But Aaron Swartz did it for the benefit of other people. These fine people did it to uphold american values and enrich themselves at the expense of others. The law is clearly on their side.

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gruez 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This but unironically. "did it for the benefit of other people" is redistribution, which is straightforward copyright infringement, even if you think it's a laudable act. AI training was the reverse, because courts have so far ruled is fair use. When AI companies were engaging in piracy, they were sanctioned as well.

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matheusmoreira 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> When AI companies were engaging in piracy, they were sanctioned as well.

Some token settlement for an insignificant fraction of their revenue is not in any way a "sanction".

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gruez 4 hours ago | parent [-]

That just feels like more of a general complaint about how the justice system is set up. The same logic applies to how a $300 speeding ticket "is not in any way a "sanction"" for someone making $1M/year, or even a well paid SWE reading HN.

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sbayg 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I feel you but are you possibly conflating civil and criminal justice? Tickets don’t scale with net worth of defendants, but class action penalties often do.

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gruez 3 hours ago | parent [-]

>but class action penalties often do.

Do they? Or only so far as "if you have 1000x the revenue, you probably also have 1000x the customers that you have wronged, each of which are entitled to damages as well"?

	▲	sbayg 23 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Courts do award higher damages, specifically punitive damages, to punish and deter wealthy or large corporate defendants. In civil law, the defendant's net worth is a recognized legal factor because a small penalty on a massive corporation wouldn't incentivize them to change their illegal behavior.

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stingraycharles 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think this comment is missing a /s, right?

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dan_i 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

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petcat 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Not sure what that is supposed to indicate? USA was a big place, even then. Most northern states had abolished slavery even before Britain, France, and especially Spain did. Maybe we should have a quick refresher on European values?

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zahlman 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I thought this thread was about Alibaba's internal policies. How did we get here?

	▲	dan_i 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[dead]

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batch12 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The article talks about European colonies, so would these have been European values then since America did not yet exist?

	▲	abenga 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That's just the label that changed. Same people, same values.
	▲	dan_i 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[dead]