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>and the DOJ has done nothing against the AI companies and their IP violating antics. For good reason. Courts have so far ruled AI training is fair use, and it

by gruez 19d ago

>and the DOJ has done nothing against the AI companies and their IP violating antics. For good reason. Courts have so far ruled AI training is fair use, and it doesn't look likely to be overturned by the supreme court. Theres also the matter of some labs pirating books to get training data, which is illegal (they lost in civil court), but it's unclear whether that can be criminally prosecuted.

adastra22 19d ago
Hacking other companies is illegal as far as I understand.
- gruez 19d ago
  1. OP specifically mentioned "IP violating antics", not hacking 2. All the hacking legislation (and criminal law in general) require proving intent, which so far as we can tell didn't exist in those cases. At best you can try some "reckless" or "negligent" angle, but that would a novel legal argument and would be risky to prosecute
  - someothherguyy 19d ago
    > All the hacking legislation (and criminal law in general) require proving intent No, they don't, see laws that make negligent behavior illegal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea
  - crote 19d ago
    But officer, I didn't mean for my autonomous bank vault busting robot to autonomously bust any bank vaults!
    - ben_w 19d ago
      More like: Your Honour, it is indeed correct that during testing of our new missile to see if it could correctly function in the military role of seeking out and then breaking through a blast door, the targeting system locked onto the nearby bank vault. We only found out where this particular missile went after the bank contacted us for help in investigating who might have been responsible for the new hole where their door used to be, and if any of our other equipment might help stop such weapons in the future. We did not expect the test missile to be so effective. We have contacted independent researchers to help us investigate what went wrong here. We also agree that we made a lot of mistakes, and that we should have had better tests in place even at the time. However, we also assert that even if we had had all of those tests in place, the specific actions taken by our "autonomously seek-and-destroy-blast-door" munition would likely have circumvented all the things we could have, and should have, already had in place.
crote 19d ago
Okay, and? If anything, the Swartz case was even more direct fair use. There's very little to use JSTOR for which isn't some form of teaching, scholarship, or research! Clearly the fact that the end-use is (possibly) fair use isn't the only thing that matters.
- gruez 19d ago
  >There's very little to use JSTOR for which isn't some form of teaching, scholarship, or research! He wasn't prosecuted for copyright infringement though. >... was prosecuted for multiple violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (CFAA), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Swartz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Swartz
c2h5oh 19d ago
Courts have also ruled that sharing in P2P network is enough to get hit with 150k in statutory damages per shared work. AI companies did quite a bit of uploading while e.g. getting Anna's archive over BitTorrent.
- eastbound 19d ago
  It's transformative. Not aimed at exact reproduction, so not in the scope of copyright law.
  - lobf 19d ago
    I think you misread. There is nothing transformative about bittorrent automatically sharing parts of a file you're downloading with your peers.
  - tareqak 19d ago
    They participated in uploading the files as part of the downloading the torrent from other peers. Their use of the BitTorrent protocol to acquire these files would not have been transformative.
    - DANmode 19d ago
      > They participated in uploading the files as part of the downloading the torrent from other peers. Did they? Are you sure?
      - lukan 19d ago
        No, only in some instances maybe, they were mostly leechers.
        DANmode 18d ago
        Thank you https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/meta-defends-using-pirated-material-claims-its-legal-if-you-dont-seed-content https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intell...
Madmallard 19d ago
It wouldn't be ruled fair use in a sane society without bribery and lobbying with competent technologically savvy law interpreters.
whizzter 19d ago
The supreme irony that they're now trying to peg distillation as illegal.
- ASalazarMX 18d ago
  It makes sense when you think AI is seen by the government as a strategic asset. They'll want it to progress unhampered, but also don't want other nations/actors to catch up.
happymellon 19d ago
> For good reason A reason. Not the same as a good reason. The fact that you even point out that they committed illegal acts that would normally get prosecuted, and yet didn't, shows that IP enforcement is very loose depending on who did it.
- gruez 19d ago
  >they committed illegal acts that would normally get prosecuted I specifically differentiated civil law from criminal law in my original comment, and said it's unclear whether their acts were criminal.

