AI industry horrified to face largest copyright class action ever certified
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It is morally wrong to steal the creative work of millions of people to feed your industrial-creation machine in order to replace those people. The valuations of these companies are clearly based on the belief they will replace millions of workers and take a % of their salaries. Stealing their work without pay in order to replace them fucking sucks.
It's just that existing copyright law doesn't really protect authors from this, I think.
This weird thing has happened in America since Congress has become completely incapable of creating new regulations for the tidal wave of new problems we face over the last 20 years.
Instead of saying "hey let's try to get together and get Congress to protect people with a new law", we all argue over some what some existing law that doesn't really address the situation (Section 230, Copyright, Clean Air Act, etc) says about this new situation. And then we fight it out in the courts or inside federal agencies. We don't even bother to think about whether a new law should be passed, because our system is so seized by the oligarchy. The only path is to sit around arguing about how the Torah applies to iMessage chats. Because it's more likely that the Messiach will come down with a new book of rules than Congress will pass a law protecting it's own citizens.
I think that's about a clear a sign as any of the decline of American greatness.
It's just that existing copyright law doesn't really protect authors from this, I think.
This weird thing has happened in America since Congress has become completely incapable of creating new regulations for the tidal wave of new problems we face over the last 20 years.
Instead of saying "hey let's try to get together and get Congress to protect people with a new law", we all argue over some what some existing law that doesn't really address the situation (Section 230, Copyright, Clean Air Act, etc) says about this new situation. And then we fight it out in the courts or inside federal agencies. We don't even bother to think about whether a new law should be passed, because our system is so seized by the oligarchy. The only path is to sit around arguing about how the Torah applies to iMessage chats. Because it's more likely that the Messiach will come down with a new book of rules than Congress will pass a law protecting it's own citizens.
I think that's about a clear a sign as any of the decline of American greatness.
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Alexandra Asanovna Elbakyan had an injunction and 15 million dollars in damages issued against her for creating Sci-Hub which made academic articles available for other researchers.
Aaron Swartz faced a million dollars in damages and 35 years in prison for illegally downloading scientific articles from JSTOR for sharing it.
But AI companies can hoover up all academic articles, books, images, movies, and music of everyone ever and its supposed to be fair use? Seems a lot like socialism to pretend they have a right to the fruits of everyone else's labor, but maybe that's because if its billionaires that want it then its not socialism anymore?
Feel like we actually already have the precedents, although the last thing I want is to strengthen academic publishers strangle hold.
Aaron Swartz faced a million dollars in damages and 35 years in prison for illegally downloading scientific articles from JSTOR for sharing it.
But AI companies can hoover up all academic articles, books, images, movies, and music of everyone ever and its supposed to be fair use? Seems a lot like socialism to pretend they have a right to the fruits of everyone else's labor, but maybe that's because if its billionaires that want it then its not socialism anymore?
Feel like we actually already have the precedents, although the last thing I want is to strengthen academic publishers strangle hold.
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train_wreck
Ars Scholae Palatinae
This case SHOULD be a quick resolution in favor of the plaintiffs. Of course with how screwed up our judicial landscape is today it’s anyone’s guess as to how the ruling will actually play out.
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This is a valid reason for policy, but it isn't going to impact a lawsuit under presently standing copyright law.
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While I mostly agree, there is one way it will happen: the AIbros get on Trump's bad side before they can buy their law. Musk is already on the outs. All it takes is for Altman to step out of line and there might actually be a chance.
But it's incredibly unlikely.
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This is why we should support the good drug cartels. We don’t want the bad ones to get edge on the market first.
Funny, China might be just as bad as the US in the end on AI, but at least they are giving lip service to the ethics of AI and global standards vs the US model of “I’m a tech CEO, trust me, but don’t regulate me…”.
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Talk about threating me with a good time.
Oh, please do deny it. That sounds wonderful.
