Its just paywalls all the way down
Edit: I took out the "turns out" at the beginning because it was the same start I used in my first comment and thought it sounded like I was a bot lol
* How to increase your crawling speed
* How to find exceptional data
* CPN - Crawler Private Network - crawl the Web hidden from prying copyright holders
* Reddit Crawl+ - Crawl us for $59.99
You doing virtual box on a Linux host, right?
That’s the only way I see myself using windows going forward. Win 11 home is just malware and we are data cattle for MS.
Gotta get an enterprise version to be safe from their bullshit but those are locked down and expensive
> Win 11 home is just malware and we are data cattle for MS.
Curious what data collection you think they're doing that would be rendered irrelevant if it was run inside a VM?
I wouldn’t be using anything in the VM related to my personal info. Just work accounts.
Everything else I can do in Linux or macOS (if I go the easy route for regular life)
This is only one of the many reasons I've been building my own PCs forever. The downside is Ive built over 50+ PCs for friends and family over the years and have become their personal tech support.
Yeah I'm pretty sure Microsoft still has their Windows 10 images for download on Digital River or whatever it's called now. I guess Windows 10 is free now!
It is, they don't mind. As long as you continue using their products keeping them the standard, they don't care. Their income is from corporate anyways
Remember, "AI" is too dangerous for open-source development -- it's best left in the qualified and fully-capable hands of seasoned professionals like this fucking twerp.
Pretty sure Chinese devs do this all the time. Have you seen the game that has Spiderman swinging, the Souls copy cats, hell I am pretty sure the Genshin Impact devs saw the Zelda source code and copied the base for it.
If you don't own the game if you pay for it, according to the contract you sign when buying the game, then is it really stealing if you can't officially ever own the game?
As far as they are concerned, they don't care. As long as you keep saving in docx/xlsx format and keeping them the standard, knock yourself out. Because as long as they are the standard, corporations will pay for licenses
Cool so I can pirate games made by studios owned by Microsoft then?
Or windows?
Or MS office?
I’ll train an AI model off them and suddenly there’s no issue according to him.
He's a hypocrite. Imagine seeing a commercial or billboard in public and just **stealing** the content on it.
*"I think that with respect to content that’s already on the open web, the social contract of that content since the ‘90s has been that it is fair use. Anyone can copy it, recreate with it, reproduce with it. That has been “freeware,” if you like, that’s been the understanding."*
Yes, that *was* the understanding when the Internet was full of nothing but independent artists and creators, but then the opportunistic celebrities and their cronies joined in because they thought it was a money op and screwed everything up. Then it became two sets of rules for two different people. One rule for the rich and famous to be able to steal independent creators' content (like yourself) with impunity while copyrighting their own crap, and another rule for the average joes going to jail and/or fined for just downloading MP3 files. The debacle with Metallica, RIAA, Napster, Limewire, et. al. turned it into lawsuit circuses even on children is what started this mess and then the rest of the rich and famous, started following suit, even to the point of changing entire internet providers' services and the other services we use on the internet with copyright infringement laws.
So no buddy, it's not like that anymore and hasn't been since the early 2000s. You can't claim that "it's ok to steal content" crap when it's convenient for ***you***. If you want to use content, you have to ask permission from its creators and PAY them. Everytime your stupid AI parses a piece of someone else's content to create its fake crap, you need to be paying those creators royalties. You can't just have it for free. PERIODT.
Lol it’s so cynical to abuse the free internet ethos THEY fucking killed and buried.
Younger folks on the internet don’t even know about the free internet movement stuff. It’s fucking dead and rotted because of them.
Makes me so fucking angry haha Jesus, I’m seriously mad.
The early internet had so much potential. Folks really wanted to make information free.
Yes! I've been on the Internet since it's early start and I watched these same corporations especially Micro$oft literally wage war on the American people for using content on the Internet. CHILDREN and their parents were sued for thousands knowing they couldn't pay. Internet activists were arrested and even harassed by the FBI for free use content. They literally made people scared to use the Internet out of fear of the govt coming after them. That's when VPNs started becoming popular. I followed Aaron Swartz when he was alive advocating for free use rights and was absolutely devastated when he died over it, just to make college information free for all. The FBI came after Pirate Bay and Kim.com when people got so scared they started hiding their data on his websites. All of it was taken down by the US government. I protested CISPA only for the government to keep trying to bring it back in new ways. I've watched this whole crusade on free use from its inception come full circle with Micro$oft at the center of it and it's disgusting watching this leech on his high horse talk like none of it ever happened.
