I dont see the relevance. If Anthropic had bought the book at the store, shredded the spine, scanned the pages and trained on that data instead, there wouldnt have been an issue.

Authors cant simply license away fair use. If it could be dismissed so easily the right wouldn't exist.

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ollysb 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Creating derivative products you charge for surely can't be considered fair use?

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timmmmmmay 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Of course it is. If I write a movie review and sell it to a magazine or whatever, it's derived from the movie, and it's fair use, and I don't need to ask the movie owner for permission first, or give them a cut of my sales. Even if I use some reasonable number of screenshots and video clips, as long as the resulting work is "transformative" i.e. actually a new work, a movie review instead of a copy of the movie.

Do you want this to work any other way? I constantly see people in the AI debate working themselves into wildly copyright maximalist positions. I actually don't think that we should give every author veto power over a book review!

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protocolture 6 hours ago | parent [-]

>I constantly see people in the AI debate working themselves into wildly copyright maximalist positions

I really dont get this. I know its that conflation fallacy or whatever, but I was under the impression we had sort of gotten over copyright maximalism as a society after Napster etc.

Whats worse is that, meaningful reform in this space has basically been waiting on a multi billion dollar corporation to come along and push it forward. So now that we have an opportunity to expand and globalise fair use, the sudden and quite angry opposition weirds me out to no end.

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_carbyau_ 4 hours ago | parent [-]

There's two issues with copyright.

1. author owns the right to distribute copies of the work

2. this right goes on for faaaaaar too long.

I don't have an issue with 1. You had a good idea, you implemented it, you deserve something for it. Given some people got sued into oblivion with ridiculous dollar value outcomes on a per unit basis - why doesn't this apply here? Sure 1.5 billion is a lot. But the number of infringments is insane and the company is approaching a trillion in valuation. You could make it ten times that number.

I do have an issue with 2. Sure, you had a good idea, you implemented it, you deserve something for it. But after 20 years, you should be able to come up with another idea or just work like the rest of us. Going for 50, 70, 90+ years with the rewards going to estate heirs? Fuck that.

So yeah, I am both against copyright AND surprised at the slap on the wrist for what happened here.

	▲	protocolture an hour ago \| parent [-]
		>Given some people got sued into oblivion with ridiculous dollar value outcomes on a per unit basis - why doesn't this apply here? I mean, it feels to me like one or both of: 1. The class action lawyers werent 100% certain they could win in court. 2. The class action lawyers smelled an easy payday. They get ~100 million out of this. I also think that the 1500 bucks going to most of these authors is going to be more than they ever saw in royalties. I read somewhere that 500 - 1500 bucks is roughly what a self pub book makes in its lifetime. Why push the envelope? Anthropic hasnt done anything that deserves to pay for the entire lifetime royalties of most books. Their legal alternative is to cut the spine off and scan the book in. In which case the author and publisher will be splitting 20 bucks instead, assuming Anthropic isnt buying used. This seems like a donation tbh. >slap on the wrist for what happened here. Its not a punishment at all because this is a civil case that has been settled out of court.

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pandaman 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

IANAL but as an IP creator I have not heard of "derivative products" in the copyright context. There are "derivative works", which are covered by the same copyright as the original. For example, a translation to another language is a derivative work, a novelisation of a movie, a screen adaptation of a book etc. If some author could have proven that any Anthromic model is a derivative work of theirs then they had the copyright on that model and made mad bucks licensing it back to Anthropic.

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gruez 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>Creating derivative products you charge for surely can't be considered fair use?

All US courts so far have ruled yes.

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janderland 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

YouTubers monetize fair use all the time. Is that significantly different?