9 comments

  • modeless 53 minutes ago
    Funny how people are suddenly on Elsevier's side. It's clear to me that AI training is transformative fair use under existing law. Maybe this will be the case to prove it.
    • nadermx 19 minutes ago
      I also find it funny, I said this regarding the other thread and article[0]

      '"They then copied those stolen fruits"

      How are these fruits "stolen" if they still have what was allegedley stolen?

      Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207 (1985): The Supreme Court ruled that the unauthorized sale of phonorecords of copyrighted musical compositions does not constitute "stolen, converted or taken by fraud" goods under the National Stolen Property Act

      And even if, arguendo, sure its stolen. The purpose of copyright is to "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"

      And you would be hard pressed to prove that LLM's haven't advanced the arts and sciences, so at bare minimum transformative, ie fair use.'

      [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48026207#48029072

    • eloisius 38 minutes ago
      I find it grating that so many AI boosters try to frame pushing back against the AI industry as a sudden about-face for everyone that spent the last 20 years pushing back against the copyright industry. I’m also in favor of decriminalizing or legalizing small amounts of pot for personal use. That doesn’t mean I’m behind industrialized narcotic production on such a huge scale that it that it starts to distort the economy, and companies looking for new ways to add methamphetamine to every goddamn product.
      • 2ndorderthought 6 minutes ago
        Speaking of ai and meth, have you seen videos of the palantir CEO Alex karp? Dude looks like he's regularly getting the same meth shots Hitler used to get.

        But I hear you. One of my biggest tells that someone can't be reasoned with is when they resort to whataboutism without any consideration for how 2 situations can actually be different even if there is some commonality. It's a powerful bad faith argument technique. When that style of argument comes up I nod my head and walk away. Some people are just doomed.

    • stiray 7 minutes ago
      It actually depends on evilness of the company. Elsevier is just less evil that Zuckerberg and Meta, while publishers are even less problematic. I dont think there is anything funny in that.

      Or anything to defend on Meta. If they go out of business, humanity profits.

    • conception 37 minutes ago
      Illegally obtaining copyrighted materials is usually the issue not the transformation part
      • akerl_ 18 minutes ago
        Looking at the complaint ( https://publishers.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-05-05... ), that seems like the part that's got the most solid foundation, especially given that while torrenting the books, they were also seeding to other peers.

        The items they call out around training the models (and attempting to claim that each subsequent model generation should count as an additional instance of infringement) seem far less grounded in the current court interpretations of AI training.

    • King-Aaron 20 minutes ago
      Absorb all "our" IP without consent, in doing so remove "our" own source of revenue, and then repackage it as their own product. Not really fair use IMO.
    • happytoexplain 1 minute ago
      "Funny" is how dishonest snipes are framed. It such a common trope of internet quips, it's wearing me out. Can we please try to just format our disagreements without the snideness?
    • whattheheckheck 13 minutes ago
      If i could ask for a summary from an llm vs buy a book id go with the summary. That eats into commercial use and the supreme court case sided with Gerald Ford when a newspaper published a small gist of his autobiography because it ate into the sales
      • Larrikin 1 minute ago
        Every single Wikipedia article of a book or TV show has this summary. Ford should have lost.
      • 2ndorderthought 3 minutes ago
        Yea nope. I like the full book without any loss of information. Even if I don't want to read the entire book. LLMs love to respond even when something is outside of their training set.
    • rvz 14 minutes ago
      > It's clear to me that AI training is transformative fair use under existing law. Maybe this will be the case to prove it.

      Why did Anthropic settle with a multi-billion dollar payout to authors after monetizing their LLMs that was trained off of copyrighted content that was illegally obtained without their permission?

      There's a reason why they (Anthropic) did not want it to go to trial. (Anthropic knew they would lose and it would completely bankrupt them)

      AI boosters will do anything to justify the theft and illegal piracy of copyrighted material, even when it was illegally obtained and that isn't fair use, especially when the product is commercialized in the US.

