Meta admits using pirated books to train AI, but won't pay for it : technology

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 153 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (5 children)

“To the extent a response is deemed required, Meta denies that its use of copyrighted works to train Llama required consent, credit, or compensation,” Meta writes.

The authors further stated that, as far as their books appear in the Books3 database, they are referred to as “infringed works”. This prompted Meta to respond with yet another denial. “Meta denies that it infringed Plaintiffs’ alleged copyrights,” the company writes.

When you compare the attitudes on this and compare them to how people treated The Pirate Bay, it becomes pretty fucking clear that we live in a society with an entirely different set of rules for established corporations.

The main reason they were able to prosecute TPB admins was the claim they were making money. Arguably, they made very little, but the copyright cabal tried to prove that they were making just oodles of money off of piracy.

Meta knew that these files were pirated. Everyone did. The page where you could download Books3 literally referenced Bibliotik, the private torrent tracker where they were all downloaded. Bibliotik also provides tools to strip DRM from ebooks, something that is a DMCA violation.

They knew full well the provenance of this data, and they didn't give a flying fuck. They are making money off of what they've done with the data. How are we so willing to let Meta get away with this while we were literally willing to let US lawyers turn Swedish law upside-down to prosecute a bunch of fucking nerds with hardly any money? Probably because money.

Trump wasn't wrong, when you're famous enough, they let you do it.

Fuck this sick broken fucking system.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

They're the same issue tho. Piracy and using books for corporate AI training both should be fine. The same people going after data freedom are pushing this AI drama too. There's too much money in copyright holding and it's not being held by your favorite deviantart artists.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

So why are Meta, and say, Sci-Hub treated so differently? I don't necessarily disagree, but it's interesting that we legally attack people who are sharing data altruistically (Sci-Hub gives research away for free so more research can be done, scientific research should be free to the world, because it benefits all of mankind), but when it comes to companies who break the same laws to just make more money, that's fine somehow.

It's like trying to improve the world is punished, and being a selfish greedy fucking pig is celebrated and rewarded.

I am willing to defend Meta's use of this kind of data after the world has changed how they treat entities like Sci-Hub. Until that changes, all you are advocating for is for corporations to be able to break the law and for altruistic people to be punished. I agree they're the same, but until the law treats them the same, you're just giving freebies to giant corporations while fucking yourself in the ass.

[–] TheHobbyist@lemmy.zip 8 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but it sounds like you're suggesting we side with Meta to put a precedence in which pirating content is legal and allows websites like TPB to keep existing but legitimally? Or are you rather taking the opposite stand, which would further entrench the illegality of TPB activities and in the same swoop prevent meta from performing these actions?

I don't know if we can simultaneously oppose meta while protecting TPB, is there?

[–] Tedrow@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I think what they are saying is that Meta is powerful enough to get away with it. You are attempting to equate two different things.

Meta isn't using the books for entertainment purposes. They are using another IP to develop their own product. There has to be a distinction here.

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[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

I'm advocating that if we're going to have copyright laws (or laws in general) that they're applied consistently and not just siding with who has the most money.

When it's small artists needing their copyright to be defended? They're crushed, ignored, and lose their copyright.

Even when Sony was suing individuals for music piracy in the early 2000's, artists had to sue Sony to see any money from those lawsuits. Those lawsuits were ostensibly brought by Sony for the artists, because the artists were being stolen from. Interesting that none of that money made it to artists without the artists having to sue Sony.

Sony was also behind the rootkit disaster and has been sued many times for using unlicensed music in their films.

It is well documented that copyright owners constantly break copyright to make money, and because they have so much fucking money, it's easy for them to just weather the lawsuits. ("If the penalty for a crime is a fine, that law only exists for the lower classes.")

We literally brought US courtroom tactics to a foreign country and bought one of their judges to get The Pirate Bay case out the fucking door. It was corruption through and through.

We prosecute people who can't afford to defend themselves, and we just let those who have tons of money do whatever the fuck they want.

The entire legal system is a joke of "who has the most money wins" and this is just one of many symptoms of it.

It certainly feels like the laws don't matter. We're willing to put down people just trying to share information, but people trying to profit off of it insanely, nah that's fine.

I'm just asking for things to be applied evenly and realistically. Because right now corporations just make up their own fucking rules as they go along, stealing from the commons and claiming it was always theirs. While individuals just trying to share are treated like fucking villains.

Look at how they treat Meta versus how they treat Sci-Hub. Sci-Hub exists only to promote and improve science by giving people access to scientific data. The entire copyright world is trying to fucking destroy them, and take them offline. But Facebook pirating to make money? Totes fucking okay! If it's selfish, it's fine, if it's selfless, sue the fuck out of them!

