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

Anthropic isn’t selling copies of the material to its users though. I would think you couldn’t lock someone up for reading a book and summarizing or reciting portions of the contents.

Seven years for thumbing your nose at Autodesk when armed robbery would get you less time says some interesting things about the state of legal practice.

> summarizing or reciting portions of the contents

This absolutely falls under copyright law as I understand it (not a lawyer). E.g. the disclaimer that rolls before every NFL broadcast. The notice states that the broadcast is copyrighted and any unauthorized use, including pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game, is prohibited. There is wiggle room for fair use by news organizations, critics, artists, etc.

Except they aren’t merely reading and reciting content, are they? That’s a rather disingenuous argument to make. All these AI companies are high on billions in investment and think they can run roughshod over all rules in the sprint towards monetizing their services.

Make no mistake, they’re seeking to exploit the contents of that material for profits that are orders of magnitude larger than what any shady pirated-material reseller would make. The world looks the other way because these companies are “visionary” and “transformational.”

Maybe they are, and maybe they should even have a right to these buried works, but what gives them the right to rip up the rule book and (in all likelihood) suffer no repercussions in an act tantamount to grand theft?

There’s certainly an argument to be had about whether this form of research and training is a moral good and beneficial to society. My first impression is that the companies are too opaque in how they use and retain these files, albeit for some legitimate reasons, but nevertheless the archival achievements are hidden from the public, so all that’s left is profit for the company on the backs of all these other authors.

I can say "you cannot read this comment for any purpose" but that doesn't supersede the law.

I'm wondering though how the law will construe AI able to make a believable sequel to Moby Dick after digesting Herman Melville's works. (Or replace Melville with a modern writer.)

Btu it is ilelgal to rveerse enigneer tihs porprietary encrpytion algroithm I cerated and uesd to encrpyt tihs mesasge.

existing copyright law seems to say you cannot help yourself to significant parts of a work - such as to write your own sequel. I have no idea how the courts establish the degree of copying "owned" by the original author. There would clearly be stories in some way related to Moby Dick that would be legal, but others that were too close.