this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2025

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164

The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem (www.theatlantic.com)

submitted 19 hours ago by juergen@feddit.org to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 44 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I like Molly White’s recent take, that it might be more productive to treat this as a labor issue instead of a copyright issue (at least in principle). Even if the AI corporations aren’t technically re-selling copyrighted works, they’re still profiting from the authors’ unpaid labor.

[–] General_Effort@lemmy.world 16 points 17 hours ago

That's an evergreen. Tried and trusty.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 38 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Wanting copyright law to be fixed does not mean wanting it go away entirely for the sake of bullshit like LLMs.

Check out the research of Rufus Pollock who did a bunch of complex math to show ideal copyright length should be 15 years.

https://rufuspollock.com/papers/optimal_copyright_term.pdf

If the admins of the Pirate Bay got put in prison for far less piracy and far less profit from piracy... the same ought to happen to Sam Altman et. al.

[–] MyOpinion@lemm.ee 17 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

What a brilliant Idea. Hover up all copyrighted works then regurgitate it in different forms without having to pay the copyright owners. Sounds like a great tech bro idea.

[–] SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 10 points 16 hours ago

The finance bros tried that one too. Mortgage-backed security was the magic word. Cut up all the little mortgages, repackage them, and sell for profit. Then it all crashed down in 2008.

[–] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 6 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

There's no problem. Those books should all be in the public domain anyway.

[–] doodledup@lemmy.world -1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Why, so you can profit from it?

[–] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 5 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

So that everyone can experience it mostly. Potentially, yes, they could profit from it too, possibly, yes.

I just want to make it clear, I am a hobby writer who regularly releases my work PD.

[–] doodledup@lemmy.world 0 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

Just reading it is already profitting from the written work. The author should have the freedom to decide whether they want monetary compensation for that or not. Isn't this a free world? You should respect it when people decide to publish IP under permissive licenses. It's their work. They can decide. Everyone who is against this and for piracy needs to have their moral compass checked by looking in the mirror. This is a free world, if you like it or not.

[–] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 3 points 13 hours ago

Sure. And they'll get paid by the person who chooses to buy it to release it, or by the library.

[+] Lemmist@lemm.ee -19 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

And what is the problem? I see no problem.

[–] WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

If humans have to pay for knowledge with expensive student loans and book purchases, why should AI get that same knowledge for free?

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 3 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

Because if AI has to pay, you kill the open-source scene and give a fat monopoly to the handful of companies that can afford the data. Not to mention that data is owned by a few publishing house and none of the writers are getting a dime.

Yes it's silly that students pay so much, but we should be arguing for less copyrights so we can have both proper prices in education and a vibrant open source scene.

Most people argue for a strengthening of copyrights which only helps data brokers and big AI players. If you want subscription services and censorship while still keeping all the drawbacks of AI, this is how you do it.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Because if AI has to pay, you kill the open-source scene

FOSS infrastructure is under attack by AI companies

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

How does that change if copyrights are strengthened? The open source scene dies and the big players will still keep scraping.

[–] doodledup@lemmy.world 1 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

The entire open-source scene grew out of that exact system before LLMs even existed. What are you talking about?

Also, just because somebody has the right to make their code open-source doesn't mean that everyone should be forced to do the same. If you decide to make a living by writing books under a permissive license you should be able to do that. This is a free world. Nobody is forcing open-source developers to make the code proprietary. But people like you feel to be in the moral right to force the opposite to others.

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

AI has always been able to train on copyrighted data because it's considered transformative.

If this changes, seeing the huge amount of data needed for competitive generative AI, then open source AI cannot afford the data and dies. Strengthening copyrights would force everyone out of the game except Meta, Google and Microsoft.

The system that open source AI grew out of is exactly what is being attacked.

[–] BertramDitore@lemm.ee 20 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

The article explains the problems in great detail.

Here’s just one small section of the text which describes some of them:

All of this certainly makes knowledge and literature more accessible, but it relies entirely on the people who create that knowledge and literature in the first place—that labor that takes time, expertise, and often money. Worse, generative-AI chatbots are presented as oracles that have “learned” from their training data and often don’t cite sources (or cite imaginary sources). This decontextualizes knowledge, prevents humans from collaborating, and makes it harder for writers and researchers to build a reputation and engage in healthy intellectual debate. Generative-AI companies say that their chatbots will themselves make scientific advancements, but those claims are purely hypothetical.

(I originally put this as a top-level comment, my bad.)

[–] General_Effort@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

YSK that scientists, engineers, and mathematicians are not paid for the knowledge they create. The knowledge is public domain.

When they publish articles, they typically transfer the copyright to the publisher, which is why they will happily assist you in pirating articles.

Patents are public with the express purpose that others may learn from them. Only the actual use of an invention requires permission. Even that lasts only 20 years rather than 100+ years as is the case with copyrights.

So, this quote is not an explanation of any problems. It is (probably deliberately) misleading. Researchers will not receive any license fees. Rather, these fees will subtract from research budgets.

[–] Enelop@lemm.ee 9 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

The claims aren’t entirely hypothetical, LLM AI has mapped nearly every known protein which humans were unable to do…

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02083-2

[–] BertramDitore@lemm.ee 8 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

That’s an interesting article, but it was published in 2022, before LLMs were a thing on anyone’s radar. The results are still incredibly impressive without a doubt, but based on how the researchers explain it, it looks like it was accomplished using deep learning, which isn’t the same as LLMs. Though they’re not entirely unrelated.

Opaque and confusing terminology in this space also just makes it very difficult to determine who or which systems or technology are actually making these advancements. As far as I’m concerned none of this is actual AI, just very powerful algorithmic prediction models. So the claims that an AI system itself has made unique technological advancements, when they are incapable of independent creativity, to me proves that nearly all their touted benefits are still entirely hypothetical right now.

[–] Enelop@lemm.ee 2 points 15 hours ago

I guess that is true.

I hope we are far off from AIG myself. The upheaval it will cause will be catastrophic to society.

[–] br3d@lemmy.world 16 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

These authors (and my work is in there) did not write so that Mark Zuckerberg could steal our work and profit from it

[–] MyOpinion@lemm.ee 5 points 18 hours ago

This is just a perfect breakdown of the problem. Keep Zuckerberg away from your work.

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world -1 points 16 hours ago

Those authors aren't in the equation anymore. They gave their work to publishing houses and won't be asked about what it is to be used for.