[capnrefsmmat]

OpenAI is the custodian of the user data, so they are responsible. If you wanted the court (i.e., the plaintiffs) to find specific infringing chatters, first they'd have to get the data from OpenAI to find who it is -- which is exactly what they're trying to do, and why OpenAI is being told to preserve the data so they can review it.

[happyopossum]

So the courts should start ordering all ISPs, browsers, and OSs to log all browsing and chat activity going forward, so they can find out which people are doing bad things on the internet.

[dragonwriter]

No, they should not.

However, if the ISP, for instance, is sued, then it (immediately and without a separate court order) becomes illegal for them to knowingly destroy evidence in their custody relevant to the issue for which they are being sued, and if there is a dispute about their handling of particular such evidence, a court can and will order them specifically to preserve relevant evidence as necessary. And, with or without a court order, their destruction of relevant evidence once they know of the suit can be the basis of both punitive sanctions and adverse findings in the case to which the evidence would have been relevant.

[lovich]

If those entities were custodians in charge of the data at hand in the court case, the court would order that.

This post appears to be full of people who aren’t actually angry at the results of this case but angry at how the US legal system has been working for decades, possibly centuries since I don’t know when this precedent was first set

[scarab92]

Is it not valid to be concerned about overly broad invasions of privacy regardless of how long such orders have been occurring?

[Retric]

What privacy specifically? The courts have always been able to compel people to recount things they know which could include a conversation between you and your plumber if it was somehow related to a case.

The company records and uses this stuff internally, retention is about keeping information accurate and accessible.

Lawsuits allow in a limited context the sharing of non public information held by individuals/companies in the lawsuit. But once you submit something to OpenAI it’s now there information not just your information.

[nickff]

I think that some of the people here dislike (or are alarmed by) the way that the court can compel parties to retain data which would otherwise have vanished into the ether.

[lelanthran]

> I think that some of the people here dislike (or are alarmed by) the way that the court can compel parties to retain data which would otherwise have vanished into the ether.

Maybe so, but this has always been the case for hundreds of years.

After all, how on earth do you propose having getting fair hearing if the other party is allowed to destroy the evidence you asked for in your papers?

Because this is what would happen:

You: Your Honour, please ask the other party to turn over all their invoices for the period in question

Other Party: We will turn over only those invoices we have

*Other party goes back to the office and deletes everything.

The thing is, once a party in a suit asks for a certain piece of evidence, the other party can't turn around and say "Our policy is to delete everything, and our policy trumps the orders of this court".

[dragonwriter]

Its not an “invasion of privacy” for a company who already had data to be prohibited from destroying it when they are sued in a case where that data is evidence.

[dogleash]

Yeah, sure. But understanding the legal system tells us the players and what systems exist that we might be mad at.

For me, one company obligated to retain business records during civil litigation against another company, reviewed within the normal discovery process is tolerable. Considering the alternative is lawlessness. I'm fine with it.

Companies that make business records out of invading privacy? They, IMO, deserve the fury of 1000 suns.

[lovich]

It’s not private. You handed over the data to a third party.

[rodgerd]

If you cared about your privacy, why are you handing all this stuff to Sam Altman? Did he represent that OpenAI would be privacy-preserving? Have they taken any technical steps to avoid this scenario?

[lelanthran]

> So the courts should start ordering all ISPs, browsers, and OSs to log all browsing and chat activity going forward, so they can find out which people are doing bad things on the internet.

Not "all", just the ones involved in a current suit. They already routinely do this anway (Party A is involved in a suit and is ordered to retain any and all evidence for the duration of the trial, starting from the first knowledge that Party A had of the trial).

You are mischaracterising what happens; you are presenting it as "Any court, at any time can order any party who is not involved in any suit in that sourt to forever hold user data"

That is not what is happening.

[Vilian]

Or you didn't read what was written by the other comment, or are just arguing in bad faith, what's even weierder because the guy was only explaining how the the system always worked