News Meta defends using pirated material, claims it's legal if you don't seed content

[King_V]

No fan of Meta but they are right. If you are receiving a file the sender is commiting copyright infringemet (if the item is under copyright). you aren't firing it off to anyone if you don't seed.

But isn't that basically Meta knowingly acquiring stolen goods?

 

[cryoburner]

Too bad they cannot prove that not even a byte of data was uploaded while the files were being downloaded.

So long as they were uploading less than they were downloading, then they would effectively be slowing down the downloads of others, rather than contributing to them, as the bandwidth of those they were downloading from would not be available to others during that time.

The real concern would be what they were doing with the downloaded materials, not so much how they acquired them. The rights holders honestly don't care that the company downloaded a copy of their book without paying for it. They care that the company trained an AI on their book, potentially allowing for the creation of competing works based on it. The piracy angle is just a means to potentially seek damages against them and deter others from doing something similar, but you can be sure they would be doing everything they could to seek legal damages against them even if they had paid for each book in full.

I stole them , but only for my own use, I tried not to resell them, mostly.

Pretty sure that would not fly for a shoplifter. (YMMV in California)

That's a poor analogy though, as stealing from a store has a direct negative impact on the store owner. The store already paid for the merchandise, so it getting stolen puts them at negative profit that will take multiple other sales to recoup. It also potentially causes them to lose a sale if the product ends up going out of stock as a result. Whereas a file getting copied only results in a potential lost sale to the person receiving the copy, who in most cases probably would have never bought the product to begin with if the only alternative was paying for it.

 

[Elusive Ruse]

Isn't it still innocent until proven guilty?

Has nothing to do with the fragility of their defence argument.

 

[Elusive Ruse]

So long as they were uploading less than they were downloading, then they would effectively be slowing down the downloads of others, rather than contributing to them, as the bandwidth of those they were downloading from would not be available to others during that time.

The real concern would be what they were doing with the downloaded materials, not so much how they acquired them. The rights holders honestly don't care that the company downloaded a copy of their book without paying for it. They care that the company trained an AI on their book, potentially allowing for the creation of competing works based on it. The piracy angle is just a means to potentially seek damages against them and deter others from doing something similar, but you can be sure they would be doing everything they could to seek legal damages against them even if they had paid for

That’s conjecture on your part regarding the motivation of the copyright holders. Had a chuckle about the part where you mentioned their uploading the material being actually a good thing cause it slowed down others, truly a magnificent moment for big corpo apologists.

 

[derekullo]

I'm with Mark.
It isn't piracy until my upload touches their download!

 

[missingegg]

Across the tech industry, the attitude of the giant companies is "what's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine". Imagine what the reaction of Meta's lawyers would be if you downloaded a pirated copy of their source code.

 

[acadia11]

Somewhere in the universe a Pirate Bay torrent just got its’ wings.

 

[acadia11]

I'm with Mark.
It isn't piracy until my upload touches their download!

Didn’t even have to ask consent.

 

[mvrv]

This could be very interesting. I can see them taking on publishers and going after drm. It's not like they didn't have the money it was just much easier download and use in a non DRM format in bulk. Who knows maybe good policy and case law will come from this. It's definitely Zuckerbergs MO. Wasn't there some thing with non licensed cold fusion and Facebook forever ago?

 

[TheOtherOne]

Does it mean downloading from ALL the "File Share" hosts and heck even those illegal "Streaming" services is legal and allowed for your average consumer?

Since they only download or watch stream and don't seed or upload anything back.

Will be interesting to see what, if any, fines they get since with this statement, they pretty much admitted of "downloading" files illegally. Of course if it was just a random Joe or Jane, they would get hundreds of thousands of dollars worth copyright claims notices.

 

[Amdlova]

Pirated is legally, like using winrar for free forever... you always feel guilty...
It's worse when you have a cracked one... your soul burns.

 

[DougMcC]

You can't throw meta in jail, maybe you could throw the person who downloaded things in but they were an agent of meta so that's murky.

It's not the least bit murky. If your company tells you to do something illegal and you do it, you are the one going to jail. Imagine Meta hires a hitman to kill Elon. Does the hitman not get prosecuted?

 

[scottsoapbox]

Except they did seed it.

It's in the discovery emails.

 

[stuff and nonesense]

This defense is not about downloads at all, the article links to the legal document and meta only defends against improper use of the data.
Like this one.
Section 1202(b) prohibits the “removal or alteration of copyright management information.”

The following is all just my speculation.
If they where seeding someone could argue that others could only download parts and thusly there would have been some "removal or alteration" but if they kept it all as a whole and didn't let anybody else download from them then everything stayed unaltered.

So, I download many many books still in copyright from the internet with no intention of paying for said books. My use case is to read them, I will not make any money from the act.

I have breached copyright and deprived authors and publishers of their due income, if caught I should be prosecuted and fined as per the punishments described in law.

Meta is using the learnings from the downloads as a base for its AI systems. AI is a value add to the platforms meta runs that is there to increase interaction and thereby increase revenue.

You are trying to justify copyright theft as a business model to increase revenue.
Can you reconcile the position?

 

[fiyz]

I love how beaten into docility my peers have become, mostly because I love knowing that they will never stand up to a tyrannical government...

Seriously, we have laws created specifically to target the behaviors of ethnic minorities, and we say it's for the public good. Is protecting Micky mouse part of the public good? Or is it about protecting the money the government gets from Disney?

