Anthropic judge rejects $1.5B AI copyright settlement

Good. Approving this would have set a concerning precedent.

Edit: My stance on information freedom and copyright hasn't changed since Aaron Swartz's death in 2013. Intellectual property laws, patents, copyright, and similar protections feel outdated and serve mainly to protect established interests. Despite widespread piracy making virtually all media available immediately upon release, content creators and media companies continue to grow and profit. Why should publishers rely on century-old laws to restrict access?

Would it actually set any kind of legal precedent, or just establish a sort of cultural vibe baseline? I know Anthropic doesn't have to admit fault, and I don't know if that establishes anything in either direction. But I'm not from the US, so I wouldn't want to pretend to have intimate knowledge of its system.

The number of bizarre, contradictory inferences this settlement asks you to make - no matter your stance on the wider question - is wild.

A settlement means that no legal precedent is set, so I can only assume a cultural precedent.

Sometimes these companies specifically seek out a settlement to avoid setting a legal precedent in case they feel like they will lose.

Hmm my huge concern was that if the settlement were to get approved, it would set a legal precedent for other "settlement approvals" like this one, setting back AI research in the US, paving way for China to win the race.