Does that include legal fights and potential payouts to artists and writers whose work was used without permission?

Can anyone explain why it's not allowed to compensate the creators of the data?

Of course not. Those usually wouldn't be considered "margin".

Another similar example is R&D and development by engineers aren't considered in margin either.

It's already questionable if anyone can make it profitable once you account for all the costs. Why do you think they try to squash the legal concerns so hard? If they move fast and stick their fingers in their ears, they can just steal whatever the want.

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