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Remember how Kim Dotcom got destroyed for criminal copyright infringement? One would think the big tech CEOs would face the same fate, that police officers woul

Remember how Kim Dotcom got destroyed for criminal copyright infringement? One would think the big tech CEOs would face the same fate, that police officers would rappel down helicopters, storm their mansions and bring them out in cuffs. Instead the AI companies reached these absurd settlements with publishers that made a mockery out of all the previous copyright enforcement victims.

xienze 4mo ago
Remember how people used to justify their own personal software piracy with arguments like "information wants to be free", "no one stole anything, you still have the data", "I was never going to buy it anyway", and "copyright should be abolished?" > Instead the AI companies reached these absurd settlements with publishers that made a mockery out of all the previous copyright enforcement victims. Isn't that at least something? How many people pirating software ever settled with the companies they "victimized?"
- matheusmoreira 4mo ago
  > Remember how people used to justify their own personal software piracy A courtesy. There was never any need to justify it. > Isn't that at least something? Yes, it's a joke. Why do they get to infringe copyrights with impunity while normal people get destroyed? Either go after them like the copyright industry always does and punish them properly, or abolish copyright straight up. This "rules for thee but not for me" nonsense is straight up disgusting. > How many people pirating software ever settled with the companies they "victimized?" Too many to list. Also, nobody is victimizing billion dollar corporations.
  - phoghed 4mo ago
    So you don’t actually care, you just want them punished out of spite because some other guy was for doing something similar but not the same?
    - matheusmoreira 4mo ago
      Correct. I'm one of the copyright abolitionists the other person alluded to. It's the selective enforcement that's disgusting. I mean, what is this? Their balls suddenly drop off? They only have the audacity to prosecute random people? Smaller companies? When they're up against trillion dollar AI companies they suddenly become cowards? That's so incredibly disgusting, and it made me completely lose even the small amount of respect for copyright that I had managed to rationalize over the years.
      - phoghed 4mo ago
        So you believe a dude was wrongly punished, and to you justice would be for everyone else to also be wrongly punished? Kind of dumb tbh
        matheusmoreira 4mo ago
        My mind is not capable of the cognitive dissonance necessary to accept that billionaires get a slap on the wrist while mere mortals get police helicopters descending upon them. In order to maintain my mental health, I must have consistency. So either enforce the law the same way against everyone correctly and proportionally, or your law and its enforcement are illegitimate and shouldn't exist. If some activity is harmless enough for some billionaires to do at massive scales and settle in court like it was some footnote in history, then nobody should be punished for it at all.
        phoghed 4mo ago
        Brother Kim Dotcom was worth about $200,000,000
- monooso 4mo ago
  How many people pirating software stole every piece of copyrighted material in existence and then used that material to generate billions of dollars which they kept for themselves?
  - xienze 4mo ago
    You keep using that word "stole", you can't steal digital information, remember? > then used that material to generate billions of dollars which they kept for themselves? Hasn't it also lead to distilled, free and open models that everyone can benefit from?
    - monooso 4mo ago
      [dead]
- cinntaile 4mo ago
  Settlements after the fact, not agreements beforehand. No that's not something. That's just having infinitely more money to fight legal battles.
  - mapontosevenths 4mo ago
    When a crime is only punishable by fines it isn't a crime, it's just an activity with a tax. The AI companies knew that and bet, correctly, that it would be worth the cost.
- curtisblaine 4mo ago
  No. I want either: 1. The copyright infringement of big corpos fully justifying my copyright infringement in the face of law 2. The copyright infringement of big corpos being prosecuted in the same exact way as my copyright infringement would. There is really no middle ground.
vlovich123 4mo ago
Reminds me, did the AI companies redistribute that copyrighted material to others and make their money that way? Did Kim use the copyrighted material to generate something novel from it? copyright law literally says something isn’t infringement if it is a novel transformation. I get the jokes and criticism about AI companies fighting and complaining about competitors distilling, but this is a much weirder comparison.
- root-parent 4mo ago
  Now you just have to explain this: "Anthropic settles with authors in first-of-its-kind AI copyright infringement lawsuit" - https://www.npr.org/2025/09/05/nx-s1-5529404/anthropic-settlement-authors-copyright-ai https://www.npr.org/2025/09/05/nx-s1-5529404/anthropic-settl...
  - hydrox24 4mo ago
    > "The training use was a fair use," [the judge] wrote. "The use of the books at issue to train Claude and its precursors was exceedingly transformative." > However, the judge ruled that Anthropic's use of millions of pirated books to build its models – books that websites such as Library Genesis (LibGen) and Pirate Library Mirror (PiLiMi) copied without getting the authors' consent or giving them compensation – was not. It seems clear from the article that while the use of pirated works was illegal, the use of copyrighted works (a the work a book is based on is still copyrighted if you buy the book) was fine and transformative.
    - deleted 4mo ago
      [deleted]
- cryptonym 4mo ago
  This is confusing. I can torrent everything and do what I want with it, as long as I don't redistribute the exact same thing? If so, why do we still pay for games and movies?
  - 4mo ago
root-parent 4mo ago
Remember Aaron Swartz who did something that just pales compared to what Dario Amodei, Zuckerberg-Mr-Torrent and Sam Altman did.
- matheusmoreira 4mo ago
  Indeed I do. We should all remember him. Rest in peace.
- 314 4mo ago
  But Aaron Swartz did it for the benefit of other people. These fine people did it to uphold american values and enrich themselves at the expense of others. The law is clearly on their side.
  - dan_i 4mo ago
    Quick refresher on American values: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_colonial_history_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_colonial_histor...
    - batch12 4mo ago
      The article talks about European colonies, so would these have been European values then since America did not yet exist?
      - dan_i 4mo ago
        > The article talks about European colonies, so would these have been European values then since America did not yet exist? Slavery is an expression of capitalist values. Frederick Douglass is Karl Marx's ideological predecessor. You aren't wrong that the European powers were slavers. That being said, the culture of the 13 American colonies is the first appearance of the unique Euro-American culture that dominates the United States. It's wrongheaded to deny the central importance of slavery to American culture and values. In the United States, the land of the small business owner, slaves mixed socially and sexually with their captors and with the culture of their captors. For this reason, the culture of the United States is deeply affected by the institution of slavery in ways that are alien to the European powers.
codedokode 4mo ago
Exactly. If a rich corporation downloads and uses pirated content without paying, why should ordinary person pay for movies and music instead of downloading them for free?
- UqWBcuFx6NV4r 4mo ago
  Intellectually dishonest comment. Kim Dotcom got done for illegal distribution. It’s not about “illegally downloading”. You can pretend all you want that it’s the same thing as these AI companies, but it’s not. It certainly very well may be immoral, but to act like copyright law as it currently stands in spirit or in reality covers this scenario we’ve found ourselves in, is a complete and utter lie.
  - matheusmoreira 4mo ago
    > It’s not about “illegally downloading”. It absolutely is. That's textbook copyright infringement. Doing it for commercial purposes elevates it to criminal copyright infringement.
Simulacra 4mo ago
He just lost another court case… I wonder if we're getting close to the government spending as much to prosecute the man than what Hollywood possibly lost..
- Obscurity4340 4mo ago
  KimDoctCom?
datsci_est_2015 4mo ago
The trick here, imo, was the integration with the military industrial complex. It wasn’t very difficult of course, as automation has been a topic in warfare for decades, if not centuries. But Eisenhower was right: > In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