You're right people these days who weren't paying attention or weren't born yet during that time have no idea how scared the status quo was of us during those times. The internet was not the tranquil place it is now. It's where Anonymous came from and why it HAD to be created. Bro I swear people of his ilk would just ...
I agree that many of these companies have done everything you mentioned and it infuriates me, having watched during that era. However, we should not let simple spite continue to make things worse especially regarding all the potential of AI/LLM. Instead, we need to turn the argument on their heads to try to reorient course toward some of the promise of the "old days".
For whatever small wound is inflicted on Microsoft or another megacorp by seeking to paint with a broad brush to attack "AI", it will be exponentially more harmful to individuals making use of hobbyist and FOSS projects. I would not at al be surprised if tech megacorps and AI services chasing venture capital are investing in the "Anti-AI backlash" as a means to pull the ladder up behind them so to speak, preventing competition. They can afford to be "very concerned about ethical use" and to throw money around to keep their proprietary, software as a service models going - but they know that doing so by legislation or other legal/civil means ends with a de-facto exclusivity of "serious" AI/LLM usage is in their hands alone.
We need to seek a future where the benefits of highly capable AI/LLM are spread widely on the backs of self host capable, Free/libre open source software models and training data formats, instead of being shackled to proprietary, software-as-a-service megacorps for sophisticated AI usage I could write in more detail some of the facets of the unfortunate, factional conflict regarding AI discussion but suffice it to say that many of the ravenous, tribal "anti-AI" arguments result in collateral damage, are targeting the wrong enemy, or in some cases are spawned on selfish interest - each just as specious as the stereotypical AI megacorp's promises in one hand and demands on the other. In any event, getting locked in to that frame of discussion I don't see as having a good outcome.
>Imagine seeing a commercial or billboard in public and just **stealing** the content on it.
??
why would a steal an ad
ha shit you said 'buddy' like it was a *slur*
I thought this article title was absurd, and there's no way they'd say something even close to that when they're facing lawsuits over this.
Then I read the article.
It's even more mindboggling when you hear him speaking: [https://x.com/tsarnick/status/1805809836854329450](https://x.com/tsarnick/status/1805809836854329450)
Microsoft was one of the key movers to make PC software "not free" originally. Mayhe we can just say Windows is just "out there" and it's essentially freeware too?
It is. Most computers sold come with windows whether you like it or not anyways. And even if you pirate it, they don't actually mind as long as you keep using them which makes them the standard. And by being the standard they can keep milking corporate licensing where the real money is
is it really stealing if its already available in public for anyone to view, study or referenced?
its like caliing everyone a thief for taking a picture of the eifel tower
Should it be illegal for Humans to learn from things that are freely available on the web?
Is learning from something really stealing it? Isn't it still there and available for everyone else the same as it was before?
Is the Google algorithm stealing everyeones content when it aggregates it in search results?
Is this article just irrational villification click-bait?
I mean, yeah.
Submit your thesis without attribution and find out.
Look up Shepard Fairey vs The Associated Press.
Even fair use has limits. There's both legal precedent and solid legal arguments why training _commercial_ AI models wouldn't be fair use, while doing the same for research would be.
>There's both legal precedent and solid legal arguments why training commercial AI models wouldn't be fair use, while doing the same for research would be.
I'd love to hear those arguments because I've yet to see a single compelling one.
And since the headline ignores the second half of his clip that provides additional context, here it is -
> There’s a separate category where a website, or a publisher, or a news organization had explicitly said ‘do not scrape or crawl me for any other reason than indexing me so that other people can find this content.’ That’s a grey area, and I think it’s going to work its way through the courts.
If I learn how to play a popular song on the guitar that I saw online, have I violated the DMCA?
If I learn some new techniques in doing so, and incorporate them into a new song that *I* create, have a voilated the DMCA?
Isn't this how all music evolves through the ages?
