- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
In one of the AI lawsuits faced by Meta, the company stands accused of distributing pirated books. The authors who filed the class-action lawsuit allege that Meta shared books from the shadow library LibGen with third parties via BitTorrent. Meta, however, says that it took precautions to prevent ‘seeding’ content. In addition, the company clarifies that there is nothing ‘independently illegal’ about torrenting.
ah so they only downloaded them illigally, and then used them illegally, but didn’t share them illegally. got it
Sharing is caringSharing is crime(͡•_ ͡• )
There is no legal prohibition against asking someone for a copy of a work, nor is there a prohibition against receiving a copy, even if that copy was illegally produced and/or illegally distributed.
They didn’t download them illegally, nor did they “use” them illegally. If you want to say they did something illegal, you have to argue that they were somehow in collusion with the uploader, which would make them uploaders themselves.
Edit: Downvotes? In a piracy community?
Receiving a copy of a copyrighted work (from anywhere) and using it for commercial purposes when the license doesn’t cover that usage (or simply doesn’t exist) is, in fact, illegal. This is why Anthropic was sued last year.
Anthropic was returning substantial parts of the actual work to users. They were creating additional copies of the work. Creating unauthorized copies is infringement.
You would have to argue that the users who received those substantial parts were also infringing on copyright. My point is made when you acknowledge that those users did not infringe by receiving those substantial parts, even if they specifically requested those substantial parts from Anthropic.
Why does the customer/user matter at all here when they’re not party to the lawsuit? You can have no customers yet and still infringe on copyright by using something for commercial purposes when you’re not licensed to do so. That’s how licenses work.
Of course, that limits the damages since there arguably hasn’t been any harm (which doesn’t make it legal), so lawsuits aren’t usually filed at that point; it’s usually a cease and desist. Also, I don’t have to argue anything. I’m not a lawyer.
I can show whatever movie I want at my house with my friends and that’s legal, but if I charge $10 to show it, that’s not legal. I don’t give a shit, because I pirate everything and show it to whoever I want for free, but that’s the law as written.
This conversation is about the legality of downloading without uploading.
Anthropic is not accused of downloading without uploading. Anthropic is accused of creating copies and distributing those copies to customers. They are being accused of violating copyright by uploading, not downloading.
The Anthropic lawsuit is completely irrelevant to the issue of “downloading only”. Rather than throw out your example entirely, I showed a relationship within your example that actually does relate to the topic under discussion.
Anthropic is accused of creating and distributing unauthorized copies. (Those are partial copies, rather than complete, but they are still copies, and still infringing.)
There are entities in your scenario who are receiving those copies, without creating additional copies, or distributing the copies they received. They are, effectively, “downloading only”.
So, tell me about those customers: When they ask Anthropic’s AI for an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted work, and Anthropic provides them an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted work, is the customer infringing on the copyright?
You’re still banging on about Anthropic? I used it as an example to make my point (which is that commercial usage of copyrighted works is illegal, nothing about making/distributing copies or uploading or whatever you think you’re talking about).
But you’re up and down this thread bending over backwards to not have a good faith discussion with people who are not lawyers, so it’s incredibly difficult to take you seriously and at face value.
Got it. From the OP article:
The article and conversation is not about the contract law that would apply with licensing. They aren’t about the fair use exemption which has a commercial usage factors. The article and conversation are talking about simple copyright law: copying and distribution.
Your very first comment in this thread was completely off topic. I apologize that it’s taken me this long to figure out where you’re coming from.
downvotes are because you are saying provably factually incorrect things.
Yeah? Then do it. Show me a law relevant to this case that makes downloading an infringement.
You will be able to cite plenty of unenforceable propaganda, sure. The RIAA, MPAA, and various other trolls have broadly misrepresented the topic. You’ll even find this sort of FUD repeated by certain officials and government agencies.
But you will not any actual law relevant to this case. You will not find any judicial precedent where someone has been found to have violated copyright law solely for requesting and receiving copyrighted material.
Copyright law does not provide an enforcement mechanism against a recipient, even when that recipient knowingly requests an infringing copy. The only available mechanisms are against the entity creating the copy, and the entity distributing the copy.
You can prove me wrong by citing US Code, Federal regulation, or judicial precedent. I will not accept corporate propaganda, nor statements made by government entities unless those statements actually carry the force of law.
The closest you will be able to come is a theory that the “receiver” is somehow conspiring or colluding with the “sender”, and the law and precedent on conspiracy/collusion doesn’t quite fit. (Private trackers are getting close to that line, though…)
when downloading something, you are making a copy. That copy is unauthorized. It’s illegal. The distributor didn’t give it to you, they still have their copy. And you just reproduced it again.
No, you are not. The uploader is the only entity capable of making the copy. You can’t make a copy of something you do not possess.
When I send you a file, two copies come to exist. The copy on my computer, and the copy I created and sent to you. I made the copy, and I distributed it. You simply received it.
The copy you received is, indeed, unauthorized, but the infringing party is me, not you. I am the one who created and distributed the copy.