by gruez 19d ago

adastra22 19d ago

Hacking other companies is illegal as far as I understand.

gruez 19d ago
1. OP specifically mentioned "IP violating antics", not hacking 2. All the hacking legislation (and criminal law in general) require proving intent, which so far as we can tell didn't exist in those cases. At best you can try some "reckless" or "negligent" angle, but that would a novel legal argument and would be risky to prosecute
- someothherguyy 19d ago
  > All the hacking legislation (and criminal law in general) require proving intent No, they don't, see laws that make negligent behavior illegal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea
- crote 19d ago
  But officer, I didn't mean for my autonomous bank vault busting robot to autonomously bust any bank vaults!
  - ben_w 19d ago
    More like: Your Honour, it is indeed correct that during testing of our new missile to see if it could correctly function in the military role of seeking out and then breaking through a blast door, the targeting system locked onto the nearby bank vault. We only found out where this particular missile went after the bank contacted us for help in investigating who might have been responsible for the new hole where their door used to be, and if any of our other equipment might help stop such weapons in the future. We did not expect the test missile to be so effective. We have contacted independent researchers to help us investigate what went wrong here. We also agree that we made a lot of mistakes, and that we should have had better tests in place even at the time. However, we also assert that even if we had had all of those tests in place, the specific actions taken by our "autonomously seek-and-destroy-blast-door" munition would likely have circumvented all the things we could have, and should have, already had in place.

crote 19d ago

Okay, and? If anything, the Swartz case was even more direct fair use. There's very little to use JSTOR for which isn't some form of teaching, scholarship, or research! Clearly the fact that the end-use is (possibly) fair use isn't the only thing that matters.

gruez 19d ago
>There's very little to use JSTOR for which isn't some form of teaching, scholarship, or research! He wasn't prosecuted for copyright infringement though. >... was prosecuted for multiple violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (CFAA), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Swartz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Swartz

c2h5oh 19d ago

Courts have also ruled that sharing in P2P network is enough to get hit with 150k in statutory damages per shared work. AI companies did quite a bit of uploading while e.g. getting Anna's archive over BitTorrent.

eastbound 19d ago
It's transformative. Not aimed at exact reproduction, so not in the scope of copyright law.
- lobf 19d ago
  I think you misread. There is nothing transformative about bittorrent automatically sharing parts of a file you're downloading with your peers.
- tareqak 19d ago
  They participated in uploading the files as part of the downloading the torrent from other peers. Their use of the BitTorrent protocol to acquire these files would not have been transformative.
  - DANmode 19d ago
    > They participated in uploading the files as part of the downloading the torrent from other peers. Did they? Are you sure?
    - lukan 19d ago
      No, only in some instances maybe, they were mostly leechers.
      - DANmode 18d ago
        Thank you https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/meta-defends-using-pirated-material-claims-its-legal-if-you-dont-seed-content https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intell...

Madmallard 19d ago

It wouldn't be ruled fair use in a sane society without bribery and lobbying with competent technologically savvy law interpreters.

whizzter 19d ago

The supreme irony that they're now trying to peg distillation as illegal.

ASalazarMX 18d ago
It makes sense when you think AI is seen by the government as a strategic asset. They'll want it to progress unhampered, but also don't want other nations/actors to catch up.

happymellon 19d ago

> For good reason A reason. Not the same as a good reason. The fact that you even point out that they committed illegal acts that would normally get prosecuted, and yet didn't, shows that IP enforcement is very loose depending on who did it.

gruez 19d ago
>they committed illegal acts that would normally get prosecuted I specifically differentiated civil law from criminal law in my original comment, and said it's unclear whether their acts were criminal.