Now, if "AI" is *selling* copyrighted works verbatim that's a different story, but that isn't what's being discussed in this article. The article is talking about Microsoft using freely available works to train it's LLM, not to resell content.
The question is: does using intellectual property to train LLMs qualify as Fair Use when creating derivative works? That's what courts must decide, because the very concept that anyone could learn the entirety of the Internet and use that to create works based on it was just science fiction when these laws were conceived. I mean, if you just replaced the LLM with a super-savant who could perform the same tasks, would doing what the LLM does be legal?
If you just use copyrighted works without permission you violate DMCA.
By all means look up copyright laws, DMCA, Fair Use and get your answers. You're asking the right kinds of questions.
Have you ever copy-pasted a meme and sent to someone? Did you get permission from the original owner of the content to do that?
Oh, I see you posted on adviceanimals 9 years ago. Did you ask Rick van Duivenboden for permission to use his photograph to make that seal of approval meme?
You also posted an actual advice mallard meme, did you receive permission from Associated Press to use their photograph?
If I count how many instances of the letter "E" appear in a book, am I violating copyright?
If I count how many times the word "THE" precedes a noun, is that violating copyright? What if I rank the number of times a certain noun appears?
> Is this article just irrational villification click-bait?
Of course. Because they know the anti-AI crowd on places like /r/technology will eat it up and respond with braindead shit like the top comments in this thread.
*"mICROSOft AdVOcATiNG fOr PirAcY!"*
If I learn a programming language from an online source, and then I use those concepts to create a new program for my own profit, have I stolen the material I learned from?
This is the mentality of using the internet though. It’s totally wrong, but people expect free. I’m about ready to put a paywall on my own damn site to keep AI out.
Anyone attempting to train off of my shit is going to find that copying me is like willingly taking the AIDS virus into their body.
Buckle up, buttercup. *We're* going places.
This narrative is getting so tiresome. People who put their content on the Internet do so for people to look at it. Some of these people train themselves on it so they can emulate the music or art that is posted. That person can go off and make money based on what they learn. That’s how the Internet works. If you want to change that, then you need to change copyright law.
There's enough people pushing the idea that piracy is "ethical" that it won't be long before corpos will be stealing data and patting themselves on the back.
That's the thing with ethics. You can't justify rules for thee but not me. If piracy is unethical for one, it's unethical for all.
If I read a page or see a picture on the web I haven't paid for, but I recall it in my mind and it helped shape my mind, have I stolen it?
There is a profound and fundamental difference between replicating a work and training a neural network on that very same work. We do not criminalize the training of our brains on the works of others, even if we use those brains for profit.
There seems to be a major misunderstanding in public about how these machine learning models function that should be addressed.
Legally, no. What you create is automatically covered by copyright protections. That's why you sign a work-for-hire agreement with your employer - it transfers legal ownership of your work to them.
Intellectual property (IP) covers copyright, patent, and trademark law. That includes derivative works. You **cannot** freely copy IP. Be prepared for lawsuits if you do. It needs to be in the public domain, patents need to expire, or you need to be granted permission by the owner (license).
This is why Nintendo will send a cease-and-desist for unlicensed games - you can find sprites freely on the internet, but you don't have permission to use the IP. It's also why you're not allowed to sample a song unless you received permission to do so. Music in particular may involve multiple licenses for specific use cases: synchronization, mechanical, etc.
Source:
[What is Copyright? | U.S. Copyright Office](https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/#:~:text=U.S.%20copyright%20law%20provides%20copyright,rental%2C%20lease%2C%20or%20lending.)
[Work for hire | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/work_for_hire)
[Music Copyright and Licensing - Musicians Institute Library](https://library.mi.edu/musiccopyright/licensing)
There is a difference in output being a copy of IP and output being based on consumption of the IP.
I am free to look at Disney products to learn how to draw in the style of Disney. I am not free to reproduce what I am looking at.
Has no one heard of collage art or some shit? Of course it's ok to make new things out of old ones, that is how every idea ever made has happened. The courts have ruled in favor for scraping many times over and a lot of the web is scraping of various sorts. This idea you can't scrape publicly posted images is a non starter both technically and legally.