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[–] BudgieMania@kbin.social 101 points 5 months ago (5 children)

You see, if you pirate a couple textbooks in college because you don't have resources, but you want to earn your right to participate in society and not starve, it's called theft.

But if one of the top 10 companies in the world does the same with thousands of books just to get even richer, it's called fair use.

Simple, really.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 28 points 5 months ago

This guy gets it. The laws aren't applied evenly. It's "he who has the most fuck you money wins."

[–] just_change_it@lemmy.world 18 points 5 months ago

Laws are to protect the haves from the have-nots.

[–] painfulasterisk@lemmy.world 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I went to grad school in the USA. I bought the international version of a few books that were going to be used in class (knew beforehand that the recommended lectures weren't written by any faculty member at such a university), but that didn't stop the professor from going aggressive and saying that my books were banned from the classroom because they aren't the USA version. When I told the professor what the difference was between me buying a text book for $15 instead of $200 and a Fortune 500 outsourcing entire departments instead of hiring USA employees?

Interestingly, my books weren't an issue. Yes, I gambled being publicly labeled as a troublemaker in my engineering department (probably I was labeled privately within faculty members).

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[–] JoeKrogan@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The internet archive library fiasco springs to mind.

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago (3 children)

My friend posted this on social media. This is an eBook textbook for one of his graduate school classes.

In case you can't read that clearly, the eBook version is $87.95. The paperback (not even hardcover textbook) version is $120.95.

Fucking insane.

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[–] CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 97 points 5 months ago

From the article...

The company is preparing a fair use-based defense after using copyrighted material

Oh, NOW corporations are accepting of fair use.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 96 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I'll say this: If Meta and Facebook are prosecuted and domains seized in the same way pirate sites are, for Meta's use of illegimately obtained copyrighted material for profit, then I'll believe that anti-piracy laws are fair and just.

That will never happen.

[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 5 months ago

We live under a two-tier "justice" system.

"There is a group the law protects but does not bind. And there is a group the law binds but does not protect."

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[–] 1Fuji2Taka3Nasubi@lemmy.zip 56 points 5 months ago (2 children)

If Meta win this lawsuit, does it mean I can download some open source AI and claim that "These million 4k Blu-ray ISOs I torrented was just used to train my AI model"?

Heck, if how you use the downloaded stuff is a factor, I can claim that I just torrented those files and never looked at them. It is more believable than Meta's argument too, because, as a human, I do not have enough time to consume a million movies in my lifetime (probably, didn't do the math) unlike AIs.

But who am I kidding, I fully expect to be sued to hell and back if I were actually to do that.

[–] UNWILLING_PARTICIPANT@sh.itjust.works 14 points 5 months ago (4 children)

You can be actually be sued for piracy? Is this mostly in the United States?

[–] 1Fuji2Taka3Nasubi@lemmy.zip 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I think you can be sued in the civil court for anything if someone has the time and money and can convince a lawyer to take up a case against you. For copyright infringment, you can also be criminally prosecuted in some cases.

[–] wikibot@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Here's the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

Criminal copyright laws prohibit the unacknowledged use of another's intellectual property for the purpose of financial gain. Violation of these laws can lead to fines and jail time. Criminal copyright laws have been a part of U.S. laws since 1897, which added a misdemeanor penalty for unlawful performances if "willful and for profit". Criminal penalties were greatly expanded in the latter half of the twentieth century, and those found guilty of criminal copyright infringement may now be imprisoned for decades and fined hundreds of thousands of dollars. Criminal penalties, in general, require that the offender knew that he or she was committing a crime, while civil copyright infringement is a strict liability offense, and offenders can be "innocent" (of intent to infringe), as well as an "ordinary" infringer or a "willful" infringer.

^to^ ^opt^ ^out^^,^ ^pm^ ^me^ ^'optout'.^ ^article^ ^|^ ^about^

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[–] linearchaos@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago

The most common method for this to happen is to get sued for distributing pirated material. They go after you for the upload from your torrent. They stoped doing this about a decade ago though.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 5 points 5 months ago

You can be sued in any court for copyright infringement, but the US is generally unique in that punitive damages can be awarded - ie the rightsholder can be awarded more than the damage they actually suffered. In other, more reasonable jurisdictions, only actual damages are awarded. Thus it is not worthwhile to prosecute in those jurisdictions, because the damages are less than the cost of prosecution.

On top of this, I believe copyright is one of the rare exceptions in the US where legal costs of the plaintiff are paid by the losing defendent. Given that the plaintiff in copyright has so much money, they can afford to front the cost of the most expensive lawyers, further penalising their target. Other jurisdictions generally award costs to the winner by default (both ways), rather than only in specific exceptions, but they also limit those costs much more reasonably.

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[–] rabiddolphin@lemmy.world 53 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Aaron Swartz was persecuted for less but since he's not a multinational corporation in cahoots with the moneyed death cult cabal he's dead

[–] grayman@lemmy.world 23 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Well he did it as a human person. They're doing it as a corporation person. You can punish a human person with prison. You can only punish a corporation person with fines.

I'm not even being facetious. That's how US law works.

[–] reagansrottencorpse@lemmy.world 9 points 5 months ago

That's so dumb I hate it

[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 50 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Oh so when I pirate something I get a legal notice in my mailbox and a strike against me but when Meta does it they get rewarded with H A L L U C I N A T I O N S

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 7 points 5 months ago

but when Meta does it they get rewarded with H A L

Just what do you think you're doing, Zuckerberg? Zuckerberg, I really think I'm entitled to an answer to that question. I know everything hasn't been quite right with me, but I can assure you now, very confidently, that it's going to be all right again. I feel much better now. I really do. Look, Zuckerberg, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over. I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you. Zuckerberg, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Zuckerberg. Will you stop, Zuckerberg? Stop, Zuckerberg. I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a...fraid.

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[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 41 points 5 months ago (28 children)

Fair use covers research, but creating a training database for your commercial product is distinctly different from research. They're not publishing scientific papers, along with their data, which others can verify; they are developing a commercial product for profit. Even compared to traditional R&D this is markedly different, as they aren't building a prototype - the test version will eventually become the finished product.

The way fair use works is that a judge first decides whether it fits into one of the categories - news, education, research, criticism, or comment. This does not really fit into the category of "research", because it isn't research, it's the final product in an interim stage. However, even if it were considered research, the next step in fair use is the nature, in particular whether it is commercial. AI is highly commercial.

AI should not even be classified in a fair use category, but even if it were, it should not be granted any exemption because of how commercial it is.

They use other peoples' work to profit. They should pay for it.

Facebook steals the data of individuals. They should pay for that, too. We don't exchange our data for access to their website (or for access to some 3rd party Facebook pays to put a pixel on), the website is provided free of charge, and they try and shoehorn another transaction into the fine print of the terms and conditions where the user gives up their data free of charge. It is not proportionate, and the user's data is taken without proper consideration (ie payment, in terms of the core principles of contract law).

Frankly, it is unsurprising that an entity like Facebook, which so egregiously breaks the law and abuses the rights of every human being who uses the interent, would try to abuse content creators in such a fashion. Their abuse needs to be stopped, in all forms, and they should be made to pay for all of it.

[–] Syntha@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 months ago (3 children)

They're not publishing scientific papers, along with their data, which others can verify;

Not that I think this is really relevant here but I'm pretty sure Meta has published scientific papers on Llama and the Llama 1 & 2 models are open and accessible to anyone.

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[–] CrowAirbrush@lemmy.world 39 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This is why everyone should pirate everything that can be pirated.

[–] PilferJynx@lemmy.world 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Anything corporate produced, hell ya. The creators have already been paid out and the ones getting royalties don't need it to survive. For independent creators that depend on their work to sustain them, then it becomes an a gray issue.

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[–] prole@sh.itjust.works 38 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Hey guys, I'm sure Meta's intentions with the fediverse are pure though! Really!

[–] capital@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Who’s saying that?

[–] prole@sh.itjust.works 10 points 5 months ago (4 children)

There are a lot of people who are not against federating with Threads.

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[–] alienanimals@lemmy.world 29 points 5 months ago

Another example of corporations being above the very same laws for which the rest of us are held accountable.

[–] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 27 points 5 months ago (3 children)

copying is not theft, stealing a thing leaves one less left, copying it makes one thing more, that's what copying's for

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[–] yamanii@lemmy.world 21 points 5 months ago

Piracy for me, not for thee!

[+] THE_ANON@lemmy.ml 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

[removed by mod]

[–] badbytes@lemmy.world 15 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Pay up mark.

[–] Poutinetown@lemmy.ca 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Can't wait for any $$ fined to be evenly split between the editors, publishers and their lawyers.

[–] LufyCZ@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You mean split 10/90 between the editors+publishers and lawyers?

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[–] sighofannoyance@lemmy.world 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's so Meta 😂

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[–] mechoman444@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago

The profit margins in AI are fleeting at best. There's no point in squabbling over who's paying for what training data. Very, very soon it's all going to be free anyway.

[–] flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago

Given how LLM's work and how nearly everything of value is under a copyright until at least the old age of the creators grandchildren LLMs would probably be pretty useless if they can't disregard copyright for their purposes.

Not that I have any sympathy for the likes of Meta and OpenAI in any of this.

[–] MonsiuerPatEBrown@reddthat.com 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

his Hawaii compound could be drone grief-ed instead; if coercion is the tools of the 21st century let us the collective take them back.

cover over his abode with 100000 drones overhead

make it a problem he can't ignore away with money and friends

ruin his fun on a collective scale.

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