[throwaway27448]

I see you didn't grow up cracking apps and games, this is quite easy with a hex editor and bintools. Well, until codesigning came along, but that doesn't seem relevant to this analogy.

[shwaj]

I didn’t grow up with that hobby. The point stands anyway.

Cracking a binary circumvents authorization to provide full access to functionality the program already has. That’s very different from modifying the program to add new features.

[throwaway27448]

Not really. It's a social structure that separates these two things, and a social structure nobody really needs to recognize.

[kennywinker]

Cracking games is and was illegal. Fine tuning an open weight model isn’t. Well, not yet anyway

[throwaway27448]

> Cracking games is and was illegal.

Only distribution.

[kennywinker]

Don’t think that’s correct, i think creating the cracked version of a piece of software is infringement of copyright even without distribution.

But even if distribution is required to trigger the law - you are free to distribute fine-tunes of most open weight models.

[TaLiTr]

> creating the cracked version of a piece of software is infringement

Depending where you are it might be "DRM circumvention" all the way up to some bollocks hacking charge.

It's pretty murky in places because lots of copyright laws protect DRM but also have carve-outs for personal backups.

[kennywinker]

I think cracking might fall under “derivative work”, but idk

[selfhoster11]

Interoperability clause in the EU might make it legal? Not sure.

[amelius]

The big AI companies have shown us that caring about copyright is apparently for losers.