Is that seriously their defense strategy? Because it’s indeed legal to download if you’re not seeding but it’s not legal to use the downloaded content for commercial purposes, which they clearly did.
Its only bad once it takes the form of Communism/socialism.
Lol.
Its only bad once it takes the form of Communism/socialism for the masses.
FTFY
These corporate assholes love socialism when it helps them, just not when it helps anyone else
I love how the only part Meta objects to is the part that upholds the system by helping others. 🫤
Where have you been? This is 1.5 year old news my guy.
It’s not the same thing at all. People here are sharing things they purchased and love, which actually promotes further sales down the road.
Meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and all other companies that are highly invested in generative AIs are appropriating copyrighted content, often destroying originals, modifying it to fit their agendas and selling access to their versions for a monthly subscription, while at the same time damaging other industries and the planet. THAT is much closer to piracy and has no generous intent at all.
Also they are stealing it for monetary gain vs stealing for fun and entertainment. I dont think there were many “pirates for fun”
I don’t think the law makes exceptions for how you feel about the stuff you’re downloading
You could read a little about copyright law in different countries to find out how commercial and non-commercial use of copyrighted content works in each one. And if you feel like it and find a bit of spare time after that, come back here and read the comments again. That is if by then you feel qualified to understand them.
just because you got your feelings hurt doesn’t mean I’m not right, or you’re not an idiot. nothing I said was factually untrue, you knob.
Facebook isna US company operating from the US. In this case, laws of other countries do not matter.
Wrong.
Facebook is broken to the laws of the countries they operate IN, as well.
If they win, doesn’t that set a precedent for piracy in general? Ironically they might make piracy harder to prosecute.
I’d hope, but basically they are only protecting downloading, for the most part 99% of piracy prosecution has already shifted focus to uploading, and really the focus is far more on the companies hosting etc… because they learned in the napster era that suing grandmothers and children doesn’t really win the PR wars.
Too bad FB never started a media company. Amazon would never make claims like this about stealing media because they make media and wouldn’t want to give people the right to pirate their shit.
Tell that to those who have been nuked for the heinous crime of DOWNLOADING.
Need to sue them into the dirt
then how are we supposed to pirate it if nobody shares it, you absolute jackasses?
SHARING = CARING.
Ah the old limewire strat
oh damn okay ima just stop seeding back then sorry y’all
You disgust me!
I can’t hear you over the sound of my 0,2 ratio
but everyone seeds when you’re downloading as that’s the point of bittorrent.
I mean, you can make it so your client doesn’t.
You got downvoted, but you’re completely correct. Also Meta is basically arguing that leeching is fine.
Please, provide the link to the article.
I’m often annoyed by this too because a screenshot doesn’t really prove anything, but the name of the article and the website are included in the screenshot
Article text
Configuration settings were modified “so that the smallest amount of seeding possible could occur”.
Meta claimed in a court filing this week that despite torrenting an 82 TB dataset of pirated, copyrighted material from shadow libraries to train its LLaMA AI models, that employees “took precautions not to “seed” any downloaded files”.
The act of Seeding in torrenting terminology refers to sharing a file with other users during, (or commonly after) downloading it. Since torrenting is a peer-to-peer system, every user downloading a file can also upload parts of it to other users.
Meta’s lawyers claim that there are “no facts to show that Meta seeded Plaintiffs’ books”. This means that the company’s defense is pinning hopes on the fact that there isn’t currently any proof that Meta shared the material during the torrenting process.
Though Meta claims that there is no evidence of seeding, Michael Clark, an executive at Meta in charge of project management testified that the configuration settings they were using were modified “so that the smallest amount of seeding possible could occur”.
Following this statement, a question regarding why Meta chose to minimize seeding was asked, attorney-client privilege was invoked so that Clark could not answer. Interestingly, the statement issued by Clark shows that Meta sought methods to minimize seeding, but has yet to offer up indication that it entirely prevented seeding copyrighted material.
Additionally, an internal message from Frank Zhang, a Meta researcher, could point toward alleged concealment of potential seeding from Meta’s servers, to avoid “risk of tracing back the seeder/downloader” to Facebook servers.
Meta’s defense seems to hinge around the lack of evidence around not sharing the large amount of data they have allegedly downloaded to train its AI models. Should Meta win on this defense and prove that downloading copyrighted content isn’t illegal, but distribution is, it could shake up future cases of piracy and unauthorized distribution of copyrighted content.
The defense relying on torrenting terminology could also a way for Meta to aim in tripping up courts. Focusing on seeding could further muddy the claim that Meta allegedly knew that it was violating laws by torrenting copyrighted material.
Meta has yet to respond to claims surrounding on whether it knew that it was sharing data during the download process.
Authors allege Meta was “knowing participant” in “illegal peer-to-peer piracy network”
Authors of the copyrighted material alleged to have been obtained by Meta without prior licensing agreements have alleged [PDF] that “Meta’s decision to bypass lawful acquisition methods and become a knowing participant in an illegal peer-to-peer piracy network”.
With the court battle expected to continue, no final decision around the case has been made. Even following a final decision, it’s expected that Meta will attempt to appeal the decision if they were to lose, meaning that final judgements could be a long while away.
But, similar cases do exist. OpenAI was sued by novelists in 2023, with the New York Times also suing OpenAI and Microsoft over “millions” copied news articles. As the long list of LLM-related litigation continues, this is likely not going to be the last we hear from Meta’s specific case.
I’m beginning to think that these Facebook people are kinda lame
Indeed I hate this. I asked so that the OP can do his job and post the article so that we can we can deeply understand the problem.
But if they’re using it for their ai, won’t they be seeding it from them on? I mean, you might not be able to download an entire book in one go, but you may be able to after 100 questions, or something similar…
Selling it back to you through their service, while burning the planet?
