If you want 5 million books, you can't just steal/pirate them, you need to buy 5 million copies. I'm glad the court ruled that way.

If you want 5 million books to train your AI to make you money, you can just steal them and reap benefits of other’s work. No need to buy 5 million copies!

/s

Jesus, dude. And for the record, I’m not suggesting people steal things. I am saying that companies shouldn’t get away with shittiness just because.

You should read the ruling in more detail, the judge explains the reasoning behind why he found the way that he did. For example:

Authors argue that using works to train Claude’s underlying LLMs was like using works to train any person to read and write, so Authors should be able to exclude Anthropic from this use (Opp. 16). But Authors cannot rightly exclude anyone from using their works for training or learning as such. Everyone reads texts, too, then writes new texts. They may need to pay for getting their hands on a text in the first instance. But to make anyone pay specifically for the use of a book each time they read it, each time they recall it from memory, each time they later draw upon it when writing new things in new ways would be unthinkable.

This isn't "oligarch interests and demands," this is affirming a right to learn and that copyright doesn't allow its holder to prohibit people from analyzing the things that they read.

Can I not just ask the trained AI to spit out the text of the book, verbatim?

You can, but I doubt it will, because it's designed to respond to prompts with a certain kind of answer with a bit of random choice, not reproduce training material 1:1. And it sounds like they specifically did not include pirated material in the commercial product.

Yeah, but the issue is they didn’t buy a legal copy of the book. Once you own the book, you can read it as many times as you want. They didn’t legally own the books.

FTA:

Anthropic warned against “[t]he prospect of ruinous statutory damages—$150,000 times 5 million books”: that would mean $750 billion.

So part of their argument is actually that they stole so much that it would be impossible for them/anyone to pay restitution, therefore we should just let them off the hook.

FTA:

Anthropic warned against “[t]he prospect of ruinous statutory damages—$150,000 times 5 million books”: that would mean $750 billion.

So part of their argument is actually that they stole so much that it would be impossible for them/anyone to pay restitution, therefore we should just let them off the hook.

And thus the singularity was born.

FTA:

Anthropic warned against “[t]he prospect of ruinous statutory damages—$150,000 times 5 million books”: that would mean $750 billion.

So part of their argument is actually that they stole so much that it would be impossible for them/anyone to pay restitution, therefore we should just let them off the hook.

I will admit this is not a simple case. That being said, if you've lived in the US (and are aware of local mores), but you're not American. you will have a different perspective on the US judicial system.

How is right to learn even relevant here? An LLM by definition cannot learn.

Where did I say analyzing a text should be restricted?

This was a preliminary judgment, he didn't actually rule on the piracy part. That part he deferred to an actual full trial.

The part about training being a copyright violation, though, he ruled against.

“I torrented all this music and movies to train my local ai models”

How is right to learn even relevant here? An LLM by definition cannot learn.

I literally quoted a relevant part of the judge's decision:

But Authors cannot rightly exclude anyone from using their works for training or learning as such.

This is an easy case. Using published works to train AI without paying for the right to do so is piracy. The judge making this determination is an idiot.

“I torrented all this music and movies to train my local ai models”

FTA:

Anthropic warned against “[t]he prospect of ruinous statutory damages—$150,000 times 5 million books”: that would mean $750 billion.

So part of their argument is actually that they stole so much that it would be impossible for them/anyone to pay restitution, therefore we should just let them off the hook.

FTA:

Anthropic warned against “[t]he prospect of ruinous statutory damages—$150,000 times 5 million books”: that would mean $750 billion.

So part of their argument is actually that they stole so much that it would be impossible for them/anyone to pay restitution, therefore we should just let them off the hook.