[YPPH]

"Stealing" isn't an apt term here. Stealing a thing permanently deprives the owner of the thing. What you're describing is copyright infringement, not stealing.

In this context, stealing is often used as a pejorative term to make piracy sound worse than it is. Except for mass distribution, piracy is often regarded as a civil wrong, and not a crime.

[seadan83]

Then it is not possible to 'steal' an idea? Afaik 'to steal'is simply to take without permission. If the thing is abstract, then you might not have deprived the original owner of that thing. If the thing is a physical object, then the implication is tou now have physical possession (in which case your definition seemingly holds)

edit/addendum: considering this a bit more - the extent to which the original party is deprived of the stolen thing is pertinent for awarding damages. For example, imagine a small entity stealing from a large one, like a small creator steals dungeon and dragons rules. That doesn't deprive Hasbro of DnD, but it is still theft (we're assuming a verbatim copy here lifted directly from DnD books)

The example that I was pondering were shows in russia that were almost literally "the sampsons." Did that stop the Simpson's from airing in the US, its primary market? No, but it was still theft, something was taken without permission.

[bumby]

I think you make a good point, but there is some irony in pointing out the distinction between colloquial and legal use of the term “stealing” while also misusing the term “piracy” to describe legal matters.

It would be more clear if you stick to either legal or colloquial variants, instead of switching back and forth. (Tbf, the judge in this case also used the term “piracy” colloquially).

[YPPH]

I'm not sure that's irony. Just an plain error on my part, which you're right to point out. Piracy is also a pejorative label for copyright infringement.

[bumby]

Crashing your car is an error. Crashing your car while lecturing someone else about safe driving is irony.

In this case it seemed like you were making a point about the strict legal sense of a word, but misusing a different legal term to do so.

[YPPH]

You're describing hypocrisy.

[bumby]

Irony is the opposite of what you’d expect, or incongruity between what is expected and what occurs. I expect someone lecturing on safe driving to…well, know how to drive safely.

Hypocrisy requires deception, not ignorance.

[KoolKat23]

Best/most succinct explanation I've seen to date.

[pyman]

Pirating a book and selling it on claude.ai is stealing, both legally and morally.

Pirating 7 million books, remixing their content, and using that to make money on Claude.ai is like counterfeiting 7 million branded products and selling them on your Shopify website. The original creators don't get payment, and someone's profiting off their work.

Try doing that yourself and you'd get a knock on the door real quick.

[Paradigma11]

There are tests that determine if a work infringes on the copyright of another. That is well established law. Just use that test and show that this work is infringing on that work. If you cant it doesn't.

[KoolKat23]

Properly remixing the content so that it can be considered distinct would be fair use. You can't copyright a style, concept or idea.

Also mostly this would be a civil lawsuit for "damages".

[pyman]

It might be legal in the US, but not in the rest of the world.

The trial is scheduled for December 2025. That’s when a jury will decide how much Anthropic owes for copying and storing over seven million pirated books

[fuzzfactor]

You make some good points, this really is going to take some careful judgment and chances are it's too complex for an actual courtroom to yield an ideal outcome.

Now places like Flea markets have been known to have a counterfeit DVD or two.

And there is more than one way to compare to non-digital content.

Regular books and periodicals can be sold out and/or out-of-print, but digital versions do not have these same exact limitations.

A great deal of the time though, just the opposite occurs, and a surplus is printed that no one will ever read, and which will eventually be disposed of.

Newspapers are mainly in the extreme category where almost always a significant number of surplus copies are intentionally printed.

It's all part of the same publication, a huge portion of which no one has ever rightfully expected for every copy to earn anything at all, much less a return on every single copy making it back to the original creator.

Which is one reason why so much material is supported by ads. Even if you didn't pay a high enough price to cover the cost of printing, it was all paid for well before it got into your hands.

Digital copies which are going unread are something like that kind of surplus. If you save it from the bin you should be able to do whatever you want with it either way, scan it how you see fit.

You just can't say you wrote it. That's what copyright is supposed to be for.

Like at the flea market, when two different vendors are selling the same items but one has legitimately purchased them wholesale and the other vendor obtained theirs as the spoils of a stolen 18-wheeler.

How do you know which ones are the pirated items?

You can tell because the original owners of the pirated cargo suffered a definite loss, and have none of it remaining any more.

OTOH, with things like fake Nikes at the flea market, you can be confident they are counterfeit whether they were stolen from anybody in any way or not.

[bumby]

>If you save it from the bin you should be able to do whatever you want with it either way, scan it how you see fit.

Don’t we already have laws covering this? For example, sometimes excess books can be thrown in the bin. Often, they have the covers removed. Some will say something to the effect that “if you’ve received this without a cover it is a copyright violation.” I think one of the points of the lawsuit is it gives copyright holders discretion as to how their works are used/sold etc. The idea that “if you saved it from the bin you can do with it whatever you want” strips them of that right.

[fuzzfactor]

Another good point, and it's a fine point as well.

You could split hairs over whether saving an item from the bin occurred after a procedure to remove covers and it was already dumped, or before any contemplation was made about if or when dumping would take place.

Saving either way would be preserving what would otherwise be lost, even if it was well premeditated in advance of any imminent risk.

What if it was the last remaining copy?

Or even the only copy ever in existence of an original manuscript?

It's just not a concept suitable for a black & white judgment.

That's a very good sign that probably an entire book of regulations needs to be thrown out instead, and a new law written to replace it with something more sensible.

[CaptainFever]

Actually, "the rest of the world" has already legalised AI training in the form of Text and Data Mining Exemption laws.

[ungreased0675]

There seems to be an unwritten rule for VC-backed tech companies, that if a law is broken at massive scale and very quickly, it’s ok. It’s the fait accompli strategy many of the large tech companies used to get where they are.

Don’t have legal access to training data? Simply steal it, but move fast enough to keep ahead of the law. By the time lawsuits hit the company is worth billions and the product is embedded in everyday life.