AI News
The New York Times reports that Meta (the parent company for Facebook, Instagram, and Meta AI, among other concerns) considered purchasing Simon & Schuster last year in order to train their Large Language Model on the company’s books:
Lawyers and engineers last year discussed buying the publishing house Simon & Schuster to procure long works, according to recordings of internal meetings obtained by The Times. They also conferred on gathering copyrighted data from across the internet, even if that meant facing lawsuits. Negotiating licenses with publishers, artists, musicians and the news industry would take too long, they said.
They did consider compensating authors… to an extent:
In March and April 2023, some of the company’s business development leaders, engineers and lawyers met nearly daily to tackle the problem. Some debated paying $10 a book for the full licensing rights to new titles… They also talked about how they had summarized books, essays and other works from the internet without permission and discussed sucking up more, even if that meant facing lawsuits. One lawyer warned of ‘ethical’ concerns around taking intellectual property from artists but was met with silence, according to the recordings. Mr. Zuckerberg demanded a solution, employees said…. Meta’s executives said OpenAI seemed to have used copyrighted material without permission. It would take Meta too long to negotiate licenses with publishers, artists, musicians and the news industry, they said, according to the recordings.
S&S CEO Jonathan Karp appeared on the New York Times podcast later and said,
I had no idea that this conversation was going on. The story was quoting private conversations that nobody knew about. This really was news to everybody. I’ve checked. Nobody knew that this happened…. So this was extraordinary…. Instead, I guess they just decided to steal everything.
Karp said Large Language Models were obviously trained on illegally obtained data: ‘‘It’s infringement. It’s wrong and presumably the courts will step in. I guess we just have to be patient. We are a nation of laws, so I look forward to seeing those laws enforced.’’ For more.
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The Meta company may be the world’s largest media pirate. It’s executives and staff, and the operators of Meta AI, are people who could be charged with mass piracy of intellectual property. The AI program cannot be guilty of crime, but the people who program and run the AI can be. The physical property and goods of the Meta company can be seized by the court for having been used in the committing of a crime. This could be a new textbook case to interest lawyers.
I look forward to what Cory Doctorow will say about this news! It already aligns with many of the lively yet cynical comments he’s made about art vs business and how creators are exploited by corporations. Now AI is whipping things into a bigger lather.
We’re a nation of laws… unless your name is Trump. Then you can incite a domestic terrorist attack, rape women, sell secrets to foreign countries, steal millions of dollars, and commit fraud for decades without any repercussions. And the MAGA cultists will praise you for it.