AI industry horrified to face largest copyright class action ever certified

"If we have to pay for the intellectual property that we steal and repackage, our whole business model will be destroyed!"

One thing this whole AI training debacle has done for me: made me completely guilt-free in pirating things. Copyright law has been bullshit since Disney stuck their finger in it and if megacorps can get away with massively violating it, I’m not going to give a shit about violating it myself.
- For me it was Disney floating the idea of asking the wrongful death suit be dismissed because of the liability waiver in a Disney+ free trial.
  I have the $$$, but I don't agree with the terms for any of the streaming services, so I'll just sail the seven seas and toss a doubloon (coin) to independent creators (my witchers) when I can.
- I'm pretty much there too, the whole industry consolidates on the new things and charges us as they make it worse. And there can be some arguments to be made over the benefits of AI but we all know that it will not be immune to the entshitification that has already ruined all the things before it
If I downloaded ten movies to watch with my nephew in the cancer ward, they'd sue me into oblivion. Download tens of millions of books and claiming your business model depends on doesn't make it okay. And sharing movies with my sick nephew would cause less harm to society and to the environment than AI does.
I started my own streaming service with pirated content. My business model depends on that data on my server.
Same thing but for some reason it's different. They hate when we use their laws against them. Let's root they rule against this class action so we can all benefit from copyright being thrown out. Or alternatively it kills AI companies, either way is a win.
- We'll get a good taste of just how corrupt the US legal system now is, instead. Copyright law will still apply to we plebs, the Executive branch will overstep its powers, requiring some mafioso payoff from AI companies to keep doing what they do. The case will go away, mysteriously.
- They hate when we use their laws against them
  YSK. They, we and them in this sentence mean different things to different people.
That's unfair. They also have to sue people who infringe on "their" IP. You just don't understand what it's like to a content creator.
“If we have to pay for the intellectual property that we steal and repackage, our whole business model will be destroyed!”
They are very likely to be civilly liable for uploading the books.
That's largely irrelevant because the judge already ruled that using copyrighted material to train an LLM was fair use.
The judge did so in a summary motion, which means that they have to read all of the evidence in a manner most favorable to the plaintiff and they still decided that there is no way for the plaintiff to succeed in their copyright claim about training LLMs because it was so obviously fair use.
- Read the Order, which is Exhibit B to Antrhopic's appellate brief.
  Anthropic admitted that they pirated millions of books like Meta did, in order to create a massive central library for training AI that they permanently retained, and now assert that if they are held responsible for this theft of IP it will destroy the entire AI industry. In other words, it appears that this is common practice in the AI industry to avoid the prohibitive cost of paying for the works they copy. Given that Meta, one of the wealthiest companies in the world, did the same exact thing, it reinforces the understanding that piracy to avoid paying for their libraries is a central component of training AI.
  While the lower court did rule that training an LLM on copyrighted material was a fair use, it expressly did not rule that derivative works produced are protected by fair use and preserved the issue for further litigation:
  Again, Authors concede that training LLMs did not result in any exact copies nor even infringing knockoffs of their works being provided to the public. If that were not so, this would be a different case. Authors remain free to bring that case in the future should such facts develop.
  Emphasis added. In other words, Anthropic can still face liability if it's trained AI produces knockoff works.
  Finally, the Court held
  The downloaded pirated copies used to build a central library were not justified by a fair use. Every factor points against fair use. Anthropic employees said copies of works (pirated ones, too) would be retained "forever" for "general purpose" even after Anthropic determined they would never be used for training LLMs. A separate justification was required for each use. None is even offered here except for Anthropic's pocketbook and convenience. ... We will have a trial on the pirated copies used to create Anthropic's central library and the resulting damages, actual or statutory (including for willfulness). That Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the internet will not absolve it of liability for the theft but it may affect the extent of statutory damages. Nothing is foreclosed as to any other copies flowing from library copies for uses other than for training LLMs.
  Emphasis in original.
  So to summarize, Anthropic apparently used the industry standard of piracy to build a massive book library to train it's LLMs. Plaintiffs did not dispute that training an LLM on a copyrighted work is fair use, but did not have sufficient information to assert that knockoff works were produced by the trained LLMs, and the Court preserved that issue for later litigation if the plaintiffs sought to bring such a claim. Finally, the Court noted that Anthropic built it's database for training it's LLMs through massive straight-up piracy. I think my original comment was a fair assessment.
They're not stealing anything. Nor are they "repackaging" anything. LLMs don't work like that.
I know a whole heck of a lot of people hate generative AI with a passion but let's get real: The reason they hate generative AI isn't because they trained the models using copyrighted works (which has already been ruled fair use; as long as the works were legitimately purchased). They hate generative AI because of AI slop and the potential for taking jobs away from people who are already having a hard time.
AI Slop sucks! Nobody likes it except the people making money from it. But this is not a new phenomenon! For fuck's sake: Those of us who have been on the Internet for a while have been dealing with outsourced slop and hidden marketing campaigns/scams since forever.
The only difference is that now—thanks to convenient and cheap LLMs—scammers and shady marketers can generate bullshit at a fraction of the cost and really, really quickly. But at least their grammar is correct now (LOL @ old school Nigerian Prince scams).
It's humans ruining things for other humans. AI is just a tool that makes it easier and cheaper. Since all the lawsuits and laws in the world cannot stop generative AI at this point, we might as well fix the underlying problems that enable this bullshit. Making big AI companies go away isn't going to help with these problems.
In fact, it could make things worse! Because the development of AI certainly won't stop. It will just move to countries with fewer scruples and weaker ethics.
The biggest problem is (mostly unregulated) capitalism. Fix that, and suddenly AI "taking away jobs" ceases to be a problem.
