Suppose you have three propositions:

A: "Information is free"

B: "Information is not free"

C: "Information is free only for the rich and not free for everyone else, giving the rich a material advantage over everyone else that not only entrenches but accelerates wealth inequality and impedes class mobility"

You, or Swartz, are an advocate for A. Why, exactly, do you think that obliges you/Swartz to prefer C over B while A is not true?

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michaelt 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Once upon a time, copyright infringement for personal use was barely a crime, while copyright infringement by a for-profit commercial enterprise was a serious matter.

The idea being (before the rise of online peer-to-peer piracy) to prosecute the people making bootleg VHSes rather than the people buying them.

With the rise of these AI behemoths, it seems that rule is now inverted: You can download all the pirated ebooks you want, as long as it's for large-scale for-profit commercial use.

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simianwords 31 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Sure it’s not free for anyone and both companies and individuals are treated similarly. It’s not like you will be jailed for pirating movies. And neither should OpenAI. What part of this is hard to understand

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applfanboysbgon 30 minutes ago | parent [-]

> It’s not like you will be jailed for pirating movies.

We're literally talking in a thread about someone who committed suicide because the US government was hellbent on ruining his life with a felony conviction for piracy.

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roenxi 20 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Sounds like a gross misapplication of the law enforcement system. The free exchange of information should be legalised.

As we can see in the good article, the copyright system might almost have cost us a lot of AI capabilities. The damage it has done in cases where the lawyers got ahead of the builders is incalculable.

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simianwords 19 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

His case was materially different

1. Unauthorised network access

2. Intent to distribute licensed material

The labs aren’t doing this. They are doing something similar to you and I downloading torrents. Look, I also think laws should apply somewhat equally to individuals and companies. But this is different.

	▲	shakna 13 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		They certainly seem intent on producing and distributing materials based on that licensed material, and stripping out the licensing and pretending it never existed. That doesn't seem different to me. Copyright, inherits. If its fair use, like the companies currently claim, maybe it is different. But I suspect that the insane push to create a copyright carveout in countries around the world, is not unrelated to a judgement that it probably isn't fair use.
	▲	applfanboysbgon 14 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Intent to distribute licensed material According to the people trying to ruin his life. This is an accused thought crime, not something he actually did. Also, supposing it actually was something he did, your argument is that building a trillion dollar business on stolen licensed material is legally permissible but giving it away for free is worthy of your life being ruined. Wonderfully coherent world view, that is. Piracy is fine, but only if you hoard it to yourself and profit from it!