[superfrank]

I'm trying to find the quote, but I'm pretty sure the judge specifically said that going and buying the book after the fact won't absolve them of liability. He said that for the books they pirated they broke the law and should stand trial for that and they cannot go back and un-break in by buying a copy now.

Found it: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/federal-judge-rules-c...

> “That Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the internet will not absolve it of liability for the theft,” [Judge] Alsup wrote, “but it may affect the extent of statutory damages.”

[irthomasthomas]

Is copyright in America different to Britain? There, it is legal to download books you don't own. Only distribution is a crime, which most torrenters break by seeding.

[throwawayffffas]

I think it's very similar in both countries, but you have got it wrong. Downloading a book without permission is copyright infringement in both countries, regardless of whether you distribute it.

In the UK it's a criminal offense if you distribute a copyrighted work with the intent to make gain or with the expectation that the owner will make a loss.

Gain and loss are only financial in this context.

Meaning that in both countries the copyright owner can sue you for copyright infringement.

[rahimnathwani]

What do you mean by 'it is legal'?

Do you mean:

A) It's not a criminal offence?

B) The copyright owner cannot file a civil suit for damages?

C) Something else?

[irthomasthomas]

> Only distribution is a crime

[rahimnathwani]

What relevance does that have to the present case? The judge, in this civil matter, said there would be a trial. He didn't say anything about it being a criminal trial. The strings 'crim' and 'felon' do not appear in the ruling.

  We will have a trial on the pirated copies used to create Anthropic’s central library and the resulting damages, actual or statutory (including for willfulness).

[Aeolun]

There can always be a trial, even if nothing was done to warrant it.

I think the distinction between civil and criminal trials is smaller in my home country. The fact that there is a trial at all implies that someone commited a ‘crime’.

[throwawayffffas]

Only distribution with the intent to make money is a crime. If you are doing it for free you are not criminally liable. Unless I am missing something.

[codedokode]

Any distribution of copyrighted material can cause you a big trouble.

[kelnos]

It's not a crime in the US, either, I believe, but you can certainly be sued in civil court for it.

[freejazz]

They also argued that they in no way could ever actually license all the materials they ingested

[dmd]

I love this argument so much. "But judge, there's no way I could ever afford to buy those jewels, so stealing them must be OK."

[AnthonyMouse]

The argument is more along the lines of, negotiating with millions of individuals each over a single copy of a work would cause the transaction costs to exceed the payments, and that kind of efficiency loss is the sort of thing fair use exists to prevent. It's not socially beneficial for the law to require you to create $2 in deadweight loss in order to transfer $1, and the cost to the author of not selling a single additional copy is not the thing they were really objecting to.

[homebrewer]

I used to order books in English from the US before shipping costs became prohibitive and the cost of shipping the book went to about twice to thrice the cost of the book itself. Is it fair use for me to download books from Anna's Archive now considering that books in English are not available in my region through other means (including the vast majority of ebooks)?

Rhetorical question, we all know that me reading books is not "transformative" so it won't be considered fair use for me to yoink them (transformative as in transforming more damage to the society at large into more money for the already rich).

[HelloImSteven]

In the U.S. at least (obviously not the same everywhere), fair use doesn’t necessarily require your work to be transformative. It’s one of several aspects that gets considered, albeit a fairly significant one in many cases. Downloading books/research articles/pirated works in general wouldn’t be fair use as the purpose of the act (obtaining a book to read) directly impacts the market for the work (selling books). There could still exceptions in some cases, mostly related to teaching I’d imagine.

[bombcar]

What’s more interesting to me is if you can hire someone in the US to buy the book for you, cut the spine off with a bandsaw, and send you the scans and destroy the pages afterwards.

[exe34]

That's right, so I can't individually discuss terms with each and every media creator, so from now on, I can just pirate everything.

[Aeolun]

This is literally why a lot of people pirate content, yes. It’s pretty much always the only way to obtain the content, even if you are otherwise fine with paying for it.

[johnnyanmac]

Yes, and it's technically copyright infringement, even for private use. It's just that damages and enforcement is in feasible.

