You may have seen the headlines about a Microsoft employee calling AI scraping “the largest theft of labor in human history.” It made the rounds on social media, with plenty of people i…
    • Zachariah@lemmy.world
      82·
      29 days ago

      I hate “AI” as much as the next guy, but that seems a bit harsh. They are making a very specific point, and it seems well argued to me.

      That’s not to say that infringement is necessarily okay. But it’s a distinct issue from “theft.”

      …

      Fair use isn’t infringement. And if it is infringement, it’s not “theft.” And even if a use competes with you, competition doesn’t make it illegal. Indeed, the “effect of the use upon the potential market” is just one of four factors, and it isn’t supposed to let ordinary competition swallow the entire fair use analysis. That these employees (who are not, themselves, copyright experts) said random things does not change the actual underlying analysis of fair use. Or, at least, it shouldn’t.

      • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
        64·
        29 days ago

        It’s not fair use and it’s theft. The artists and creators had no way of opting out because most didn’t know about it.

        • Zachariah@lemmy.world
          75·
          29 days ago

          It’s not theft. It’s plagiarism. They’re different.

          Your second point is a valid problem with what they did (but doing something that is wrong doesn’t mean it is theft).

          • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
            33·
            29 days ago

            If I ran into a university and stole all of their teaching aids, books and art to "train my university students, that’s still fucking theft. Why tf would you stick up for them in any way?

              • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
                22·
                29 days ago

                Don’t you have to steal them to copy them? The fact that no one knew they were stealing them to copy, means the owners didn’t know, couldn’t opt out or protect them. Just because it’s not a law yet, doesn’t make it okay.

                Why are you interpreting this as defending them?

                Why are you not? You wrote the defense out.

                • Zachariah@lemmy.world
                  5·
                  29 days ago

                  If someone still has their belongings after a “theft” it’s not theft.

                  What they are doing is violating the artists (and much more heinous things), but calling it theft isn’t accurate, has undesirable side effects, and doesn’t solve the problem of stopping them doing what they’re doing.

                • Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                  24·
                  29 days ago

                  don’t you have to steal them to copy them

                  No, you can go into the library and take pictures / scans of the pages without the books ever leaving the library.