xienze 4mo ago

Remember how people used to justify their own personal software piracy with arguments like "information wants to be free", "no one stole anything, you still have the data", "I was never going to buy it anyway", and "copyright should be abolished?" > Instead the AI companies reached these absurd settlements with publishers that made a mockery out of all the previous copyright enforcement victims. Isn't that at least something? How many people pirating software ever settled with the companies they "victimized?"

matheusmoreira 4mo ago
> Remember how people used to justify their own personal software piracy A courtesy. There was never any need to justify it. > Isn't that at least something? Yes, it's a joke. Why do they get to infringe copyrights with impunity while normal people get destroyed? Either go after them like the copyright industry always does and punish them properly, or abolish copyright straight up. This "rules for thee but not for me" nonsense is straight up disgusting. > How many people pirating software ever settled with the companies they "victimized?" Too many to list. Also, nobody is victimizing billion dollar corporations.
- phoghed 4mo ago
  So you don’t actually care, you just want them punished out of spite because some other guy was for doing something similar but not the same?
  - matheusmoreira 4mo ago
    Correct. I'm one of the copyright abolitionists the other person alluded to. It's the selective enforcement that's disgusting. I mean, what is this? Their balls suddenly drop off? They only have the audacity to prosecute random people? Smaller companies? When they're up against trillion dollar AI companies they suddenly become cowards? That's so incredibly disgusting, and it made me completely lose even the small amount of respect for copyright that I had managed to rationalize over the years.
    - phoghed 4mo ago
      So you believe a dude was wrongly punished, and to you justice would be for everyone else to also be wrongly punished? Kind of dumb tbh
      - matheusmoreira 4mo ago
        My mind is not capable of the cognitive dissonance necessary to accept that billionaires get a slap on the wrist while mere mortals get police helicopters descending upon them. In order to maintain my mental health, I must have consistency. So either enforce the law the same way against everyone correctly and proportionally, or your law and its enforcement are illegitimate and shouldn't exist. If some activity is harmless enough for some billionaires to do at massive scales and settle in court like it was some footnote in history, then nobody should be punished for it at all.
        phoghed 4mo ago
        Brother Kim Dotcom was worth about $200,000,000
monooso 4mo ago
How many people pirating software stole every piece of copyrighted material in existence and then used that material to generate billions of dollars which they kept for themselves?
- xienze 4mo ago
  You keep using that word "stole", you can't steal digital information, remember? > then used that material to generate billions of dollars which they kept for themselves? Hasn't it also lead to distilled, free and open models that everyone can benefit from?
  - monooso 4mo ago
    [dead]
cinntaile 4mo ago
Settlements after the fact, not agreements beforehand. No that's not something. That's just having infinitely more money to fight legal battles.
- mapontosevenths 4mo ago
  When a crime is only punishable by fines it isn't a crime, it's just an activity with a tax. The AI companies knew that and bet, correctly, that it would be worth the cost.
curtisblaine 4mo ago
No. I want either: 1. The copyright infringement of big corpos fully justifying my copyright infringement in the face of law 2. The copyright infringement of big corpos being prosecuted in the same exact way as my copyright infringement would. There is really no middle ground.