Receiving an unauthorized copy is not a copyright violation. A bootleg DVD is illegal to sell; it is not illegal to buy or to own.
In Germany we definitely have this:
and we have Störerhaftung which can also get you in trouble even if you didn’t do it yourself.
In the USA it’d probably be something like https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106
which says the copyright holder has exclusive rights (1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies […]
Which is kind of what you do when downloading something. There will be a copy on your harddisk… And (1) does NOT limit this to redistribution, like (3)… I’m not sure how it turns out in practice. I don’t follow American court rulings that closely.
The uploader does that. Not the downloader. You can’t copy something you do not possess; the copy is created by the uploader. The copy on your harddisk was created and distributed by the uploader; you did not create the copy, nor did you distribute it. You merely received it.
you are literally choosing to run the software that writes it to your disk. You also (probably) take steps to ensure the uploader does not have access to your disk. You are in control of what gets saved
“Saving” is not “copying”. “Saving” is “receiving”.
I don’t have access to an original; I am physically incapable of creating a “copy”.
it’s a digital item. You can only make a copy
Well, did the uploader push it onto my computer, or was it me who clicked on something and initiated the transfer? I’d say it’s the latter. So the downloader initiated the copying process… I mean if I steal an orange in the supermarket, we also don’t say it fell into my hands and somehow they’re guilty…
And additionally you might find other local laws like this: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/PEN/156.35
and generally, this is related to wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer… Which all seem to be crimes and something people get charged with if someone wants them convicted of a crime. See Aaron Swartz for example.
It is NOT ILLEGAL TO ASK FOR A COPY. Copyright law does not prohibit you from asking me for a copy of a work. You are perfectly free to ask me for that copy.
I am not free to give you that copy. If I give you that copy, I am infringing on copyright, not you.
There isn’t anything infringement for me to offer to giver you a copy.
If I stand in front of MPAA headquarters with a big red button that says “I will make and give you an illegal copy of a movie if you press this button”, I have not violated copyright.
If you press the button, you have not violated copyright. You have merely indicated that you would like to receive an illegal copy; you have not created that copy, nor have you distributed a copy.
If you take the thumb drive I give you, and put it in your pocket, you still have not violated copyright. You still have not created a copy, nor have you distributed a copy. You are now in possession of that copy, but “possession” is not infringement. You would have to do something further with that copy before you would actually infringe on copyright: You would have to create an additional copy, or distribute the copy I gave you to someone else.
I violated copyright when I put the work on the thumb drive, and I violated it again when you received it, but you have done nothing illegal. You did not initiate the transfer; I did, either when I put the big red button out there, or when I handed you the thumb drive.
If you stick a knife in my face and tell me “your thumb drive or your life”, in addition to the numerous actual criminal penalties you face, the rights holder could, arguably, claim that you have infringed on copyright by distributing a copy.
if you’re found later with a bunch of pirated material, you’re the one who gets prosecuted, not whoever you dowloaded it from
Sorry, this just isn’t correct. Yes, you can ask for almost anything and it’ll be alright and merely asking a question is completely legal.
The issue is, you then proceed to do a second step. And that is transferring the data. And that is a separate thing. You then initiate the actual transfer. Your computer actively does that. It keeps the transfer going and recieves the network packets. It literally copies them into RAM and then copies them again onto your harddrive. To make your local copy. The uploader merely reads it from their harddisk and hands it out, they do one copy operation less. Though they’re still the distributor.
I think any expert witness would testify in court, that your computer as the downloader does two copy operations, at least in the technical sense of the term. And that you’ve ultimately also initiated the transfer as the downloader due to how TCP/IP works.
The thumbdrive example is a bit construed. I think you might get away with that, though. Unless you plug it into your computer. Because then all the copying to RAM and harddrive etc starts again. But I think just pocketing it is posession (which doesn’t seem to be wrong), and not necessarily copying.
But like: how do other laws work where you live? Can you instruct someone to do something illegal and you’re fine? I can’t come up with anything normal, let’s say I hire someone to kidnap my child/wife to teach them a lesson. Or I hire a hitman to kill my arch enemy. Am I fine dong that? It’s a bit over the top. But where I live I can certainly get into trouble if I make people do something on my behalf. Which I’d argue doesn’t exactly happen here. It’s a bit more complicated… But your concept of law doesn’t seem to make much sense to me.
It’s very illegal in Fance to download without paying, and I guess it’s the same in a lot of other countries.
Best I can tell, this lawsuit was filed in a US federal court in California. French law doesn’t seem to be applicable.
French pirates should probably use a VPN endpoint in a more enlightened society.
There are also countries where it is not - for example where I live last I checked downloading is legally ok, though some would say it is a grey zone moraly. It’s the distributing of a copy without proper licensing deals and stuff that’s illegal.
So downloading of illegal copies using torrents would be illegal in most cases as you would be seeding and thus providing the illegal copy to others.
Direct download is a-okay in the eye of law as long as it is only for your personal use
Fuck France and all those other countries.