4 ms·

I'm so baffled. First blatant piracy, now this. Why is it legal for AI companies to hack unaffiliated entities? Genuinely, what is the legal framework here?

by negura 1mo ago

bayindirh 1mo ago
First let it happen, then ask for forgiveness, because they are doing something amazing and they need no permission. Otherwise AI industry will go bankrupt and CEOs won't be able to buy this year's Rolls Royce and a slightly bigger yacht than their neighbor.
myrmidon 1mo ago
It's "move fast and break things" in action. But Anthropic alone paid >$1bn for copyright violations, so they did not just get away with it. These hacking cases are more difficult, because from a legal perspective there is no obvious damage and obviously no intent. edit: "no obvious damage" is more about the first hacking incidents; in this case it is more straightforward.
- sam_lowry_ 1mo ago
  >$1bn for copyright violations 3000$ per book, split 50/50 between the author and publisher. This is peanuts. Assuming the money reaches that far and does not settle in the hands of the country associations administering royalties on authors' behalf nor in the hands of lawyers.
  - ben_w 1mo ago
    > 3000$ per book, split 50/50 between the author and publisher. > This is peanuts. If you consider it peanuts, I would like to sell you some books. Remember that in this case, the crime wasn't for training on the data (that part was ruled to be legal!), this was the penalty just for pirating the books.
    - tikimcfee 1mo ago
      I get so tired by this. Yes. It's not proportional to the crime. You are either deliberately or accidentally, and I'm too frustrated hearing this too often not to be biased it's the former, equating what is a large sum of money relative to your wallet and bank accounts and loan access and portfolios and whatever collection of financial impositions you can make to that of a company that has one person flying around the world influencing the future of billions of people on one planet over dinner and jokes. Yes. $3000 is peanuts. People that own islands would use that to pay someone's bonus for a year if they liked their service, as a gift. A throwaway. Fix your relative understanding of power and influence.
      - jen729w 1mo ago
        Fix your relative understanding of how much the average book makes.
        tavavex 1mo ago
        It doesn't matter how much it makes. If the system finds that you've financially damaged someone, you aren't asked to just pay back the exact retail price of one unit. It can account for the overall damage to the owner, your scale, ability to pay, and the time and money wasted to get the money out of you. The penalty can be anything.
      - ben_w 1mo ago
        > You are either deliberately or accidentally, and I'm too frustrated hearing this too often not to be biased it's the former, equating what is a large sum of money relative to your wallet and bank accounts and loan access and portfolios and whatever collection of financial impositions you can make to that of a company that has one person flying around the world influencing the future of billions of people on one planet over dinner and jokes. I'm not, but you are. Especially as you continue: > Yes. $3000 is peanuts. People that own islands would use that to pay someone's bonus for a year if they liked their service, as a gift. A throwaway. The penalty (well, settlement) for the (civil offence, not crime) isn't $3000 total, it's $1.5 billion total. (Previous poster wrote ">$1bn", true but implicitly rounding down the total). The settlement *per book* is $3000. There were a lot of books, reportedly half a million distinct works, so the total was $1.5 billion. You're looking at $3000 as if it's the penalty for all of it, not the penalty per book. $3000 per book is entirely on-par with the per-infringement penalties when an individual does it, too.
- negura 1mo ago
  > It's "move fast and break things" in action. what would the world's reaction be if China's model did same?
  - myrmidon 1mo ago
    Is there any reason to assume they are not doing the same (ingesting books that they hold no rights to into training data)? From the copyright holders point of view, it is simply much easier to prosecute western companies.
ben_w 1mo ago
It's not legal, they've just not yet had the book thrown at them yet. One thing I've taken a long time to internalise is the gap between the law as written vs. the judicial system. There's a famous meme that the average (US) citizen unwittingly commits three felonies every day: it simply isn't possible to throw the book at everyone, which means that enforcement is rather selective even when there isn't anything dodgy going on. However this does mean that someone can get away with a lot if they know who will and won't (and what they will and won't) prosecute. I'll let people's imaginations fill in who that might be. But for everyone else, cross an invisible tripwire and you get e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit and https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1992/nov/10/matrix-churchill https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1992/nov/...
bsian 1mo ago
There's no "hack". The article says the bots edited an open wiki website.
codeduck 1mo ago
> Genuinely, what is the legal framework here He who controls the Spice, controls the Universe.
4563lk 1mo ago
The legal framework is a DOJ and FBI controlled by the president and "allies" controlled by the "rules based international order". In other words, the law of the jungle.

