4 ms·

Sure, but the difference here is the pirate is claiming it's "their data" and asking for donations.

by scosman 5mo ago

margalabargala 5mo ago
Well, it is their data. The word "their" is overloaded, it could mean "thing I have the legal right to", or, "thing I have in my possession right now". The latter condition is clearly true. It's their data. If you pretend the other definitions of possession don't exist and claim "aktually it's not theirs they don't have rights to it" then that's on you for faking an incomplete understanding of language.
- TZubiri 5mo ago
  It's their servers sure, but if you download something under a license that doesn't grant you ownership, then it isn't yours. You are being granted a license to use the data.
  - margalabargala 5mo ago
    Yes, exactly, if you ignore all definitions of "yours" that involve possession then it isn't "yours". But no one else is obligated to ignore the definitions of words that you're choosing to ignore, so the rest of us will go on saying it's their data.
    - scosman 5mo ago
      If you steal my car, no who knows it's stolen would say it's "yours". We're not talking abstract language concepts, this is a specific case. The data was taken without license/rights/approval. It's stolen. AA calling it "our data" is disingenuous. Legally it isn't theirs. While you could use "ours"/"theirs" loosely in English, they knew it wasn't true in a legal sense when publishing this.
      - a_conservative 5mo ago
        > The data was taken without license/rights/approval. It's stolen. That's incorrect. A license violation isn't theft. Theft deprives others of their property, that's not what's going on here. Intellectual property is a fictional "ownership" that provides value to society, but it is much newer and different than the actual ownership of property. No one actually owns a collection of words or ideas or thoughts.
        TZubiri 5mo ago
        Yet the main holders of this position were caught saying "our data". Don't you see the irony?
        hunter2_ 5mo ago
        The tricky bit is that while it's impossible to deprive someone of their idea (i.e., commit theft of an idea), it's possible to steal someone's idea (i.e., copy it and use it illicitly), because only the word theft, but not the word steal, has that "deprive others" stipulation. So with that in mind, circling back to whether possession occurs in such a way to make possessive language appropriate (being able to say "my data" after stealing data but not depriving the author of the data), my opinion is that the copy of the data that the author still controls is the author's data, and the copy of the data that the stealer controls is the stealer's data. It's the author's idea, but both parties separately possess the data (the data is a record of the idea).
      - hunter2_ 5mo ago
        Taking someone else's car illicitly is theft, because theft means taking with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. Copying can never be theft, only moving can be theft, because only moving it could deprive the rightful owner of it. An illicit copy is merely copyright infringement or a breach of contract or various other concepts that are not theft despite people sometimes using that word as shorthand. It's YOUR illicit copy, not the rightful owner's illicit copy.
        BobaFloutist 5mo ago
    - jamespo 5mo ago
      Guess what, the AI companies training their models aren't going to include themselves in the "rest of us"
      - margalabargala 5mo ago
        The AI companies training their models are going to refer to it as their own data, once it's on their servers.
  - lightedman 5mo ago
    "but if you download something under a license that doesn't grant you ownership, then it isn't yours." Possession is 9/10 of the law - if you have a copy, you have possession, and thus you have SOMETHING and LEGALLY it is considered yours (now whether you legally obtained it is a different story and THAT is where charges stem from.)
    - FireBeyond 5mo ago
      Random nit, the original saying was "possession is 9 points of the law", attributes that strengthened legal claims, rather than a percentage. Things like possession, good lawyer, money, patience, witnesses, for which if you had the object in your possession were likely to be in your favor.
- ncallaway 5mo ago
  Well, but if it’s the latter definition, then the AI didn’t train on their data, since the companies took possession of that data before doing a training run. It’s only the former definition that would allow an AI model to have been trained on someone else’s data
  - margalabargala 5mo ago
    > It’s only the former definition that would allow an AI model to have been trained on someone else’s data There are yet more definitions of "theirs". For example, data whose provenance can be traced back to Anna's Archive. So the data is legally owned by the book authors, possessed by Anna's Archive, and downloaded for training usage by the AI companies. Every person in that chain could, linguistically speaking, correctly refer to the data as "theirs", or refer to the data of a different entity as "theirs".
- antasvara 5mo ago
  I suppose it depends if "their" implies possession or ownership. It would be correct to say they possess this data. It's dicier to say they own it, much like I "possess" the apartment I rent but I do not "own" it. Regardless, digital file possession and ownership doesn't map cleanly to our language. I technically don't own any Kindle books I buy, I can't share them, yet I clearly have access to an ebook. So I both do and don't currently possess said book.
  - kelipso 5mo ago
    I’m renting my apartment but I still refer to it as my apartment. Everyone does this, it’s very common usage.
- MarsIronPI 5mo ago
  And especially in the case of LLMs, they are trained from text that (probably) comes directly from AA.
culi 5mo ago
Their data about not their work
atoav 5mo ago
If e.g. OpenAI downloaded it from their servers to train their models, what else is there to say about it? If capitalism was capable of actually preserving the knowledge of humanity, we wouldn't need things like Anna's Archive.

