[Cthulhu_]

I'd even go as far as argue that all streaming has its origins in piracy - Spotify seeded its catalog with pirated music (allegedly), Crunchyroll started off as an anime piracy site, etc.

[ninjin]

Not allegedly, I was there at the time as a user and I and others can confirm that there was plenty of scene releases on Spotify in ~2008:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43202117

[scadge]

Sometimes it's cheaper to break the law and pay a fine, than to do everything by law.

[account42]

Seems quite often it turns out you don't even need to pay a fine if you manage to get big enough quickly enough.

[whstl]

Sometimes it’s impossible. Music labels wouldn’t even get in a room with you to discuss web back in the day.

[joshstrange]

See also: LLMs or Uber (two of many such examples).

It's incredibly disheartening to know that one of the easiest ways to success is breaking the law and hoping it doesn't catch up to you before you have enough money to be above the law. That crime does pay. That lawsuits ruined people's lives for downloading MP3s and some of the biggest companies on the planet stole everything and walk away with a slap on the wrist.

This isn't an anti-LLM comment, it's just depressing how we live in a system with 2 very different sets of rules based on how much money you have.