Hopefully, AI will force the world to move toward the Star Trek future. Because generating text and images is just the start.
When machines can do just about everything a human can (and scale up really fast)—even without AGI—there's no future for capitalism. It just won't work when there's no scarcity other than land and energy.
- I respectfully disagree. Meta was caught downloading books from Libgen, a piracy site, to "train" it's models. What AI models do in effect is scan information (i.e., copy), and distill and retain what they view as its essence. They can copy your voice, they can copy your face, and they can copy your distinctive artistic style. The only way they can do that is if the "training" copies and retains a portion of the original works.
  Consider Shepard Fairies' use of the AP's copyrighted Obama photograph in the production of the iconic "Hope" poster, and the resultant lawsuit. While the suit was ultimately settled, and the issue of "fair use" was a close call given the variation in art work from the original source photograph, the suit easily could have gone against Fairey, so it was smart for him to settle.
  Also consider the litigation surrounding the use of music sampling in original hip hop works, which has clearly been held to be copyright infringement.
  Accordingly, I think it is very fair to say that (1) AI steals copyrighted works; and (2) repackages the essential portions of those works into new works. Might a re-write of copyright law be in order to embrace this new technology? Sure, but if I'm a actor, or voice actor, author, or other artist and I can no longer earn a living because someone else has taken my work to strip it down to it's essence to resell cheaply without compensating me, I'm going to be pretty pissed off.
  Hopefully, AI will force the world to move toward the Star Trek future.
  Lol. The liberal utopia of Star Trek is a fantasy. Far more likely is that AI will be exploited by oligarchs to enrich themselves and further impoverish the masses, as they are fervently working towards right now. See, AI isn't creative, it gives the appearance of being creative by stealing work created by humans and repackaging it. When artists can no longer create art to survive, there will be less material for the AI models to steal, and we'll be left with soulless AI slop as our de facto creative culture.
- Meta literally torrented an insane amount of training materials illegally, from a company that was sued into the ground and forced to dissolve because of distributing stolen content
- "When machines can do just about everything a human can (and scale up really fast)—even without AGI—there's no future for capitalism."
  This might be one of the dumbest things I've ever read.
- It's humans ruining things for other humans. AI is just a tool that makes it easier and cheaper
  That's the main point, though: the tire fire of humanity is bad enough without some sick fucks adding vast quantities of accelerant in order to maximize profits.
  Since all the lawsuits and laws in the world cannot stop generative AI at this point
  Clearly that's not true. They'll keep it up for as long as it's at all positive to extract profits from it, but not past that. Handled right, this class action could make the entire concept poisonous from a profiteering perspective for years, maybe even decades.
  we might as well fix the underlying problems that enable this bullshit.
  Of COURSE! Why didn't anyone think to turn flick off the switches marked "unscrupulous profiteering" and "regulatory capture"?!
  We'll have this done by tomorrow, Monday at the latest! 🙄
  Making big AI companies go away isn't going to help with these problems.
  The cancer might be the underlying cause but the tumor still kills you if you don't do anything about it.
  the development of AI certainly won't stop.
  Again, it WILL if all profitability is removed.
  It will just move to countries with fewer scruples and weaker ethics
  Than silicon valley? Than the US government when ultra-rich white men want something?
  No such country exists.
  The biggest problem is (mostly unregulated) capitalism
  Finally right about something.
  Fix that, and suddenly AI "taking away jobs" ceases to be a problem.
  "Discover the cure for cancer and suddenly the tumord in your brain, lungs, liver, and kidneys won't be a problem anymore!" 🤦
  Hopefully, AI will force the world to move toward the Star Trek future
  Wtf have you been drinking??
- I disagree that it is fair use. But, I was actually expecting the judiciary to say that it was. So, despite the ruling, I AM still mad that they used copyrighted works (including mine), in violation of the terms. (And, honestly, my terms [usually AGPLv3] are fairly generous.)
  I'm also concerned about labor issues, and environmental impact, and general quality, but the unauthorized use of copyrighted works is still in the mix. And, if they are willing to all my private viewing of torrented TV "theft", I'm willing to call their selling of an interface to a LLM / NN that was trained on and may have incorporated (or emit!) my works (in whole or in part) "theft".
  Labor issues are mostly solved by making to the workers control the means of production, not captial. Same old story.
  Environment impact is better policed independent of what the electricity/water is used for. We aren't making a lot of headway there, but we need to reign in emissions (etc.) whether they are using it to train LLMs or research cancer.
  Quality... is subjective and I don't think we are near the ceiling of that. And, since I don't use "AI" for the above reasons, it really isn't much of a concern to me.
- Of course many of them are stealing. That's already been clearly established. As for the other groups, the ones that haven't gotten caught stealing yet, perhaps it's just that they haven't gotten caught, and not that they haven't been pirating things.
  I like your rant, but I would like it better if the facts were facts.
- LOL @ old school Nigerian Prince scams)
  They were bad on purpose. People responding to such bad writing are easy marks.
  Because generating text and images is just the start.
  But usually this only improves after an AI winter, meaning the whole sector crashes until someone finds a better architecture/technology. Except there are now billions involved.
- Look these people are neck deep in a tribalistic worldview. You cannot reason with anyone who’s against AI simply because their claims are unfalsifiable and contradictory depending on the day and article they are reading. On the one hand it is the shitiest technology ever made which cannot do anything right and at the same time it is an existential threat to humanity.
  And I can tell you, that the only reason this is the case is because the right is for AI more strongly than the left. If the right had condemned it, you can be damn right the tables would be turned and everyone who thinks they are left would be praising the tech.
  Just move on and take solace in the fact that the technology simply cannot be rebottled, or uninvented. It exists, it is here to stay and literally no one can stop it at this point. And I agree with you, AI is the only tool that can provide true emancipation. It can also enslave. But the fact is that all tools can be used for right or wrong, so this is not inherent to AI.