It's like my peers don't understand that law makers have the ability to carefully craft the language of laws, as to make the legal definition of corruption, different from the literal definition... There by protecting themselves and their literally corrupt practices.

Hell, we don't even think that government by consent is real idea. So if consent isn't need to be governed... What are we?

 

[TerryLaze]

Has nothing to do with the fragility of their defence argument.

Too bad they cannot prove that not even a byte of data was uploaded while the files were being downloaded.

And what exactly in your post that I reacted to is about the fragility of their defense?

So, I download many many books still in copyright from the internet with no intention of paying for said books. My use case is to read them, I will not make any money from the act.

I have breached copyright and deprived authors and publishers of their due income, if caught I should be prosecuted and fined as per the punishments described in law.

Meta is using the learnings from the downloads as a base for its AI systems. AI is a value add to the platforms meta runs that is there to increase interaction and thereby increase revenue.

You are trying to justify copyright theft as a business model to increase revenue.
Can you reconcile the position?

Did you even read what I wrote?
They are not defending against having downloaded the files, at least not in the linked document.

 

[luckzeh]

It's not the least bit murky. If your company tells you to do something illegal and you do it, you are the one going to jail. Imagine Meta hires a hitman to kill Elon. Does the hitman not get prosecuted?

Since the beginning of time, people who downloaded mp3s of random music they likely wouldn't otherwise be paying for have been threatened with anything from astronomical fees to jail time.
In that context, jail time seems very appropriate for:
- the "researchers" at Meta who committed these crimes
- their direct managers at Meta who ordered these crimes to be committed
- their middle and upper management overlords at Meta who consented to all of this and hired the lawyers to wash said crimes away

After all, listening to music is a very harmless offense compared to commercially using others copyrighted material without licensing it, as well as creating derivative works based on it without paying a cent, as well as offering technology to others so that they can create derivative works of these copyrighted materials in exchange for payment to Meta (but none to the rights holders).
Surely if a megacorporation "sells stolen goods" the punishment has to be worse than that for a single individual doing something like that, not to speak of an individual consuming material they merely didn't pay for.

 

[xanas3712]

According to DCMA downloading is illegal.
I think it was $250,000 per file when it was music downloads.
So their fine should be calculated as such.
Companies stealing copyrighted work is no different.

250K wasn't related to DMCA, and is a maximum, not a minimum. Also, when enforced, it has traditionally been when there was sharing. If you look at the older music cases they involved sharing the files out, not simply downloading them.

I'm not saying it's legal to download, that isn't correct, but there hasn't been a lot of precedent set for what the penalty is for that.

 

[xanas3712]

Too bad they cannot prove that not even a byte of data was uploaded while the files were being downloaded.

They don't have to prove that though, it's a preponderance standard but the thing is, a byte of data isn't the same thing as actual copywritten content. If you get 0.01% of a torrent, given it's compressed, it's not even visibly containing the content. You have to have a significant fraction of the data to have anything at all.

 

[xanas3712]

Not only are they violating copyright by download intellectual property without paying for it, but they are also 'making derivative works' using that content and then making money off of that derivative work. This is far far far worse and is against everything Copyright was designed to stop.

Not every derivative work violates copyright. If they add enough from what they are doing it does not. It has to be transformative enough, and it CLEARLY is that. You can ask it to write articles on the same topics that are in the books and it will not word for word contain that text. You have to do a lot of prompt engineering to get the same exact text of a length that has traditionally met the standards of being protected, and in such a case, they can present the argument that the user is misusing the tool to produce the infringing content.

 

[Co BIY]

So long as they were uploading less than they were downloading, then they would effectively be slowing down the downloads of others, rather than contributing to them, as the bandwidth of those they were downloading from would not be available to others during that time.

The real concern would be what they were doing with the downloaded materials, not so much how they acquired them. The rights holders honestly don't care that the company downloaded a copy of their book without paying for it. They care that the company trained an AI on their book, potentially allowing for the creation of competing works based on it. The piracy angle is just a means to potentially seek damages against them and deter others from doing something similar, but you can be sure they would be doing everything they could to seek legal damages against them even if they had paid for each book in full.


That's a poor analogy though, as stealing from a store has a direct negative impact on the store owner. The store already paid for the merchandise, so it getting stolen puts them at negative profit that will take multiple other sales to recoup. It also potentially causes them to lose a sale if the product ends up going out of stock as a result. Whereas a file getting copied only results in a potential lost sale to the person receiving the copy, who in most cases probably would have never bought the product to begin with if the only alternative was paying for it.

So, I download many many books still in copyright from the internet with no intention of paying for said books. My use case is to read them, I will not make any money from the act.

I have breached copyright and deprived authors and publishers of their due income, if caught I should be prosecuted and fined as per the punishments described in law.

Meta is using the learnings from the downloads as a base for its AI systems. AI is a value add to the platforms meta runs that is there to increase interaction and thereby increase revenue.

You are trying to justify copyright theft as a business model to increase revenue.
Can you reconcile the position?

Has their copyrighted IP now become part of the Meta AI source code IP ? Does that make the Meta AI IP partly their IP ?

 

[Co BIY]

Seriously, we have laws created specifically to target the behaviors of ethnic minorities, and we say it's for the public good. Is protecting Micky mouse part of the public good? Or is it about protecting the money the government gets from Disney?

Are you talking about the laws against piracy or carjacking ?