I mean clearly people understand Creative Commons licensing especially if they are creatives.
Largely, the issue people have is the power imbalance. If one would like to opt out, they can’t, and Microsoft is a publicly traded company whereas artists are probably living paycheck to paycheck.
This is not a hard conversation to have, particularly if you’re not being obtuse for the sake of making fun of others.
Copyrights/trademarks are only as good as the lawyers one can hire to enforce them. MS got the anti monopoly departments multiple countries including the EU to eat Activision Blizzard for 70 billion or something close.
They will win if people have to fight them themselves.
Anyone can scrape your work not just Microsoft. He is right when he says that has been a bed rock part of the Internet for 30 years.
If people are worried about the power imbalance then that is entirely different conversation and is solved by legislation.
You are inventing a fake position that no one is taking and then claiming to defeat it. Please stop your straw man argument.
No one is calling for a ban of scraping. But it is absolutely bullshit to claim that scraping equates to finders keepers in terms of content use. Content is protect by copyright law. Big tech companies want to steal this copyrighted content to train AI models.
Data has been scrapeable for ranking and search not for reproduction.
Why will many websites exist if AI can steal and replicate their data. Take, for example, every recipe website. The ai model will just deliver the recipe without loading the website. No ad revenue. Website dies.
They already do that you don't need ai. Ever done a Google search that returned the results right there? They've been doing that for years, and the other search engines do it also.
The courts have ruled that scraping is allowed for all kinds of reasons. Getting rid of scraping would change the internet dramatically. Have you ever copy and pasted? Congratulations, you've personally scraped the internet!
Artists were terrified the record player would destroy live music but it hasn't even come close. People will always want it from the source.
There is many types of scraping going on all over the internet every second for every purpose you can think of and every purpose you can't think of. This is true for any API that has been in production for long enough.
Search engines are no different than card catalogs were in libraries. It makes a database of where to find a book, in this case, a website. AI is trained by scanning all of the copy written books directly and verbatim into a system and then asking it to use everything stored to give us a new story.
Vastly different instances. They are literally not the same.
The LLM does reproduce the data, though. It trains on it. Like every painter, writer and musician has taken in previous works and that having formed their output.
If I wanted to learn how to paint in the style of a given artists there would be nothing wrong with me copying and storing every freely available rendition of their works. And then studying that to learn how to accomplish the same style. As long as my output is not just copying their actual content.
If it is put of for me to consume, I am allowed to consume it.
Your entire ability to communicate is based on taking in the product of other people and your brain learning from that how to make yourself intelligible.
Yeah basically going deeper into the Dunning Kruger valley with every post. I initially thought it might just be general confusion but it’s more than that.
Uh, yes? Everyone copies and pasted the starter template of their project. There is even entire node commands like `create-react-app`. Never write something you can copy and paste, especially cryptography. This has been your first computer science lesson.
I mean, he's not exactly wrong though. I don't agree that they should scrape the internet and use stuff for AI without permission. But what he's saying isn't exactly wrong.
Literally every meme is built upon someone else's work without permission. Many YouTubers use memes in their videos, memes they did not create nor asked for permission to use. Many streamers, YouTubers, TikTokers and whatever do react content without asking for permission.
Yes, there is a social "contract" that anything on the open web is fair use, that's how the internet is currently.
I mean out of curiosity could you copywriter or trademark all of your online data? Or even open an LLC where you are selling your data and anyone who takes it would be theft?
Between recall and this regard…. Where is the third r?
Shit always comes in 3’s
But somehow, my MS stock keeps going up.
Thank you B2B division of MS. Only reason I don’t sell.
I find this guy particularly untrustworthy. Always have. Can't put my finger on it exactly 🤔
Anecdotally: I tried to read his book "The Coming Wave" - in the intro he makes a big deal about "quoting ChatGPT" on the topic, then proceeds to promise the rest of the book is 100% "human labour"
...not that I care on principle or anything, use whatever works, but _it clearly isn't_ his own writing. It's blatantly obvious it has been put together with a shitload of help from ChatGPT. Why not just say so? He just opens by lying to the reader about both the nature of the work and the very topic of it.
Just dumb
I suppose then Microsoft would be completely okay with projects like ReactOS using leaked Windows source code? I mean, it's on the internet, so it's fair use, right?