That is just the age old, and quite American, adage of "the market will handle it". Which rarely worked without any incentives behind it to do the right thing.
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It is a bit more nuanced than that.
If the material being copied is strictly for in-class use and is pure research, then it is almost certainly fair use.
But if the material being copied is for public use by the class (e.g., a play or song), then it is not fair use.
And if the material being copied is from an existing text book, then it is not fair use.
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Good! These tech bros threw out decades of knowledge and precedent just to chase the next fad. Let them burn!
They destroyed the field and stole works, they SHOULD go to prison!
They destroyed the field and stole works, they SHOULD go to prison!
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Policy creation for a issue means you cant use that issue as a platform for the next campaign season.
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It's going to destroy the entire AI industry, you say? Don't threaten me with a good time!
If AI is not the future, then this is a natural consequence of infinite corporate greed. Good. If AI really is the future, then the current crop of techno-utopian billionare nimrods are absolutely NOT who I want in charge of anything ever, so, also good. I shall ready myself to cook s'mores on the flaming wreckage of this entire industry... just don't make a girl a promise that you can't keep, Mr. Alsup, please...
If AI is not the future, then this is a natural consequence of infinite corporate greed. Good. If AI really is the future, then the current crop of techno-utopian billionare nimrods are absolutely NOT who I want in charge of anything ever, so, also good. I shall ready myself to cook s'mores on the flaming wreckage of this entire industry... just don't make a girl a promise that you can't keep, Mr. Alsup, please...
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Overturned at the federal circuit appeal level. Then the supreme went over it and said we don't judge on the copyrightability op APIs but what Google did is fair use.
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The winner in all this will be the company that figures out how to attribute AI results to the copyright holders of the source material (explicit or inferred) and the means to allocate a pooled portion of their revenues to those holders based on the number of times their material was referenced in AI output -- much like Spotify (scantily) rewards artists when their songs are played.
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If all the US AI companies ripping off copyrighted works were non-profits who didn’t charge more than base operation costs, were open source, or gave away their models for free for their AI work, I could almost see an argument, but the way things are now they can 
a bag of 
s.
This form of “AI” and the data bases it has been trained on aren’t being used to cure cancer, for analyzing telescope images, solve climate change, or defense directly so I hope it rots in hell if they don’t start paying one way or another. And no, helping with research summaries doesn’t count here.
a bag of s.This form of “AI” and the data bases it has been trained on aren’t being used to cure cancer, for analyzing telescope images, solve climate change, or defense directly so I hope it rots in hell if they don’t start paying one way or another. And no, helping with research summaries doesn’t count here.
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Nah. They see an infinite money glitch in AI and they're going to throw everything at it. It'll be a national security imperative to secure the technology before China. Remember when the US was going to put a nuclear reactor in every coffee maker and use nukes to create drinking water reservoirs? That but x1000.
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We cannot allow the hollow promise of AI to gut Copyright and Intellectual Property law. If AI promises to have such a profound positive impact on society (which I highly doubt), then it needs to pay its way. One aspect of this "payment" is properly compensating the creators of intellectual property that AI is dependent on.
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So they want the Class Action to be denied because enforcing the damages would be hard.
Well, boo f-ing hoo. They stole the material and made use of it. They need to step up and face the music. If it puts their conmpany out of business I’m ok with that.
I just want to know how to sign up as one of the harmed authors.
Well, boo f-ing hoo. They stole the material and made use of it. They need to step up and face the music. If it puts their conmpany out of business I’m ok with that.
I just want to know how to sign up as one of the harmed authors.
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Might want to look up what socialism means. We're entering an era where it's going to be important to differentiate the colloquial definition from the formal one.
I think what you're searching for is a command and control economy, and a command and control market economy is what fascism does.
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Move fast and break things and also never face consequences for breaking other people's things.
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No offense to the users sticking to private things, but anything that burns down the training sets and tech for another decade or so is a good thing for media in general.
