Anthropic cut up millions of used books, and downloaded 7M pirated ones – judge

Apparently it's a common business practice. Spotify (even though I can't find any proof) seems to have build their software and business on pirated music. There is some more in this Article [0].

https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-beta-used-pirate-mp3-files...

Funky quote:

> Rumors that early versions of Spotify used ‘pirate’ MP3s have been floating around the Internet for years. People who had access to the service in the beginning later reported downloading tracks that contained ‘Scene’ labeling, tags, and formats, which are the tell-tale signs that content hadn’t been obtained officially.

There's plenty of startups gone legitimate.

Society underestimates the chasm that exists between an idea and raising sufficient capital to act on those ideas.

Plenty of people have ideas.

We only really see those that successfully cross it.

Small things EULA breaches, consumer licenses being used commercially for example.

There's no credible evidence Spotify built their company and business on pirated music.

This is a narrative that gets passed around in certain circles to justify stealing content.

"Stealing" isn't an apt term here. Stealing a thing permanently deprives the owner of the thing. What you're describing is copyright infringement, not stealing.

In this context, stealing is often used as a pejorative term to make piracy sound worse than it is. Except for mass distribution, piracy is often regarded as a civil wrong, and not a crime.