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

> RMS

Referring to this? (Wikipedia's disambiguation page doesn't seem to have a more likely article.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Copyright_red...

Yes, quoting the following section:

    Stallman places great importance on the words and labels people use to talk about the world, including the relationship between software and freedom. He asks people to say free software and GNU/Linux, and to avoid the terms intellectual property and piracy (in relation to copying not approved by the publisher). One of his criteria for giving an interview to a journalist is that the journalist agrees to use his terminology throughout the article.

That seems rather agreeable, though. Stallman is essentially saying that words are meaningful and speakers/writers should be thoughtful about the meaning of the words they use. In that context, refusing to use terms like "intellectual property" and "piracy" because of their meaning and the effect their use has on culture, and especially insisting that journalists who interview you use the same language, seems to be a means of controlling the interpreted meaning of one's expressions.

(As an aside, it seems pointless to decry it as a "talking point". The reason it was brought up is presumably because the author agrees with it and thinks it's relevant. It's also entirely possible that the author, like me, made this argument without being aware that it was popularized by Richard Stallman. If it makes sense then you can hear the argument without hearing the person and still find it agreeable.)

"Piracy" is used to refer to copyright violation to make it sound scary and dangerous to people who don't know better or otherwise don't think about it too hard. Just imagine if they called it "banditry" instead; now tell me that pirates are not bandits with boats. They may as well have called it banditry and it's worth correcting that. (I also think it's worth ridiculing but that doesn't appear to be Stallman's primary point.) It's not banditry (how ridiculous would it be to call it that?), it's copyright infringement.

Edit:

Reading my comment again in the context of other things you wrote, I suspect the argument will not pass muster because you do not seem to see piracy's change in meaning as manufactured by PR work purchased by media industry leaders. I'm not really trying to convince you that it's true but it may be worth considering that it is the fundamental disagreement you seem to have with others on Stallman's point; again, not saying you're wrong, just that's where the disagreement is.

My point is that the 2 commenters are working off of different definitions. One is using the common definitions of words in English and the other is trying to advocate for their ideological rooted definitions by trying to correct people who use the normal English definitions. 99% of the time how this will play out is the idealog will preach about their values instead of acknowledging that they are purposefully using different definitions.

In short the post is bait.

> In short the post is bait.

This is an uncharitable interpretation. The ostensible point of the comment, or at least a stronger and still-reasonable interpretation, is that they are trying to point out that this specific word choice confuses concepts, which it does. Richard Stallman and the commenter in question are absolutely correct to point that out. You actually seem to be agreeing with Stallman, at least in the abstract.

It's should be acknowledged how/why the meaning of the word changed. As I said, that seems to have been manufactured, which suggests, at least to me, that their (and Richard Stallman's) point is essentially the same as yours. That is to say, the US media industry started paying PR firms to use "piracy" as meaning something other than its normal definition until that became the common definition.

They should not purposely use a different definition like that. That is Stallman's point, and why he refuses to say "piracy" instead of "copyright infringement"; ocean banditry is not copyright infringement and it is confusing -- intentionally so -- to say that it is.