Publishers and Law Professors Back Authors in Meta AI Copyright Battle 14
Publishers and law professors have filed amicus briefs supporting authors who sued Meta over its AI training practices, arguing that the company's use of "thousands of pirated books" fails to qualify as fair use under copyright law.
The filings [PDF] in California's Northern District federal court came from copyright law professors, the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), Copyright Alliance, and Association of American Publishers. The briefs counter earlier support for Meta from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and IP professors.
While Meta's defenders pointed to the 2015 Google Books ruling as precedent, the copyright professors distinguished Meta's use, arguing Google Books told users something "about" books without "exploiting expressive elements," whereas AI models leverage the books' creative content.
"Meta's use wasn't transformative because, like the AI models, the plaintiffs' works also increased 'knowledge and skill,'" the professors wrote, warning of a "cascading effect" if Meta prevails. STM is specifically challenging Meta's data sources: "While Meta attempts to label them 'publicly available datasets,' they are only 'publicly available' because those perpetuating their existence are breaking the law."
The filings [PDF] in California's Northern District federal court came from copyright law professors, the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), Copyright Alliance, and Association of American Publishers. The briefs counter earlier support for Meta from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and IP professors.
While Meta's defenders pointed to the 2015 Google Books ruling as precedent, the copyright professors distinguished Meta's use, arguing Google Books told users something "about" books without "exploiting expressive elements," whereas AI models leverage the books' creative content.
"Meta's use wasn't transformative because, like the AI models, the plaintiffs' works also increased 'knowledge and skill,'" the professors wrote, warning of a "cascading effect" if Meta prevails. STM is specifically challenging Meta's data sources: "While Meta attempts to label them 'publicly available datasets,' they are only 'publicly available' because those perpetuating their existence are breaking the law."
The privacy rapists become.... (Score:3)
... the content rapists.
& to the easily triggered Meta[stasize] employ (Score:2)
Here ya go. [slashdot.org]
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Elon and Dorsey are both chatting about 'delete all IP law'
If people thought tariffs were disruptive... Boy howdiee wait until there are no patents, or copyrights.
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like in china? they seem to do fine stealing the worlds IP
Exactly - no IP laws here would mean you can kiss things like the movie/content industry (and all its jobs) goodbye; there won't be any incentive to produce anything if you can't secure rights to it.
Intellectual Property wants to be free! (Score:3)
Exactly - no IP laws here would mean you can kiss things like the movie/content industry (and all its jobs) goodbye; there won't be any incentive to produce anything if you can't secure rights to it.
I am optimistic that the destruction of IP laws would be a good thing.
The first issue is who IP is meant to benefit: the creator or the public? I will assert that the answer is the public. IP is an artificial protection meant to encourage creators in an effort to benefit the public; so it is meant to be mutually beneficial, but ultimately for the public.
The biggest industries have the weakest IP protections: food, clothing, housing. Now it might be slightly disingenuous to draw a parallels between food and
In Today's News For Nerds... (Score:2)
Water is wet!
MetaBorg .. (Score:3)
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Yep. Microsoft practically admitted their AI infringed:
https://blogs.microsoft.com/on... [microsoft.com]
We have built important guardrails into our Copilots to help respect authorsâ(TM) copyrights. We have incorporated filters and other technologies that are designed to reduce the likelihood that Copilots return infringing content.
Reduce the likelihood, means they infringed before the filtering etc, and after filtering infringe less, not zero infringement.
I would believe their AI stuff doesn't infringe if they trained their AIs on their own "crown jewels" source code AND gave full permission to use the AI output even if it looks like it might infringe (as long as the prompt doesn't infringe of course). But AFAIK all these bunch are fine with trai
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Despite claims to the otherwise A.I companies vaccuum up other peoples data and exploit it to make money.
This is a feature of the copyright system not a bug.
Knowledge and skill (Score:2)
"Meta's use wasn't transformative because, like the AI models, the plaintiffs' works also increased 'knowledge and skill,'" the professors wrote, warning of a "cascading effect" if Meta prevails.
The US copyright regime is explicit while works are protected this does not extend to any "knowledge or skill" they contain. Whether or not a work is transformative or fair use exceptions apply has nothing to do with increased "knowledge and skill".
Freebooting (Score:1)