Meta (facebook) torrented 87.1tb of pirated books to train AI
Meta (facebook) torrented 87.1tb of pirated books to train AI
Meta’s alleged torrenting and seeding of pirated books complicates copyright case.
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Meta also allegedly modified settings "so that the smallest amount of seeding possible could occur,"
Big tech taking without giving back to the community once again.
I think this is still going to be a net benefit to us, though. Meta may not have contributed much bandwidth, which is leeching in the short term, but in the long term they're now forced to contribute something much more important; lawyer power. Meta is going to have to fight to defend piracy.
Don't count on it.
You think Meta will just roll over and hand out whatever penalties the publishers demand of them?
Meta isn't going to be defending us. It's going to be defending itself. Because it is now one of us.
Secret out-of-court settlement is an option.
Also known as "bribing your way out of the law"
They'll compare the amount the publishers are demanding against how much it would cost them to lawyer up to prevent that and any future payments. Meta's heavyweight enough that they can use "lobbying their way out of the law, aka changing the law so that they're not violating it at all" as a strategy.
If they do simply pay the publishers off, oh well, at least it's just the status quo. But I don't see a reason to assume that's the way this is going to go. Other countries have already carved explicit exceptions to copyright for AI training, Meta would be in favor of that kind of thing.
The amount meta will pay is pocket change to them.
I like the optimism, but I'd see it before I believe it.
Well, yes, why would you believe something without seeing it? But given how litigious the publishing industry is about this kind of thing I don't see it as likely that they wouldn't fight.
Yeah they'll lawyer up, but only for themselves. They have no reason to to do anything that benefits the rest of us.
Maybe the torrenting community could see some legal benefits, but only if incentives align. Which they very well may not because Meta is not one of us and their interests don't really align with anyone else's.
I'm not expecting them to do anything specifically to benefit the rest of us. But let them fight. If nothing else, it costs them money.