vlovich123 4mo ago

Reminds me, did the AI companies redistribute that copyrighted material to others and make their money that way? Did Kim use the copyrighted material to generate something novel from it? copyright law literally says something isn’t infringement if it is a novel transformation. I get the jokes and criticism about AI companies fighting and complaining about competitors distilling, but this is a much weirder comparison.

root-parent 4mo ago
Now you just have to explain this: "Anthropic settles with authors in first-of-its-kind AI copyright infringement lawsuit" - https://www.npr.org/2025/09/05/nx-s1-5529404/anthropic-settlement-authors-copyright-ai https://www.npr.org/2025/09/05/nx-s1-5529404/anthropic-settl...
- hydrox24 4mo ago
  > "The training use was a fair use," [the judge] wrote. "The use of the books at issue to train Claude and its precursors was exceedingly transformative." > However, the judge ruled that Anthropic's use of millions of pirated books to build its models – books that websites such as Library Genesis (LibGen) and Pirate Library Mirror (PiLiMi) copied without getting the authors' consent or giving them compensation – was not. It seems clear from the article that while the use of pirated works was illegal, the use of copyrighted works (a the work a book is based on is still copyrighted if you buy the book) was fine and transformative.
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
cryptonym 4mo ago
This is confusing. I can torrent everything and do what I want with it, as long as I don't redistribute the exact same thing? If so, why do we still pay for games and movies?
- 4mo ago

root-parent 4mo ago

Remember Aaron Swartz who did something that just pales compared to what Dario Amodei, Zuckerberg-Mr-Torrent and Sam Altman did.

matheusmoreira 4mo ago
Indeed I do. We should all remember him. Rest in peace.
314 4mo ago
But Aaron Swartz did it for the benefit of other people. These fine people did it to uphold american values and enrich themselves at the expense of others. The law is clearly on their side.
- dan_i 4mo ago
  Quick refresher on American values: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_colonial_history_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_colonial_histor...
  - batch12 4mo ago
    The article talks about European colonies, so would these have been European values then since America did not yet exist?
    - dan_i 4mo ago
      > The article talks about European colonies, so would these have been European values then since America did not yet exist? Slavery is an expression of capitalist values. Frederick Douglass is Karl Marx's ideological predecessor. You aren't wrong that the European powers were slavers. That being said, the culture of the 13 American colonies is the first appearance of the unique Euro-American culture that dominates the United States. It's wrongheaded to deny the central importance of slavery to American culture and values. In the United States, the land of the small business owner, slaves mixed socially and sexually with their captors and with the culture of their captors. For this reason, the culture of the United States is deeply affected by the institution of slavery in ways that are alien to the European powers.

codedokode 4mo ago

Exactly. If a rich corporation downloads and uses pirated content without paying, why should ordinary person pay for movies and music instead of downloading them for free?

UqWBcuFx6NV4r 4mo ago
Intellectually dishonest comment. Kim Dotcom got done for illegal distribution. It’s not about “illegally downloading”. You can pretend all you want that it’s the same thing as these AI companies, but it’s not. It certainly very well may be immoral, but to act like copyright law as it currently stands in spirit or in reality covers this scenario we’ve found ourselves in, is a complete and utter lie.
- matheusmoreira 4mo ago
  > It’s not about “illegally downloading”. It absolutely is. That's textbook copyright infringement. Doing it for commercial purposes elevates it to criminal copyright infringement.

Simulacra 4mo ago

He just lost another court case… I wonder if we're getting close to the government spending as much to prosecute the man than what Hollywood possibly lost..

Obscurity4340 4mo ago
KimDoctCom?

datsci_est_2015 4mo ago

The trick here, imo, was the integration with the military industrial complex. It wasn’t very difficult of course, as automation has been a topic in warfare for decades, if not centuries. But Eisenhower was right: > In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.