibrarian 1y ago
    Statutory damages were written into the first federal copyright law in 1790, and earlier in state law (specified in Pounds because the dollar hadn't been invented yet).
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      The first federal copyright law in 1790: https://copyright.gov/about/1790-copyright-act.html https://copyright.gov/about/1790-copyright-act.html Specified in dollars because dollars had been invented (in 1789), but in the amount of one half of one dollar, i.e. $0.50. That's 1790 dollars, of course, so a little under $20 today. (There was basically no inflation for the first 100+ years of that because the US dollar was still backed by precious metals then; a dollar was worth slightly more in 1900 than in 1790.) That seems more like an attempt to codify some amount of plausible actual damages so people aren't arguing endlessly about valuations, rather than an attempt to impose punitive damages. Most notably because -- unlike the current method -- it scales with the number of sheets reproduced.

I'm trying to find the quote, but I'm pretty sure the judge specifically said that going and buying the book after the fact won't absolve them of liability. He said that for the books they pirated they broke the law and should stand trial for that and they cannot go back and un-break in by buying a copy now. Found it: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/federal-judge-rules-copyrighted-books-are-fair-use-ai-training-rcna214766 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/federal-judge-rules-c... > “That Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the internet will not absolve it of liability for the theft,” [Judge] Alsup wrote, “but it may affect the extent of statutory damages.”

zoklet-enjoyer 1y ago
Did they really steal if they didn't deprive anyone of their copy? I don't think copying is theft.
- badlibrarian 1y ago
  "Tell it to the Judge..."
- kjkjadksj 1y ago
  You may not think it is but the law does.
  - buildbot 1y ago
    The law says it’s copyright infringement, not theft.
- axus 1y ago
  Agreed, the judge should avoid slang or even commonly accepted synonyms in an official ruling. The charge is not for theft. Substitute infringement for theft.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- hadlock 1y ago
  It's copyright infringement, which is not theft, they're legally distinct in the eyes of the law. This is partly why the "you wouldn't download a car" copyright ads were so widely mocked.
  - __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
    Fun fact, they didn't have the rights to use the font they used for those commercials: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43775926 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43775926
    - gghffguhvc 1y ago
      Or the music. It was originally made as a one off for a film festival. Movie industry defended the lawsuit over the music.
- fortran77 1y ago
  It's fine that you think that way. But this is a discusion of the laws of the United States of America and ruling by American courts, not a discussion of your own legal theories.
  - hnlmorg 1y ago
    The GP isn’t talking about some edge case legal dilemma that requires a lawyer or judge to comment. It’s already widely documented that copyright infringement is legally distinct from theft.
- superfrank 1y ago
  They stole from the amount they would have legally paid to buy a copy from the copyright holder. Think about it like sneaking into a movie theater and watch a movie without paying. The theater was going to play the movie anyway and, assuming it wasn't a packed theatre, I didn't deprive anyone else of their ability to watch. It's still theft because I'm getting something that costs money for free and depriving the theater of the money that they're owed.
freejazz 1y ago
They also argued that they in no way could ever actually license all the materials they ingested
- dmd 1y ago
  I love this argument so much. "But judge, there's no way I could ever afford to buy those jewels, so stealing them must be OK."
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    The argument is more along the lines of, negotiating with millions of individuals each over a single copy of a work would cause the transaction costs to exceed the payments, and that kind of efficiency loss is the sort of thing fair use exists to prevent. It's not socially beneficial for the law to require you to create $2 in deadweight loss in order to transfer $1, and the cost to the author of not selling a single additional copy is not the thing they were really objecting to.
    - exe34 1y ago
      That's right, so I can't individually discuss terms with each and every media creator, so from now on, I can just pirate everything.
      - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        Needing a copy of one book you're going to spend a week reading has a lot less overhead than needing a copy of every book that you're going to process with a computer in bulk.
        recursive 1y ago
        I like to glance at the cover art. I can do ten per second when I really get into my flow state. Sometimes I read them also, but that's incidental.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
irthomasthomas 1y ago
Is copyright in America different to Britain? There, it is legal to download books you don't own. Only distribution is a crime, which most torrenters break by seeding.
- rahimnathwani 1y ago
  What do you mean by 'it is legal'? Do you mean: A) It's not a criminal offence? B) The copyright owner cannot file a civil suit for damages? C) Something else?
  - irthomasthomas 1y ago
    > Only distribution is a crime
    - throwawayffffas 1y ago
      Only distribution with the intent to make money is a crime. If you are doing it for free you are not criminally liable. Unless I am missing something.
      - codedokode 1y ago
        Any distribution of copyrighted material can cause you a big trouble.
    - rahimnathwani 1y ago
      What relevance does that have to the present case? The judge, in this civil matter, said there would be a trial. He didn't say anything about it being a criminal trial. The strings 'crim' and 'felon' do not appear in the ruling. We will have a trial on the pirated copies used to create Anthropic’s central library and the resulting damages, actual or statutory (including for willfulness).
      - Aeolun 1y ago
        There can always be a trial, even if nothing was done to warrant it. I think the distinction between civil and criminal trials is smaller in my home country. The fact that there is a trial at all implies that someone commited a ‘crime’.