Sure, but the difference here is the pirate is claiming it's "their data" and asking for donations.

by scosman 5mo ago

Sure, but the difference here is the pirate is claiming it's "their data" and asking for donations.

Well, it is their data. The word "their" is overloaded, it could mean "thing I have the legal right to", or, "thing I have in my possession right now". The latter condition is clearly true. It's their data. If you pretend the other definitions of possession don't exist and claim "aktually it's not theirs they don't have rights to it" then that's on you for faking an incomplete understanding of language.

TZubiri 5mo ago
It's their servers sure, but if you download something under a license that doesn't grant you ownership, then it isn't yours. You are being granted a license to use the data.
- margalabargala 5mo ago
  Yes, exactly, if you ignore all definitions of "yours" that involve possession then it isn't "yours". But no one else is obligated to ignore the definitions of words that you're choosing to ignore, so the rest of us will go on saying it's their data.
  - scosman 5mo ago
    If you steal my car, no who knows it's stolen would say it's "yours". We're not talking abstract language concepts, this is a specific case. The data was taken without license/rights/approval. It's stolen. AA calling it "our data" is disingenuous. Legally it isn't theirs. While you could use "ours"/"theirs" loosely in English, they knew it wasn't true in a legal sense when publishing this.
    - a_conservative 5mo ago
      > The data was taken without license/rights/approval. It's stolen. That's incorrect. A license violation isn't theft. Theft deprives others of their property, that's not what's going on here. Intellectual property is a fictional "ownership" that provides value to society, but it is much newer and different than the actual ownership of property. No one actually owns a collection of words or ideas or thoughts.
      - TZubiri 5mo ago
        Yet the main holders of this position were caught saying "our data". Don't you see the irony?
      - hunter2_ 5mo ago
        The tricky bit is that while it's impossible to deprive someone of their idea (i.e., commit theft of an idea), it's possible to steal someone's idea (i.e., copy it and use it illicitly), because only the word theft, but not the word steal, has that "deprive others" stipulation. So with that in mind, circling back to whether possession occurs in such a way to make possessive language appropriate (being able to say "my data" after stealing data but not depriving the author of the data), my opinion is that the copy of the data that the author still controls is the author's data, and the copy of the data that the stealer controls is the stealer's data. It's the author's idea, but both parties separately possess the data (the data is a record of the idea).
    - hunter2_ 5mo ago
      Taking someone else's car illicitly is theft, because theft means taking with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. Copying can never be theft, only moving can be theft, because only moving it could deprive the rightful owner of it. An illicit copy is merely copyright infringement or a breach of contract or various other concepts that are not theft despite people sometimes using that word as shorthand. It's YOUR illicit copy, not the rightful owner's illicit copy.
      - BobaFloutist 5mo ago
  - jamespo 5mo ago
    Guess what, the AI companies training their models aren't going to include themselves in the "rest of us"
    - margalabargala 5mo ago
      The AI companies training their models are going to refer to it as their own data, once it's on their servers.
- lightedman 5mo ago
  "but if you download something under a license that doesn't grant you ownership, then it isn't yours." Possession is 9/10 of the law - if you have a copy, you have possession, and thus you have SOMETHING and LEGALLY it is considered yours (now whether you legally obtained it is a different story and THAT is where charges stem from.)
  - FireBeyond 5mo ago
    Random nit, the original saying was "possession is 9 points of the law", attributes that strengthened legal claims, rather than a percentage. Things like possession, good lawyer, money, patience, witnesses, for which if you had the object in your possession were likely to be in your favor.
ncallaway 5mo ago
Well, but if it’s the latter definition, then the AI didn’t train on their data, since the companies took possession of that data before doing a training run. It’s only the former definition that would allow an AI model to have been trained on someone else’s data
- margalabargala 5mo ago
  > It’s only the former definition that would allow an AI model to have been trained on someone else’s data There are yet more definitions of "theirs". For example, data whose provenance can be traced back to Anna's Archive. So the data is legally owned by the book authors, possessed by Anna's Archive, and downloaded for training usage by the AI companies. Every person in that chain could, linguistically speaking, correctly refer to the data as "theirs", or refer to the data of a different entity as "theirs".
antasvara 5mo ago
I suppose it depends if "their" implies possession or ownership. It would be correct to say they possess this data. It's dicier to say they own it, much like I "possess" the apartment I rent but I do not "own" it. Regardless, digital file possession and ownership doesn't map cleanly to our language. I technically don't own any Kindle books I buy, I can't share them, yet I clearly have access to an ebook. So I both do and don't currently possess said book.
- kelipso 5mo ago
  I’m renting my apartment but I still refer to it as my apartment. Everyone does this, it’s very common usage.
MarsIronPI 5mo ago
And especially in the case of LLMs, they are trained from text that (probably) comes directly from AA.

culi 5mo ago

Their data about not their work

atoav 5mo ago

If e.g. OpenAI downloaded it from their servers to train their models, what else is there to say about it? If capitalism was capable of actually preserving the knowledge of humanity, we wouldn't need things like Anna's Archive.