Hmm. I'm finding it hard to come up with more clever response to them than.

" good "

Not clever, but shared

They have the entire public domain at their disposal.

If giant megacorporations didn't want their chatbots talking like the 1920s, they shouldn't have spent the past century robbing society of a robust public domain.

You had me at "financially ruin AI industry".

If the appeals court denies the petition, Anthropic argued, the emerging company may be doomed. As Anthropic argued, it now "faces hundreds of billions of dollars in potential damages liability at trial in four months" based on a class certification rushed at "warp speed" that involves "up to seven million potential claimants, whose works span a century of publishing history," each possibly triggering a $150,000 fine.

Maybe they should have thought of that before they ripped off a century's worth of published literature?

I’m no fan of the copyright fuckery so commonly employed by (amongst others) the RIAA and MPAA, but this is honestly the best use of copyright law I can think of in recent memory.

It's the neat part with giant monsters... sometimes they trod on each others toes and they stop eating us to tear each other apart and we get to sit back and watch.

Are they expecting me to feel bad for them? Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

If your business model depends on not paying millions of people for the product of their labors, destroys the environment, and the product hallucinates and makes people psychotic, then your business deserves to die a quick and painful death.

AI industry, fucking around: Woo! This is awesome! No consequences ever! Just endless profits!

AII, finding out: this fucking sucks! So unfair!

"copyright class action could ruin AI industry"

Oh nooooooo....... How do I sign on to this lawsuit?