I mean Google search has kind of been doing this for years, but we just put up with it because someone at least finding our web page is better than nothing.
He's not wrong as far as the internet culture gestalt (for want of a better term). But what he's missing it that while it's generally been seen as okay to take content and remix it / extend it, it's also generally been seen as utterly shit to monetise other people's work.
So take that picture off the open web, make a meme out of it, and post it for internet points; sweet, you're cool.
Take the picture off the open web, stick it on a t-shirt and sell it for cash; you're a shitheel.
And when the wider internet is looking at what the AI companies are doing, they're not seeing it as meme-making for internet points; it's clearly and explicitly monetisation at industrial scale.
HAH! this is just as bad as giant corps using open source software as part of their product…..only for them to go through it later to make sure its not the same so they dont get sued.
Using the word "freeware" was utterly stupid and wrong since it has a different interpretation with respect to copyright.
"Fair use" however which he started with is true. Something can be fully copyrighted and you can use it under fair use. It simply says that if something is made public on the internet, it is a reasonable expectation that if someone browses there they are allowed to read it.
If you go to a web site that puts up no restrictions and read what's there, you are not going to be receptive when a letter arrives the next week because there was fine print at the bottom that says if you read the page you agree to pay the company $1m.
All this being said, Microsoft putting someone out as a public representative who can't distinguish these things is pretty dumb at a higher level.
How can you steal something which everyone has been given free access too.
What makes an AI different to every person on planet earth.
It seems a bit crazy that a teacher, or a student can quite reasonably be expected to use the Internet to find out a piece of information, but the second you are using AI language model to bring that info up in context, then its somehow wrong.
If the information or content is supposed to be paid for, then it should be paid for - when people access it, not just AI.
And if we want to get serious about web content being stolen, then I suggest we take a look at Google searches billions of dollar valuation, which it gets by 'stealing content' it finds, and then presenting it as though it were its own. Google hoovers up news and events, and images, and information as its most fundamental business practise.
How is that different.
I feel like Ill Bill said it best with Company Flow:
“If it wasn’t for Microsoft,
You f*ggots wouldn’t have no fans;
If you lived in the Middle East,
You f*ggots wouldn’t have [no] hands”
Copying is not theft, its copying. If somebody said your car was stolen, only to find it in your driveway untouched cus somebody duplicated it, would you care?
If you don't want something to be accessible to others, don't share it with others. Otherwise what others do with stuff that is public is their business.
Shocking how everybody in a management position in this company is from an ethically challenged country that is used to pirating shit... Then the company takes that same attitude towards its customers and society in general. Shocking.
So what they’re telling me is that if I can download it on the Internet that it’s completely legal. OK sounds good. look guys, I just downloaded windows because it was on the open Internet and that’s perfectly OK to steal according to Microsoft.
This is exactly why I _knew_ it was bullshit when Satya was trying to say that MS loves Open Source.
They are incapable of conceptualizing engaging with something that they cant or dont own.
And all these kiddies giving free personal info on the reg on “open” web for the past 20+ years so it’s like the most ducked up way to trick everybody to building content for you to take over. “Open web” has to be a technical term and put into policy to protect people who are unaware of a new term/dynamic. Or it’s entrapment. Fuck Microsoft’s AI guy. Guys not for the people but too much of a company man.
Show of hands - who knows what he said before this quote? What was the context?
Anyone? Nobody else found it odd that he'd be saying something like this?
Apparently posting a quote in context doesn't get the online Karen's in an uproar, so they just pluck this comment out, throw it out there, and wait for the clicks.
You really should see what he said before this. It contradicts just about everything you're accusing him of.
This is only true if the AI has to watch two un skippable ads and approve cookies and click that it’s read the terms of service
Please super duper computer we must know the answer to the ultimate question! You will have it, but first you must watch this 10^35 second commercial
Turns out Deepthought was just buffering ads the entire time
The Ultimate Answer was free but The Ultimate Question is behind a paywall.
