Judge on Meta’s AI training: “I just don’t understand how that can be fair use” https://arstechni.ca/2jJYz #copyrightinfringement #AItraining #torrenting #copyright #leeching #fairuse #Policy #piracy #LLaMA #meta
The thesis that each unauthorized use of a copyrighted work amounts to a lost sale going down the drain...
"At times, it sounded like the case was the authors’ to lose, with Chhabria noting that Meta was “destined to fail” if the plaintiffs could prove that Meta’s tools created similar works that cratered how much money they could make from their work. But Chhabria also stressed that he was unconvinced the authors would be able to show the necessary evidence. When he turned to the authors’ legal team, led by high-profile attorney David Boies, Chhabria repeatedly asked whether the plaintiffs could actually substantiate accusations that Meta’s AI tools were likely to hurt their commercial prospects. “It seems like you’re asking me to speculate that the market for Sarah Silverman’s memoir will be affected,” he told Boies. “It’s not obvious to me that is the case.”
When defendants invoke the fair use doctrine, the burden of proof shifts to them to demonstrate that their use of copyrighted works is legal. Boies stressed this point during the hearing, but Chhabria remained skeptical that the authors’ legal team would be able to successfully argue that Meta could plausibly crater their sales. He also appeared lukewarm about whether Meta’s decision to download books from places like LibGen was as central to the fair use issue as the plaintiffs argued it was. “It seems kind of messed up,” he said. “The question, as the courts tell us over and over again, is not whether something is messed up but whether it’s copyright infringement.”
A ruling in the Kadrey case could play a pivotal role in the outcomes of the ongoing legal battles over generative AI and copyright."
https://www.wired.com/story/meta-lawsuit-copyright-hearing-artificial-intelligence/
"You have companies using #copyright-protected material to create a product that is capable of producing an infinite number of competing products," Chhabria told #Meta's attorneys. "You are dramatically changing, you might even say obliterating, the market for that person's work, & you're saying that you don't even have to pay a license to that person."
"I just don't understand how that can be #FairUse," Chhabria said.
Update:
Judge in #Meta case warns #AI could 'obliterate' market for original works
A skeptical federal judge in SF on Thurs questioned Meta Platforms' argument that it can legally use copyrighted works without permission to train its #ArtificialIntelligence models.
In the 1st court hearing on a key question for the AI industry, Judge Vince Chhabria grilled attys for both sides over Meta's request for a ruling that it made #FairUse of books to train its #LLaMa #LLM.
#law
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/judge-meta-case-weighs-key-question-ai-copyright-lawsuits-2025-05-01/
#Technology companies have said that being forced to pay #copyright holders for their #content could hamstring the burgeoning, multi-billion dollar #AI industry. The defendants say their AI systems make #FairUse of copyrighted material by studying it to learn to create new, transformative content.
Plaintiffs in the cases counter that AI companies unlawfully copy their work to generate competing content that threatens their livelihoods.
The #FairUse question hangs over lawsuits brought by #authors, #news outlets & other #copyright owners against companies including #Meta, #OpenAI & #Anthropic. The #legal doctrine allows for the use of copyrighted work without the copyright owner's permission under some circumstances.
The authors in the Meta case sued in 2023, arguing the company used pirated versions of their books to train #LLaMa without permission or compensation.
Judge in #Meta case weighs key question for #AI #copyright lawsuits
A federal judge in SF will hear arguments on Thurs from Meta & a group of #authors in the 1st court hearing over a pivotal question in high-stakes copyright cases over #AItraining.
Judge Vince Chhabria will consider Meta's request for a pretrial ruling that it made "#FairUse" of books from writers including Junot Diaz & comedian Sarah Silverman to train its #LLaMa #LLM.
#law #tech #IntellectualProperty
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/judge-meta-case-weighs-key-question-ai-copyright-lawsuits-2025-05-01/
Ta todo muy lindo con los italianos yankees @mina. Sin embargo, nos van a hinchar con derechos de autor si nos pasamos un milisegundo del #fairUse.
Punto y aparte .. esto es el #Uruguay, los italianos mas bien se fueron para #BsAs, por eso lo de la moda cheta ..
De este lado del #RioDeLaPlata tuvimos el puerto de los esclavos.
Publisher Ziff Davis Sues OpenAI Over AI Training Data Use
#AI #OpenAI #ZiffDavis #Copyright #Lawsuit #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #GenerativeAI #LLM #Publishing #Media #TechLaw #FairUse #AICopyright #ChatGPT #Mashable #PCMag
https://winbuzzer.com/2025/04/25/publisher-ziff-davis-sues-openai-over-ai-training-data-use-xcxwbn/
It's only fair usage if you can afford to steal from everyone, see?
Then it's all individually worthless, see?
