Comment by nonfamous
9 months ago
I would expect it to be argued by defendants that since no man (or indeed woman) at Meta actually read the books that were torrented, the First Amendment does not apply here. The question is: does the First Amendment apply to an algorithm?
> The question is: does the First Amendment apply to an algorithm?
No. The first amendment explicitly applies to Congress; by extension it applies to the policy-making authority of the federal government generally, and via the 14th amendment, it applies to the states.
It prohibits the abridgment of freedom of speech by government institutions, without distinction as to the identity of the speaker or the content of the speech.
So I can setup a cable streaming service with ripped vids as long a no one in my company watches it?
You would be distributing the videos. Meta is not distributing the things they torrented. No, LLM weights don't count.
If nobody watches it, then technically no copies of the video have been distributed.