    • stackghost 2 minutes ago
      I'm not on Elsevier's side, but I still think it's bullshit that giant companies are allowed to do things at a scale that I'd go to prison for.
  • zx8080 1 hour ago
    Can someone explain why are we reading this instead of "Meta was fined for copyright infrigement" news?
    • 2ndorderthought 42 minutes ago
      Because meta will delay any case for several years. Then the lawyers will settle for 1/100th to 1/1000th of what they stole quietly. Meta will rebrand and change its name again just like it did after its last major scandal.

      No accountability for rich people has funny patterns like this.

    • solid_fuel 1 hour ago
      In 2024, voters signaled that they don't care about corruption when they reelected the most corrupt administration in American history. Since then, there has been a widespread understanding that the rich will not face consequences in this country. For example, take a look at the Trump administration's suppression of the Epstein files. Or the Trump families cryptocurrency schemes. Or the ridiculous ballroom.

      Anyway, the point is - there will be no justice until the citizens of the united states demand it.

      • k33n 43 minutes ago
        What's ridiculous about having a ballroom? Since you care so much about the Epstein files, I assume you leafed through them once they were released. What parts did you find most revealing?

        Plenty of rich people in the US are held accountable if they do something illegal. But last time I checked, running for President and winning isn't a crime.

        This is quite off-topic though, since Trump has nothing to do with Meta's decisions.

        • 2ndorderthought 41 minutes ago
          This is rage bait and isn't worth spending any oxygen on it.
          • k33n 35 minutes ago
            If it elicits rage that has nothing to do with me.
        • jkubicek 27 minutes ago
          https://www.readtangle.com/the-everything-everywhere-all-at-...

          This article doesn’t even remotely itemize all of Trumps corruption, but it’s long and extremely damning.

          I would hope that anyone still supporting this administration reads this article and does some introspection on why. I’m guessing that ship probably sailed 6 years ago, though.

        • throwaway-11-1 29 minutes ago
          probably this, since it was 7 years after he was convicted for prostituting a minor, so its hard to believe any excuse saying they didn't know his background: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/epstein-secret-pic-wild-...

          Also that there are over 2,000 emails with Peter Thiel. Or maybe the part where Sergey Brin was helping Epstein shop for an aircraft carrier (also after conviction). Honestly it was incredibly revealing that none of these people care that he raped kids. I would love to see the Trump files which were withheld but clearly thats never gonna happen.

          Anyway, congrats to everyone involved on the MAGA golden age!

  • nomel 1 hour ago
    Title was changed. Now it's:

    > Mark Zuckerberg ‘personally authorized’ Meta’s copyright infringement, *publishers allege*

  • gnabgib 3 hours ago
    Discussion (139 points, 85 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48026207
    • nomel 1 hour ago
      Can't access that one with an ad blocker.
  • bawolff 1 hour ago
    Does it matter? The company's liability would (i assume) not change if the ceo authorized it or some other high level figure authorized it.

    The question to answer is, did it happen and if so is this copyright infringement (not covered by fair use), not which company official authorized it.

  • UltraSane 12 minutes ago
    Remember when nerds loved saying "information wants to be free"?
  • palata 55 minutes ago
    Too rich to care.
    • alex1138 29 minutes ago
      Honestly, too rich potentially off fraud

      Consider the case of someone who gets banned but Facebook keeps collecting money on their business account. Or consider the case of Facebook's video metrics scandal, or... whatever. It's a little fuzzy translating how much value equates to how much stock price equates to how much real-world is-this-useful-to-me but it does matter when FB is accused of marketing (Aaron Greenspan, thinkcomp, has brought this up, in his 2019 testimony to UK parliament) advertising to more people in a region or country than actually physically exist

      So fraud builds on itself, you have more fraud money to pay lawyers to try to defend you in fraud cases

  • ghstinda 1 hour ago
    this dude got in over his head with the evil empire, it is interesting how he learned judo and tried to surf, that being said I despise social media and what it did to society
  • Der_Einzige 1 hour ago
    Good.