...
See?
Note: user monthly access charges will be calculated based on allotted usage credits.
![Futurism:
Meta cited an expert witness who downplayed the books' individual importance, averring that a single book adjusted its LLM's performance "by less than 0.06 percent on industry standard benchmarks, a meaningless change no different from noise."
Thus there's no market in paying authors to use their copyrighted works, Meta says, because "for there to be a market, there must be something of value to exchange," as quoted by Vanity Fair — "but none of [the authors'] works has economic value, individually, as training data." Other communications showed that Meta employees stripped the copyright pages from the downloaded books.](https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/114/384/460/257/106/838/original/ce4daf35500c839f.png "Futurism:
Meta cited an expert witness who downplayed the books' individual importance, averring that a single book adjusted its LLM's performance \"by less than 0.06 percent on industry standard benchmarks, a meaningless change no different from noise.\"
Thus there's no market in paying authors to use their copyrighted works, Meta says, because \"for there to be a market, there must be something of value to exchange,\" as quoted by Vanity Fair — \"but none of [the authors'] works has economic value, individually, as training data.\" Other communications showed that Meta employees stripped the copyright pages from the downloaded books.")
#KIMissbrauch
Ein US-Gericht urteilt erstmals gegen ein #KI-Unternehmen wegen #Urheberrechtsverletzung – und verweigert die Berufung auf „Fair Use“.
Das #Urteil gegen Ross Intelligence könnte Signalwirkung für die gesamte KI-Branche haben.
Mehr zum Fall im Artikel.
#Urheberrecht #FairUse #ThomsonReuters #RossIntelligence #AIEthics #Rechtsprechung
Amazon’s TikTok Bid Sparks Booksellers’ Opposition; Publishers File Brief Against Meta: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway
We end the week with a round-up that begins with a story I seem to have missed when it first broke at the start of April. It’s an interesting and highly relevant twist in the TikTok ownership saga. You will recall that…
https://selfpublishingadvice.org/amazons-tiktok-bid/
#AmazonTikTokbid #amicusbrief #booksellersopposition #BookTok #FairUse
@indieauthors
Big tech companies want total control but opt-out should be the way to go:
"OpenAI and Google have rejected the government’s preferred approach to solve the dispute about artificial intelligence and copyright.
In February almost every UK daily newspaper gave over its front page and website to a campaign to stop tech giants from exploiting the creative industries.
The government’s plan, which has prompted protests from leading figures in the arts, is to amend copyright law to allowdevelopers to train their AI models on publicly available content for commercial use without consent from rights holders, unless they opt out.
However, OpenAI has called for a broader copyright exemption for AI, rejecting the opt-out model."
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/technology-uk/article/google-openai-reject-copyright-plan-bnnzztts9
Training #AI Using ‘Pirated’ Content Can Be #FairUse, Law Professors Argue - https://torrentfreak.com/training-ai-using-pirated-content-can-be-fair-use-law-professors-argue-250402/ " if the goal is to create a new and 'transformative' tool. "
A judge has awarded a photographer summary judgment in a case against the City of Chicago. It could be a major win for artists everywhere.
https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2025/04/03/photojournalist-wins-lawsuit-against-the-city-of-chicago/
"The Third Circuit should affirm the ruling, preferably on the alternative ground that standards incorporated into law are necessarily promoted to the public domain. The internet has democratized access to law, making it easier than ever for the public —from journalists to organizers to safety professionals to ordinary concerned citizens —to understand, comment on, and share the myriad regulations that bind us. That work is particularly essential where those regulations are crafted by private parties and made mandatory by regulators with limited public oversight and increasingly limited staffing. Copyright law should not be read to impede it.
The Supreme Court has explained that “every citizen is presumed to know the law, and it needs no argument to show that all should have free access” to it. Apparently, it needs some argument after all, but it is past time for the debate to end."
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/03/eff-urges-third-circuit-join-legal-chorus-no-one-owns-law
Companies in MURICA love #copyright and lobby against Creative Commons and fair use, unless it´s convenient for them, like #openai and the #Ghibli syle. I thought #FairUse had to do with education and non-profit goals. 
#IntellectualProperty
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/is-ai-art-stealing-from-artists
Thoughts: AI corps scraping data
The corporations assert that they can utilize public data without incurring any costs, citing fair use as their justification.
To address this issue, we should implement a law that compels corporations claiming fair use as a defense to make all their process data publicly available, free of charge. This would ensure that the scraped data, as well as data derived from the freely available data, is accessible to the public.
#AI #FairUse #Scraping #WebScraping
What's the difference between piracy and fair use?
Piracy
Fair use
California’s A.B. 412: A Bill That Could Crush Startups And Cement A Big Tech AI Monopoly