I'm so baffled. First blatant piracy, now this. Why is it legal for AI companies to hack unaffiliated entities? Genuinely, what is the legal framework here?

by negura 1mo ago

I'm so baffled. First blatant piracy, now this. Why is it legal for AI companies to hack unaffiliated entities? Genuinely, what is the legal framework here?

bayindirh 1mo ago

First let it happen, then ask for forgiveness, because they are doing something amazing and they need no permission. Otherwise AI industry will go bankrupt and CEOs won't be able to buy this year's Rolls Royce and a slightly bigger yacht than their neighbor.

myrmidon 1mo ago

It's "move fast and break things" in action. But Anthropic alone paid >$1bn for copyright violations, so they did not just get away with it. These hacking cases are more difficult, because from a legal perspective there is no obvious damage and obviously no intent. edit: "no obvious damage" is more about the first hacking incidents; in this case it is more straightforward.

sam_lowry_ 1mo ago
>$1bn for copyright violations 3000$ per book, split 50/50 between the author and publisher. This is peanuts. Assuming the money reaches that far and does not settle in the hands of the country associations administering royalties on authors' behalf nor in the hands of lawyers.
- ben_w 1mo ago
  > 3000$ per book, split 50/50 between the author and publisher. > This is peanuts. If you consider it peanuts, I would like to sell you some books. Remember that in this case, the crime wasn't for training on the data (that part was ruled to be legal!), this was the penalty just for pirating the books.
  - tikimcfee 1mo ago
    I get so tired by this. Yes. It's not proportional to the crime. You are either deliberately or accidentally, and I'm too frustrated hearing this too often not to be biased it's the former, equating what is a large sum of money relative to your wallet and bank accounts and loan access and portfolios and whatever collection of financial impositions you can make to that of a company that has one person flying around the world influencing the future of billions of people on one planet over dinner and jokes. Yes. $3000 is peanuts. People that own islands would use that to pay someone's bonus for a year if they liked their service, as a gift. A throwaway. Fix your relative understanding of power and influence.
    - jen729w 1mo ago
      Fix your relative understanding of how much the average book makes.
      - tavavex 1mo ago
        It doesn't matter how much it makes. If the system finds that you've financially damaged someone, you aren't asked to just pay back the exact retail price of one unit. It can account for the overall damage to the owner, your scale, ability to pay, and the time and money wasted to get the money out of you. The penalty can be anything.
    - ben_w 1mo ago
      > You are either deliberately or accidentally, and I'm too frustrated hearing this too often not to be biased it's the former, equating what is a large sum of money relative to your wallet and bank accounts and loan access and portfolios and whatever collection of financial impositions you can make to that of a company that has one person flying around the world influencing the future of billions of people on one planet over dinner and jokes. I'm not, but you are. Especially as you continue: > Yes. $3000 is peanuts. People that own islands would use that to pay someone's bonus for a year if they liked their service, as a gift. A throwaway. The penalty (well, settlement) for the (civil offence, not crime) isn't $3000 total, it's $1.5 billion total. (Previous poster wrote ">$1bn", true but implicitly rounding down the total). The settlement *per book* is $3000. There were a lot of books, reportedly half a million distinct works, so the total was $1.5 billion. You're looking at $3000 as if it's the penalty for all of it, not the penalty per book. $3000 per book is entirely on-par with the per-infringement penalties when an individual does it, too.
negura 1mo ago
> It's "move fast and break things" in action. what would the world's reaction be if China's model did same?
- myrmidon 1mo ago
  Is there any reason to assume they are not doing the same (ingesting books that they hold no rights to into training data)? From the copyright holders point of view, it is simply much easier to prosecute western companies.

ben_w 1mo ago

It's not legal, they've just not yet had the book thrown at them yet. One thing I've taken a long time to internalise is the gap between the law as written vs. the judicial system. There's a famous meme that the average (US) citizen unwittingly commits three felonies every day: it simply isn't possible to throw the book at everyone, which means that enforcement is rather selective even when there isn't anything dodgy going on. However this does mean that someone can get away with a lot if they know who will and won't (and what they will and won't) prosecute. I'll let people's imaginations fill in who that might be. But for everyone else, cross an invisible tripwire and you get e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit and https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1992/nov/10/matrix-churchill https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1992/nov/...

bsian 1mo ago

There's no "hack". The article says the bots edited an open wiki website.

codeduck 1mo ago

> Genuinely, what is the legal framework here He who controls the Spice, controls the Universe.

4563lk 1mo ago

The legal framework is a DOJ and FBI controlled by the president and "allies" controlled by the "rules based international order". In other words, the law of the jungle.