But if you tried to open a black market selling that media: you'd be hunted down to the ends of the earth. Or to China/North Korea, at least.

[AnthonyMouse]

Needing a copy of one book you're going to spend a week reading has a lot less overhead than needing a copy of every book that you're going to process with a computer in bulk.

[recursive]

I like to glance at the cover art. I can do ten per second when I really get into my flow state. Sometimes I read them also, but that's incidental.

[johnnyanmac]

They can. That's how any media service from Spotify to Netflix to Audible have to do things.

They simply don't want to and think they can skirt the law while the judges catch up.

[kelnos]

What do you mean by "negotiating"? They can buy the books in paperback form from Amazon. And for e-books available for sale without DRM, they get to skip the cutting and scanning part.

If the book is out of print, then tough luck. That's not a license to infringe on the publisher's copyright. If we're not ok with that, we have legislative means to change that. A judge shouldn't be rewriting law in that manner.

[freejazz]

> and that kind of efficiency loss is the sort of thing fair use exists to prevent.

No it's not. And you ever heard of a publishing house? They don't need to negotiate with every single author individually. That's preposterous.

[johnnyanmac]

>They don't need to negotiate with every single author individually.

Yeah they do. What do you think the employees of a publishing house do? They make deals, work with authors, and accept/reject pitches. They 100% need to make sure every work is under a negotiated contract.

[freejazz]

The publishers could license the works in bulk, without the need for Anthropic to deal with the individual authors. Both sides pointed this out.

[AnthonyMouse]

It kind of is though?

It's not the only reason fair use exists, but it's the thing that allows e.g. search engines to exist, and that seems pretty important.

> And you ever heard of a publishing house? They don't need to negotiate with every single author individually. That's preposterous.

There are thousands of publishing houses and millions of self-published authors on top of that. Many books are also out of print or have unclear rights ownership.

[freejazz]

>It kind of is though?

No, it kinda isn't. Show me anything that supports this idea beyond your own immediate conjecture right now.

>It's not the only reason fair use exists, but it's the thing that allows e.g. search engines to exist, and that seems pretty important.

No, that's the transformative element of what a search engine provides. Search engines are not legal because they can't contact each licensor, they are legal because they are considered hugely transformative features.

>There are thousands of publishing houses and millions of self-published authors on top of that. Many books are also out of print or have unclear rights ownership.

Okay, and? How many customers does Microsoft bill on a monthly basis?

[throwawayffffas]

I don't even think their argument is about the money, I think it's more like we couldn't possibly find all these works in any other practical way.

[zoklet-enjoyer]

Did they really steal if they didn't deprive anyone of their copy? I don't think copying is theft.

[hadlock]

It's copyright infringement, which is not theft, they're legally distinct in the eyes of the law. This is partly why the "you wouldn't download a car" copyright ads were so widely mocked.

[__MatrixMan__]

Fun fact, they didn't have the rights to use the font they used for those commercials: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43775926

[gghffguhvc]

Or the music. It was originally made as a one off for a film festival. Movie industry defended the lawsuit over the music.

[axus]

Agreed, the judge should avoid slang or even commonly accepted synonyms in an official ruling. The charge is not for theft.

Substitute infringement for theft.

[superfrank]

They stole from the amount they would have legally paid to buy a copy from the copyright holder.

Think about it like sneaking into a movie theater and watch a movie without paying. The theater was going to play the movie anyway and, assuming it wasn't a packed theatre, I didn't deprive anyone else of their ability to watch. It's still theft because I'm getting something that costs money for free and depriving the theater of the money that they're owed.

[fortran77]

It's fine that you think that way. But this is a discusion of the laws of the United States of America and ruling by American courts, not a discussion of your own legal theories.

[hnlmorg]

The GP isn’t talking about some edge case legal dilemma that requires a lawyer or judge to comment. It’s already widely documented that copyright infringement is legally distinct from theft.

[badlibrarian]

"Tell it to the Judge..."

[kjkjadksj]

You may not think it is but the law does.

[buildbot]

The law says it’s copyright infringement, not theft.