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

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.