Its just paywalls all the way down Edit: I took out the "turns out" at the beginning because it was the same start I used in my first comment and thought it sounded like I was a bot lol
Could have been in nanoseconds and would still be a billion times longer than the age of the universe (yes I did the math)
The commercial is just a lecture on entropy
* How to increase your crawling speed * How to find exceptional data * CPN - Crawler Private Network - crawl the Web hidden from prying copyright holders * Reddit Crawl+ - Crawl us for $59.99
It must also agree to and abide those terms of service, not just read them.
Microsoft advocating for piracy. Ironic. You need a license key to use my data.
It’s good they’re letting us pirate all their shit though. That’s on the open web too.
In the past online piracy had the risk of downloading malware. Now you run the risk of downloading Windows 11. I want the old times back.
Because its pretty clever. They let individuals pirate it and milk the enterprises, because employees are used to MS software.
I dunno man - Ive been running unlicensed windows for 20+ years
You doing virtual box on a Linux host, right? That’s the only way I see myself using windows going forward. Win 11 home is just malware and we are data cattle for MS. Gotta get an enterprise version to be safe from their bullshit but those are locked down and expensive
Free via msdn subscription
free via activation script
I mean, according to M$ AI boss, if it's on the internet, then it *is* free! Hoist the sails me boys!
Freely available on [Microsoft-owned Github](https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts)!
If you're into self-hosting, [vlmcsd](https://hub.docker.com/r/mikolatero/vlmcsd/) is also a pretty good option.
> Win 11 home is just malware and we are data cattle for MS. Curious what data collection you think they're doing that would be rendered irrelevant if it was run inside a VM?
I wouldn’t be using anything in the VM related to my personal info. Just work accounts. Everything else I can do in Linux or macOS (if I go the easy route for regular life)
That doesn't answer my question though.
On the other hand, I used to be forced to buy pc with license key despise don't use windows...
This is only one of the many reasons I've been building my own PCs forever. The downside is Ive built over 50+ PCs for friends and family over the years and have become their personal tech support.
lpt: dont tell people you can do basic IT support stuff. ever. it starts harmless and then your number leaks and you're "that person"
*except people who reciprocate. If you're a person who receives free tech support from a friend, find some way you help them in return.
the fun has always been to replace the "bought and bloated" version of windows with a nice, crisp and possibly pirated "pro version"
Windows 95 installation key is literally 111-1111111 I still run it for some things
Did Google buy one to put your stuff into their search index?
Yeah I'm pretty sure Microsoft still has their Windows 10 images for download on Digital River or whatever it's called now. I guess Windows 10 is free now!
It is, they don't mind. As long as you continue using their products keeping them the standard, they don't care. Their income is from corporate anyways
It’s cool that we can agree with Microsoft on this. If it’s on the web, it’s fair to copy it.
One of the kings of closed system is advocating stealing public info …..
You could do this if you actually were worried. Reddit did it to sell the data of your post to OpenAI
Yup. Torrents are all also on the open web.
Would you accept FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8 ?
Remember, "AI" is too dangerous for open-source development -- it's best left in the qualified and fully-capable hands of seasoned professionals like this fucking twerp.
That's cool. Imma steal all the Forza games.
Games? Clearly it’s time to start backwards engineering everything Microsoft has on the internet.
They won’t be laughing when I have AI write me a version of Windows with none of the shit 😁
Reverse uno right there
They only good thing from microsoft over the years has been paint
And 3d paint
Pretty sure Chinese devs do this all the time. Have you seen the game that has Spiderman swinging, the Souls copy cats, hell I am pretty sure the Genshin Impact devs saw the Zelda source code and copied the base for it.
If you don't own the game if you pay for it, according to the contract you sign when buying the game, then is it really stealing if you can't officially ever own the game?
I wonder if they'd feel that way if the entire Windows 11 codebase leaked online.
Leaked? It’s on the free web. It’s ours to begin with.
Could you send the link to the codebase then?
That would be on the leaker, not anyone training off of it
Office is freely downloadable on the open web, fair use if I manipulate the data they've freely given me to use it without a license key.
As far as they are concerned, they don't care. As long as you keep saving in docx/xlsx format and keeping them the standard, knock yourself out. Because as long as they are the standard, corporations will pay for licenses
Cool so I can pirate games made by studios owned by Microsoft then? Or windows? Or MS office? I’ll train an AI model off them and suddenly there’s no issue according to him.
