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> Anyone who uses BitTorrent to transfer files automatically uploads content to other people, as it is inherent to the protocol. In other words, the uploading w
by Sayrus 7mo ago
> Anyone who uses BitTorrent to transfer files automatically uploads content to other people, as it is inherent to the protocol. In other words, the uploading wasn’t a choice, it was simply how the technology works.
What an argument to make in court. It can be proved false in minutes by the plaintiffs.
- Ekaros 7mo agoI can't believe that no one has ever tried that one before... So do we now roll back all of the previous copyright cases where downloading music with bittorrent has been prosecuted?
- Sayrus 7mo agoFrom my understanding, Meta's use of the pirated book was accepted as fair use and the plaintiffs admitted to no harm. In the case of pirated music and films, neither of those points are made. Copyright holders assume people who pirate would have bought the content, usually even assuming that one download is one lost sale. And I am not aware of a single case where watching or listening to pirated content was accepted as fair use. It is interesting to follow how this plays out for Meta and how that will impact future cases.
- Hamuko 7mo agoWe consumers just need BiTorrent clients that come with LLM training code incorporated, as that transforms the downloads into fair use (according to the very expensive Meta legal team).
- RobotToaster 7mo agoOne of the underlying issues is that punitive damages seem to be the norm in US courts. In the UK you can only claim for the actual damages incurred, which at most will be the profit you would've made on the sale of that book. Which makes most claims for private infringement uneconomical for corporations.
- tzs 7mo agoNote though that the court can award more than this in some circumstances. From the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988, section 97 [1]: (2) The court may in an action for infringement of copyright having regard to all the circumstances, and in particular to— (a)the flagrancy of the infringement, and (b)any benefit accruing to the defendant by reason of the infringement, award such additional damages as the justice of the case may require. I think most copyright systems have some provision for damages beyond lost profits, because if they did not what incentive would there be to not infringe? [1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/97 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/97
- jazzyjackson 7mo agoThe use of the pirated book is a totally separate action than acquiring the pirated book.
- orbifold 7mo agoI don’t get that, the use of these books was instrumental and necessary for the success of the training run. The expected value of these training runs is high as the build out of 100 billion+ infrastructure demonstrates, so the book publishers should at a minimum be paid a licensing fee, a small fraction of every inference run revenue or whatever they decide. The fact that authors and publishers didn’t get any say under what conditions their intellectual property can be used is pretty outrageous.
- satvikpendem 7mo agoThe conclusion was they suffered no legal harm, in that their interests such as their continued publishing of books was not affected by LLMs; no one is using AI to compete with publishers, if anything "authors" might very well use those same publishers to get their generated books on shelves. If it's fair use, no licensing fee is needed.
- smegger001 7mo agoSo pretty much the same as the Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc. case ruling it as fair use as a transformative work. I mean if indexing the worlds books is transformative then a neural net run on them certainly is a transformative work and fair use.
- satvikpendem 7mo agoYes, that's how the argument is going for these lawsuits so far.
- applfanboysbgon 7mo ago> So do we now roll back all of the previous copyright cases where downloading music with bittorrent has been prosecuted No, because those cases were pirating-while-poor. This is pirating-while-trillion-dollar-corporation, which falls under a completely different section of the law.
- mcherm 7mo agoAt this stage, you are going to far in claiming that. So far, all that happened is that Meta's lawyers claimed it was fair use. They are paid to try every argument they can think of that might work. Just because they make the argument doesn't mean the court will find it has any merit.
- latexr 7mo agoWhile you are correct that a decision on this specific case is still pending, your parent comment does have a point that breaking the law while rich and while poor have very different outcomes. Also, no way they’re going to roll back all previous cases. So the joke works now, no need to wait.
- armchairhacker 7mo agoMeta has so much money, even if they end up paying they’ll probably barely be affected. In that case, actually GP is wrong and it’s the same law, but still different outcomes (like “neither poor nor rich may sleep on public benches…”)
- throw73848595 7mo agoThis. You can set upload speed to zero, and download entire dataset without uploading anything. Slower but doable.
- Etherlord87 7mo agoAs far as I know, setting upload speed to zero disables the limit. You can set it to be very low but not zero.
- gzread 7mo agoYou can patch it so zero means zero.
- Etherlord87 7mo agoI think it's a fair argument in the context of big corporations using the technology.
- pwg 7mo agoThat is client dependent. On rtorrent, there is a separate "off" setting for the speed throttle that means "no throttle" with the result that "zero" actually means "no uploading".
- gmokki 7mo agoWhen I pull the trigger and the bullet kills an another person, it is just how technology works. Why would I be responsible if I choose to use it or not?
- swarnie 7mo agoI'm going to need a copy of your latest bank statement before i can accurately answer that.
- gus_massa 7mo agoI agree, that people used to be called "leechers". Somewhat related xkcd https://xkcd.com/553/ https://xkcd.com/553/
- Teknomadix 7mo agoNot exactly automatically. Seeding is opt-out, not opt-in… but it is usually a default that has to actively manually overridden. Most users never touch those settings. The average pirate downloading a torrent is seeding whether they know it or not. The protocol absolutely does not enforce seeding. A client can lie to the tracker, cap upload to 0k. BitTorrent has no mechanism to compel one to share. Leeching a file, downloading and sharing no forward packets is possible. While the "social contract" of seeding is entirely a norm enforced by private trackers and community shame. It is not the protocol itself.
- muyuu 7mo agoseeding is not the only way you actually upload you're uploading before seeding, and i'm willing to bet Meta weren't seeding but, as they correctly stated in that regard, they're sharing even when they try their best not to because of the way the protocol works as zero-upload is typically impractical for any significant size files some trackers will additionally penalise you for not sharing file parts, but this depends on the tracker
- gzread 7mo agoand the protocol doesn't enforce you upload anything. The original design called for some kind of tit-for-tat algorithm, but it's long obsolete and you get whatever bandwidth the seeder has.
- muyuu 7mo agoIf you try to download any significant file with zero-upload, you will run out of peers that will share with you much earlier than you will download the file. It's not practical. Most people that speak of leeching or not seeding really are talking about not seeding at all after they've completed. In fact, most clients will let you set upload speeds to a trickle but not zero (zero means unlimited in most clients). From a legal standpoint, that already means you uploaded.
- 7mo ago
- ekjhgkejhgk 7mo agoLawyers are paid to defend a position. They are intellectual prostitutes.
- AlienRobot 7mo agoMy client didn't "buy" illegal drugs. He received illegal drugs. But anyone who makes a drug deal automatically sends money to the drug dealer, as inherent of the protocol. In other words, "giving money for drugs" wasn't a choice, it was simply how drug deals work.
- tgv 7mo agoEven if the court accepts the argument, it can be undermined by pointing out that they knew it in advance, or could have known, and thus accepted it.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]