My website’s TOS says not to use it to train AI without permission, yet my website is in the training set of all the big models.

So… my TOS doesn’t matter, but theirs does?

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a4isms 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> my TOS doesn’t matter, but theirs does?

Wilhoit Conservatism: In-groups protected by contract law but not bound by it, alongside out-groups bound by contract law, but not protected by it.

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dotancohen 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The term "matters" is proportional to influence. Do you have a team of well financed attorneys?

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SR2Z 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Your TOS matters insofar as you can prove a person actually read and agreed to it. These are illegal in different ways:

1. Copyright violations (can put you in jail) 2. TOS violations (will be a fine at worst)

Companies do get away with drive-by legal shittiness way too often and frankly the practice needs to be reined in, but at the end of the day the only damages are the financial ones you can prove in court.

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archagon 15 hours ago | parent [-]

And what if the LLM ingested and “understood” it as part of its training?

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SR2Z 11 hours ago | parent [-]

Well, I guess that's a personal question but the law is pretty clear that only a human being can "understand" anything.

	▲	archagon 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		How convenient. Incidentally, this suggests that once an LLM is capable of accessing and distilling a competitor's LLM without human intervention, then any legal argument about TOS violation is moot. But somehow I doubt that will fly in court.

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wlonkly a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

L1 contracts class: offer, acceptance, and consideration.

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trollbridge 20 hours ago | parent [-]

The content of the site is subject to licence for making copies. So you’re saying licences don’t matter?

The GPL established this rather clearly. Copyright law doesn’t require consideration.

(The licence itself is a basic BSD licence, so it just requires attribution including in marketing materials, which obviously hasn’t happened.)

	▲	JumpCrisscross 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> you’re saying licences don’t matter? Within this context, I don’t think so. I can’t make a website that buries some shrink wrap that requires everyone who reads it become vegan.

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foxglacier a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes - yours is just some optional text nobody reads or understands and is probably not legally required to adhere to. Theirs is a contract signed by their customer who they know did understand it.

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blks 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Accessing the site may already mean that you agree to TOS. Also if you don’t see an explicit copyright terms on some text on the internet it doesn’t mean that it’s public domain. Same as checking a checkbox. Text being small and somewhere is not an excuse for a corporation to steal and sell other people’s work.

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trollbridge 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Interesting. So what makes theirs not “optional text nobody reads or understands”?

	▲	JumpCrisscross 13 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> what makes theirs not “optional text nobody reads or understands”? You accept it. You pay consideration for it. If your website has a TOS dickover, that requires someone attest with their legal name and pay you $1, yes, it may be enforceable under some circumstances.
	▲	17 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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