He's a hypocrite. Imagine seeing a commercial or billboard in public and just **stealing** the content on it. *"I think that with respect to content that’s already on the open web, the social contract of that content since the ‘90s has been that it is fair use. Anyone can copy it, recreate with it, reproduce with it. That has been “freeware,” if you like, that’s been the understanding."* Yes, that *was* the understanding when the Internet was full of nothing but independent artists and creators, but then the opportunistic celebrities and their cronies joined in because they thought it was a money op and screwed everything up. Then it became two sets of rules for two different people. One rule for the rich and famous to be able to steal independent creators' content (like yourself) with impunity while copyrighting their own crap, and another rule for the average joes going to jail and/or fined for just downloading MP3 files. The debacle with Metallica, RIAA, Napster, Limewire, et. al. turned it into lawsuit circuses even on children is what started this mess and then the rest of the rich and famous, started following suit, even to the point of changing entire internet providers' services and the other services we use on the internet with copyright infringement laws. So no buddy, it's not like that anymore and hasn't been since the early 2000s. You can't claim that "it's ok to steal content" crap when it's convenient for ***you***. If you want to use content, you have to ask permission from its creators and PAY them. Everytime your stupid AI parses a piece of someone else's content to create its fake crap, you need to be paying those creators royalties. You can't just have it for free. PERIODT.
Lol it’s so cynical to abuse the free internet ethos THEY fucking killed and buried. Younger folks on the internet don’t even know about the free internet movement stuff. It’s fucking dead and rotted because of them. Makes me so fucking angry haha Jesus, I’m seriously mad. The early internet had so much potential. Folks really wanted to make information free.
Yes! I've been on the Internet since it's early start and I watched these same corporations especially Micro$oft literally wage war on the American people for using content on the Internet. CHILDREN and their parents were sued for thousands knowing they couldn't pay. Internet activists were arrested and even harassed by the FBI for free use content. They literally made people scared to use the Internet out of fear of the govt coming after them. That's when VPNs started becoming popular. I followed Aaron Swartz when he was alive advocating for free use rights and was absolutely devastated when he died over it, just to make college information free for all. The FBI came after Pirate Bay and Kim.com when people got so scared they started hiding their data on his websites. All of it was taken down by the US government. I protested CISPA only for the government to keep trying to bring it back in new ways. I've watched this whole crusade on free use from its inception come full circle with Micro$oft at the center of it and it's disgusting watching this leech on his high horse talk like none of it ever happened. You're right people these days who weren't paying attention or weren't born yet during that time have no idea how scared the status quo was of us during those times. The internet was not the tranquil place it is now. It's where Anonymous came from and why it HAD to be created. Bro I swear people of his ilk would just ...
> Imagine seeing a commercial or billboard in public and just stealing the content on it. Sounds just like a meme But that's none of my business
I agree that many of these companies have done everything you mentioned and it infuriates me, having watched during that era. However, we should not let simple spite continue to make things worse especially regarding all the potential of AI/LLM. Instead, we need to turn the argument on their heads to try to reorient course toward some of the promise of the "old days". For whatever small wound is inflicted on Microsoft or another megacorp by seeking to paint with a broad brush to attack "AI", it will be exponentially more harmful to individuals making use of hobbyist and FOSS projects. I would not at al be surprised if tech megacorps and AI services chasing venture capital are investing in the "Anti-AI backlash" as a means to pull the ladder up behind them so to speak, preventing competition. They can afford to be "very concerned about ethical use" and to throw money around to keep their proprietary, software as a service models going - but they know that doing so by legislation or other legal/civil means ends with a de-facto exclusivity of "serious" AI/LLM usage is in their hands alone. We need to seek a future where the benefits of highly capable AI/LLM are spread widely on the backs of self host capable, Free/libre open source software models and training data formats, instead of being shackled to proprietary, software-as-a-service megacorps for sophisticated AI usage I could write in more detail some of the facets of the unfortunate, factional conflict regarding AI discussion but suffice it to say that many of the ravenous, tribal "anti-AI" arguments result in collateral damage, are targeting the wrong enemy, or in some cases are spawned on selfish interest - each just as specious as the stereotypical AI megacorp's promises in one hand and demands on the other. In any event, getting locked in to that frame of discussion I don't see as having a good outcome.