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ubercurmudgeon
Ars Tribunus Militum
Weird how the two or three shills for the AI industry that regularly post comments about how the latest LLM just released today is already saving them so much time, and will definitely be the breakthrough that will prove all the doubters wrong, never post on stories about the copyright aspect. Either (a) they don't have a good counter argument or (b) they get AIs to write all their comments for them, and those AIs have been hardcoded not to respond to questions about copyright lawsuits.
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I am unsympathetic to Anthropic's argument that boils down to "We (and the rest of the AI industry) are too special to be sued like this." That being said a lot of complicating factors mentioned in the latter part of the article do sound like valid reasons that the judge should perform a more comprehensive class analysis.
I don't expect that it would alter the ultimate conclusion of a trial very much, but procedure is procedure and judges should be nuanced. "I'll know it when I see it" is bad case law. We should not lazily skip due process just because we don't like the defendants.
Eh, the article has only been up for an hour. I'm sure they'll swing by.
I don't expect that it would alter the ultimate conclusion of a trial very much, but procedure is procedure and judges should be nuanced. "I'll know it when I see it" is bad case law. We should not lazily skip due process just because we don't like the defendants.
Eh, the article has only been up for an hour. I'm sure they'll swing by.
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Even with nothing but one long defensive spiel from the techbros, they still look like the assholes in this story.
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That's an interesting analogy because although Napster ceased to be, they ended up transforming digital music distribution, ultimately influencing Apple and iTunes, as well as other digital music streaming and distribution services. Anthropic may not survive. Maybe this sets the scene for IP licensing that pays authors and artists, while allowing US companies to not fall behind their global competitors who care even less about our IP laws ....
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This is pretty accurate. It’s why I pulled all of my paintings, drawings, creative writing (including four novels on Amazon) etc., off of the web several years ago. I honestly feel that it’s only a matter of time before some court will rule that knowingly putting something on the web when it is well established that it will be scraped for AI training is to give up copyright protection.
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Will never happen because it's logistically impossible. USSC will get this case, recognize the impossibility of the industry facing potential liability from literally all of society, recognize the impossibility of royalties, declare that it's unreasonable for hard working entrepreneurs to be able to create a new industry and simply declare that AI training is fair use because no copyright holder can quantify the share of their input that was used to produce the output. And that presumes that Trump/Congress don't give them a different excuse to come to the same conclusion.
You guys aren't remotely cynical enough for what the Trump admin/Congress/USSC is willing to do here with this opportunity.
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Based on the sky high stock valuations
I'd say some upfront payment plus downstream royalties would be a reasonable place to start. Some authors may not live long enough to receive royalties so some initial payment would be equitable and the idea of "risk sharing" with authors to some degree makes sense as it's possible that AI never pays off anywhere near the more than trillion dollar annual revenue that is currently projected.
AI companies are already spending hundreds of billions on personnel, infrastructure, computer hardware and electric power. Based on stock valuations the market is betting AI will generate trillions in yearly revenue. How the hell do they get away with the BS of "Oh woe are we, paying authors for their IP will break the bank!"? They really got to believe they have the federal government in their palms.
I'd say some upfront payment plus downstream royalties would be a reasonable place to start. Some authors may not live long enough to receive royalties so some initial payment would be equitable and the idea of "risk sharing" with authors to some degree makes sense as it's possible that AI never pays off anywhere near the more than trillion dollar annual revenue that is currently projected.
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Exactly right. This administration, hell the Republican/Oligarch alliance is eager to do things that harm people. At the moment, most often for profit but they are drifting into the ‘just because they enjoy it’ realm.
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Well I think THAT argument is one for congress, and not the courts. The courts evaluate the law as it is, not what it should be or will be.
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I find it gratifying how the community has come around to realizing how the modern deep-learning AI stuff is raising legitimate copyright worries. That was a far more controversial take a year ago.
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