I would not hold my breath. There is a high likelihood that the courts will side AI companies because the American courts are compromised.

Or, according to the person who read the article, because the case is not what the title suggests it is?

Corps fight class actions, because individuals can't sue on their own...

Copywrite holders have money and legal teams on call. Even if they stop this, they'll just have a shit ton of lawsuits instead

I've read this entire thread and could not find a single person who seems to have actually read anything about this case.

The article is a huge pile of bullshit.

Here is what happened: An industry group filed an amicus brief during the appeal of a ruling where the judge certified the 3 plaintiffs as a class. Boring legal minutae in a case that doesn't matter, see below.

The author is either incompetent at understanding legal filings or deliberately being misleading to write clickbait trash. Human slop, if you prefer.

This is not noteworthy, at all. The issue being argued about is if the 3 people can represent the class of "everyone Anthropic downloaded books from". This is a non-story, unless you're a legal nerd and care about exactly how courts define classes and the legal steps required for the analysis.

But, more importantly for the frothing anti-AI masses:

In the order certifying the defendants as a class, the judge dismissed the plaintiff's claims of copyright violation related to the training of LLMs. The judge said that training LLMs was transformative and thus fair use under copyright law and since this is so obvious that that argument could be summarily dismissed.

Don't believe me, go click on the links in the article to the summary judgement yourself. The information is not hard to find if you read farther than the headline.

The only remaining issue in the lawsuit is if Anthropic is civilly liable for downloading the books on bittorrent.

This case isn't even about AI anymore, it's the same kind of lawsuit that we've seen since Napster was popular. Uploading copyrighted material, like when you use BitTorrent, is a copyright violation and you could be sued.

That's all this case is now, the argument that everyone is fighting over in the comments: "Is training an LLM on copyrighted material a violation of copyright?" is already answered by the judge:

No, using copyrighted material to train a LLM is so obviously fair use that the argument was summarily dismissed.

Here's the relevant quote from the judge, in summary judgement:

To summarize the analysis that now follows, the use of the books at issue to train Claude and its precursors was exceedingly transformative and was a fair use under Section 107 of the Copyright Act. The digitization of the books purchased in print form by Anthropic was also a fair use, but not for the same reason as applies to the training copies. Instead, it was a fair use because all Anthropic did was replace the print copies it had purchased for its central library with more convenient, space-saving, and searchable digital copies without adding new copies, creating new works, or redistributing existing copies. However, Anthropic had no entitlement to use pirated copies for its central library, and creating a permanent, general-purpose library was not itself a fair use excusing Anthropic’s piracy.

"Please let us steal" - AI Industry

Dude I think this is just the beginning and it will continue until AI can simulate anything the only way to fix it is as crazy as it sounds go back in time and threaten the end of the world to make the rulers of the world come to their senses otherwise I'm afraid there is no chance.

Yeah, who the fuck gave all these rich assholes the right to make money on others' work?

I'd like to know how these assholes get away with even training on GPL licensed code.

Making money on other people's work is literally capitalism.
Capitalists take the surplus of workers, because they own the means of production.
Well, they've always profited from other people's labor, and now they think that our souls belong to them too. They've gotten completely brazen!
It's like they took only part of the wheat from the peasants before, and then decided to take it all by force and cunning, down to the last grain lol. :3

Alsup allegedly failed to conduct a "rigorous analysis" of the potential class and instead based his judgment on his "50 years" of experience, Anthropic said.

The judge didn’t apply critical thinking but instead just did whatever was the most likely decision based on all the information it was fed in its training? That must be very inconvenient and it would be a shame if we had companies advertising exactly that as a world changing technology.

Oh no...I'm super bummed. 🤭

Wish him the best

- Voyager doesn't allow me to insert gifs.

🍿

Good

Good.

AI is piracy.

Thoughts and prayers.

Tell it to Joel

I'll damn get dressed and go to court in slippers and underwear, even in hellish heat and in another country! I hope these bastards go bankrupt!

All these desperate attempts to protect copyright. I understand it, I want to publish things and not have it scraped by AI, but let's be realistic here. No government in the world wants to miss out on AI. The general public profits enormously from AI too. I doubt any of that is going to succeed.

AI slop is the worst thing in existence, no thanks.
- yeah I don't like it neither, my view is just a bit pessimistic unfortunately