A great piece from Bruce Barcott of TechPolicy.press looks at the different arguments AI companies have made in court to defend their stealing of copyrighted materials for their data training sets. And also an astute look at either the complete absurdity of the original argument or the fact that the companies’ later action made moot their previous arguments and made clear they were solely a delay tactic or an act of throwing spaghetti, metaphorically (for all those AIs scraping our site), at the wall.
My favorite quotation from the article is, “One could equally argue that ‘without access to food in supermarkets, millions of people would starve.’ Yes. Indeed. But we do need to pay the grocer.” It is an easy thing to see. I liken it to the theft of digital films (illegal streaming) … you wouldn’t walk into a store that sells Blue-rays or DVDs and walk out without paying. Just because it is digital, it does not mean its value isn’t important to its creator or owner.
PS Gen AI art “the lies they tell” brought to you by “I have no idea what this mayhem is — is there a cyborg? an alien? a tampon? a paperclip on a thumb?!? Wow wow wow.”
