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0 pointsTheOtherHobbes10mo ago0 comments

No transformation is needed.

The point here is that book files have to be copied before they can be used for training. Copyright texts typically say something like "No unauthorised copying or transmission in any form (physical, electronic, etc.)"

Individuals who torrented music and video files have been bankrupted for doing exactly this.

The same laws should apply when a corporation downloads torrent files. What happens to them after they're downloaded is irrelevant to the argument.

If this is enforced (still to be seen...) it would be financially catastrophic for Meta, because there are set damages for works that have been registered for copyright protection - which most trad-pubbed books, and many self-pubbed books, are.

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leovander10mo ago

> have been bankrupted for doing exactly this.

Only if they seeded the data and some other entity downloaded it, i.e. they hosted the data. In a previous article I believe it was called out that Meta was being a leecher (not seeding back what they downloaded).

It's the hosting that gets you, not the act of downloading it.

ndsipa_pomu10mo ago

> It's the hosting that gets you, not the act of downloading it.

However, people have been prosecuted for not even hosting a torrent, but merely providing a link to where people can find it.

e.g. https://torrentfreak.com/operator-of-popcorn-time-info-site-...

stevenAthompson10mo ago

I would like to expand on this, since it seems to be a common misunderstanding. Lets imagine a hypothetical situation where one friend loans a book to another, who then makes a copy of it.

The lender owns the book, and it is within his rights to loan it to whoever he wants. That is legal. Making this illegal would end libraries.

The borrower is well within his rights to accept the book, and as the current owner he is even allowed to make a copy of the book (see the famous TIVO case). Making this illegal would end backups and format/time shifting.

When the borrower returns the book, he keeps the copy. Oh no! Surely he must now become a criminal? Nope. Possessing an unauthorized copy is also not illegal, despite what many copyright holders would like you to believe. Making this illegal would also criminalize a lot of legitimate format/time shifting, again see the famous TIVO case.

If the borrower were to loan his homemade copy to someone else THEN it would finally become illegal.

Nothing about AI changes any of this.

leovander10mo ago

Don't read too much into what I am saying. I am not even talking about the AI piece.

I download a torrent with movie that I didn't pay for. If I don't allow to seed it, then I don't get in trouble. If I let it seed either during the download process or after, I'd get a DMCA notice if that torrent/magnet link was getting tracked.

I don't need a hypothetical book, that is just how it works if I were to download illegally obtained documents/media.

As technical as people are in this thread, easy to tell when folks didn't have their parents wondering why they were getting scary letters from the ISP.

throwaway29010mo ago

If you made a durable copy of a book in your example to keep for yourself and use later that's already a grey area. But no one does it with books. People do it with other media tho, and big surprise get prosecuted for it. As you may know, in developed countries people get served notices for torrenting

But if you make books contents available online via some service that regurgitates its contents you would be totally sus because you can be considered in a business of selling derivative works.

triceratops10mo ago

Do you have any case law (other than Tivo or VHS time-shifting) that relates directly to books?

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0 pointsTheOtherHobbes10mo ago0 comments

No transformation is needed.

Individuals who torrented music and video files have been bankrupted for doing exactly this.

The same laws should apply when a corporation downloads torrent files. What happens to them after they're downloaded is irrelevant to the argument.

0 comments

leovander10mo ago

> have been bankrupted for doing exactly this.

It's the hosting that gets you, not the act of downloading it.

ndsipa_pomu10mo ago

> It's the hosting that gets you, not the act of downloading it.

However, people have been prosecuted for not even hosting a torrent, but merely providing a link to where people can find it.

e.g. https://torrentfreak.com/operator-of-popcorn-time-info-site-...

stevenAthompson10mo ago

I would like to expand on this, since it seems to be a common misunderstanding. Lets imagine a hypothetical situation where one friend loans a book to another, who then makes a copy of it.

The lender owns the book, and it is within his rights to loan it to whoever he wants. That is legal. Making this illegal would end libraries.

If the borrower were to loan his homemade copy to someone else THEN it would finally become illegal.

Nothing about AI changes any of this.

leovander10mo ago

Don't read too much into what I am saying. I am not even talking about the AI piece.

I don't need a hypothetical book, that is just how it works if I were to download illegally obtained documents/media.

As technical as people are in this thread, easy to tell when folks didn't have their parents wondering why they were getting scary letters from the ISP.

throwaway29010mo ago

But if you make books contents available online via some service that regurgitates its contents you would be totally sus because you can be considered in a business of selling derivative works.

triceratops10mo ago

Do you have any case law (other than Tivo or VHS time-shifting) that relates directly to books?

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse