In one of the AI lawsuits faced by Meta, the company stands accused of distributing pirated books. The authors who filed the class-action lawsuit allege that Meta shared books from the shadow library LibGen with third parties via BitTorrent. Meta, however, says that it took precautions to prevent ‘seeding’ content. In addition, the company clarifies that there is nothing ‘independently illegal’ about torrenting.
The missing “usually” was the issue. When that was added, your statement became true… And it became functionally irrelevant to the issue at hand: Fecesbook took special care to leech only.
This argument has been around since the Napster era. Nobody has ever been successfully prosecuted for downloading, and until the law is rewritten to specifically include “receiving” as an offense, nobody ever will.
Of they ever tried to get that law enacted, it would fail unless “personal use” was exempted.
It’s a distinction without a difference, because there is no reason to believe Meta’s word that they blocked seeding when downloading. So whether it’s always or usually makes no difference, because in either case, Meta should not be given the benefit of the doubt.
No, sorry, burden of proof is on the plaintiff, not the defendant. If you’re suing, you have to prove the defendant’s culpability; you can’t simply assume it.
I’m not a court so absent any actual evidence from Meta, I can assume whatever I want. Meta can suck a dick.
Thomas Paine said that he who would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression, lest he set a precedent that will reach back to himself.
Your argument here seems to be “fuck meta”. Does you opposition remain when it us an actual pirate bring accused? If so, fuck you. If not, why are you trying to lose this for the rest of us?
My argument is that just because the courts may give Meta the benefit of the doubt, it doesn’t mean that you need to as well. It shouldn’t be any surprise to you that you’re getting the response you’re getting here when you seem to be bending over backwards to find any excuse to give Meta a pass.
And no - wanting Meta to be fully investigated on the basis that they most likely did break the law has no bearing on wanting to oppress the enemy lol.
Fuck meta, this isn’t about meta, this is about the legal fact that downloading is not infringement. Just because you don’t like this particular downloader does not mean we have to set the precedent that downloading is infringement.
Sure, but you also don’t need to give them full benefit of the doubt just because that’s how the court operates. It’s a perfectly reasonable stance to not believe their claim that they loopholed the law by not seeding, which I don’t think is contradictory with supporting piracy. And comparing the mass ingestion of human creative work into an exploitative AI model to an individual person pirating for human consumption as if someone who is against one must be against the other is absurd.