dragonwriter 1y ago

> So all they have to do is go and buy a copy of each book they pirated. No, that doesn't undo the infringement. At most, that would mitigate actual damages, but actual damages aren't likely to be important, given that statutory damages are an alternative and are likely to dwarf actual damages. (It may also figure into how the court assigns statutory damages within the very large range available for those, but that range does not go down to $0.) > They will have ceased and desisted. "Cease and desist" is just to stop incurring additional liability. (A potential plaintiff may accept that as sufficient to not sue if a request is made and the potential defendant complies, because litigation is uncertain and expensive. But "cease and desist" doesn't undo wrongs and neutralize liability when they've already been sued over.)

rockemsockem 1y ago
> So all they have to do is go and buy a copy of each book they pirated. For anyone else who wants to do the same thing though this is likely all they need to do. Cutting up and scanning books is hard work and actually doing the same thing digitally to ebooks isn't labor free either, especially when they have to be downloaded from random sites and cleaned from different formats. Torrenting a bunch of epubs and paying for individual books is probably cheaper

tzs 1y ago

Generally you don't want laws to work that way. You want to set the penalties so that they discourage violating the law. Setting the penalty to what it would have cost to obey the law in the first place does the opposite.

AnthonyMouse 1y ago
That's for criminal laws where prosecutorial discretion can then (in principle) be used in borderline cases to prevent unjust outcomes. If you give people a claim for damages which is an order of magnitude larger than their actual damages, it encourages litigiousness and becomes a vector for shakedowns because the excessive cost of losing pressures innocent defendants to settle even if there was a 90% chance they would have won. Meanwhile both parties have the incentive to settle in civil cases when it's obvious who is going to win, because a settlement to pay the damages is cheaper than the cost of going to court and then having to pay the same damages anyway. Which also provides a deterrent to doing it to begin with, because even having to pay lawyers to negotiate a settlement is a cost you don't want to pay when it's clear that what you're doing is going to have that result. And when the result isn't clear, penalizing the defendant in a case of first impression isn't just either, because it wasn't clear and punitive measures should be reserved for instances of unambiguous wrongdoing.
- badlibrarian 1y ago
  Statutory damages were written into the first federal copyright law in 1790, and earlier in state law (specified in Pounds because the dollar hadn't been invented yet).
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    The first federal copyright law in 1790: https://copyright.gov/about/1790-copyright-act.html https://copyright.gov/about/1790-copyright-act.html Specified in dollars because dollars had been invented (in 1789), but in the amount of one half of one dollar, i.e. $0.50. That's 1790 dollars, of course, so a little under $20 today. (There was basically no inflation for the first 100+ years of that because the US dollar was still backed by precious metals then; a dollar was worth slightly more in 1900 than in 1790.) That seems more like an attempt to codify some amount of plausible actual damages so people aren't arguing endlessly about valuations, rather than an attempt to impose punitive damages. Most notably because -- unlike the current method -- it scales with the number of sheets reproduced.