Comment by pyman
17 hours ago
Imagine if we stole all the documents stored on Google's private servers and all their proprietary code, research, and everything they've built, and used it to create a new company called Poogle that competes directly with them.
And just like that, after 24hs of stealing all their IP, we launch:
- Poogle Maps
- Poogle Search
- Poogle Docs
- Poogle AI
- Poogle Phone
- Poogle Browser
And here's the funny part: we claim the theft of their data is "fair use" because we changed the name of the company, and rewrote their code in another language.
Doesn't sound right, does it? So why are Microsoft (OpenAI, Anthropic) and Google financing the biggest act of IP theft in the history of the internet and telling people and businesses that stealing their private data and content to build competing products is somehow "fair use"?
Just like accountants log every single transaction, companies should log every book, article, photo, or video used to train their models, and compensate the copyright holders every time that content is used to generate something new.
The whole "our machines are black boxes, they’re so intelligent we don't even know what they're doing" excuse doesn't cut it anymore.
Stop with the nonsense. It's software, not voodoo.
Also, did OpenAI made its API publicly available to generate revenue, or share responsibility and distribute the ethical risk with developers, startups, and enterprise customers, hoping that widespread use would eventually influence legal systems over time?
Let's be honest, the US government and defence sector has massive budgets for AI, and OpenAI could have taken that route, just like SpaceX did. Especially after claiming they're in a tech war with China. But they didn't, which feels contradictory and raises some red flags.
I bet the OpenAI employees are struggling to answer this one. Double standards?
with all that stolen stuff, i could also write a book "how google works" talking about what kinds of processes google has and how they feed into different products and how googlers feel about those.
i think that actually would be fair use. i could similarly have an LLM trained on all that data help me write that book. it would still be fair use.
clamping down on fair use by restricting the LLM training is stealing from the public to give to the copyright holders. The copyright holders already have recourse when somebody publishes unlicense copies of their works via take downs and court.
No, just because something benefits others doesn't mean it's morally or legally right.
This strawman is so terrible it's hard to figure out where to start.
> we stole all the documents stored on Google's private servers and all their proprietary code, research, and everything they've built
This would mostly be covered by trade secret law—not copyright. In the interest of continuing, I will, however, pretend that none of that is considered trade secrets.
> used it to create a new company called Poogle that competes directly with them.
Yes, you can create stuff based on documentation. You can copy something one-for-one in functionality as long as the implementation is different.
> we claim the theft of their data is "fair use" because we changed the name of the company
Yes, avoiding trademark infringement is important.
> rewrote their code in another language.
This is probably fine as long as the new code isn't substantially similar (i.e., a mechanical translation of) the old code.
It's not clear what your opinion is on this topic. Do you even have one?
Poor analogy Also, AI companies do hobble their models so they can't e.g. draw Mickey Mouse
So are you saying the theft is selective and intentional and they don't target Disney because they have a global army of top lawyers? You've just reinforced my point.
The fact that they hardcoded rules in their logic to prevent companies with top lawyers from taking them to court is a testament to how well they know what they're doing is illegal
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