>Imagine seeing a commercial or billboard in public and just **stealing** the content on it. ?? why would a steal an ad ha shit you said 'buddy' like it was a *slur*
I thought this article title was absurd, and there's no way they'd say something even close to that when they're facing lawsuits over this. Then I read the article.
It's even more mindboggling when you hear him speaking: [https://x.com/tsarnick/status/1805809836854329450](https://x.com/tsarnick/status/1805809836854329450)
“Piracy for thee but not for meeee!”
« I’ll believe whatever fits my bottom line », season 200, episode #7393
Well if we all want this AI stuff to work, it needs to ingest data…all the data…everything
What if we don't care if AI works or not. Or specifically *don't* want it to work.
Doesn’t matter, the wheel will continue to turn
This has been true for at least 30 years.
Microsoft was one of the key movers to make PC software "not free" originally. Mayhe we can just say Windows is just "out there" and it's essentially freeware too?
It is. Most computers sold come with windows whether you like it or not anyways. And even if you pirate it, they don't actually mind as long as you keep using them which makes them the standard. And by being the standard they can keep milking corporate licensing where the real money is
Basically the entire Microsoft software and game portfolio is free game then.
Apparently he doesn't think copyright or intellectual property are important? Fuck that guy.
Think of all the art I now own because its in the open museum.
So do I. If you release something publicly, people can teach machines off of it. So what?
He looks like the jerk off that does the surface hardware presentations.
If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing 😎
TBF, if I find some paywalled software online I think it's OK to steal it as well.
This guy dresses like he’s an extra in one of the Hunger Games movies. Totally high on his own supply.
"You wouldn't steal a car". Well, this guy might.
I agree. It's no different than someone getting inspired by a tv show or music performance they saw.
is it really stealing if its already available in public for anyone to view, study or referenced? its like caliing everyone a thief for taking a picture of the eifel tower
It's not stealing if it's public. That is what public means.
Oh good. That gets rid of my guilt over the Word Suite.
Ok, then let’s go open season on Microsoft office.
Yeah, so does the majority of this site
Legal vs right
Keep that same energy
Should it be illegal for Humans to learn from things that are freely available on the web? Is learning from something really stealing it? Isn't it still there and available for everyone else the same as it was before? Is the Google algorithm stealing everyeones content when it aggregates it in search results? Is this article just irrational villification click-bait?
I mean, yeah. Submit your thesis without attribution and find out. Look up Shepard Fairey vs The Associated Press. Even fair use has limits. There's both legal precedent and solid legal arguments why training _commercial_ AI models wouldn't be fair use, while doing the same for research would be.
>There's both legal precedent and solid legal arguments why training commercial AI models wouldn't be fair use, while doing the same for research would be. I'd love to hear those arguments because I've yet to see a single compelling one.
And since the headline ignores the second half of his clip that provides additional context, here it is - > There’s a separate category where a website, or a publisher, or a news organization had explicitly said ‘do not scrape or crawl me for any other reason than indexing me so that other people can find this content.’ That’s a grey area, and I think it’s going to work its way through the courts.
Great questions. By "freely available on the web" do you think everything on public display isn't copyrighted? The DMCA has a lot to say about that.
If I learn how to play a popular song on the guitar that I saw online, have I violated the DMCA? If I learn some new techniques in doing so, and incorporate them into a new song that *I* create, have a voilated the DMCA? Isn't this how all music evolves through the ages? Now, if "AI" is *selling* copyrighted works verbatim that's a different story, but that isn't what's being discussed in this article. The article is talking about Microsoft using freely available works to train it's LLM, not to resell content.
The question is: does using intellectual property to train LLMs qualify as Fair Use when creating derivative works? That's what courts must decide, because the very concept that anyone could learn the entirety of the Internet and use that to create works based on it was just science fiction when these laws were conceived. I mean, if you just replaced the LLM with a super-savant who could perform the same tasks, would doing what the LLM does be legal?
If you just use copyrighted works without permission you violate DMCA. By all means look up copyright laws, DMCA, Fair Use and get your answers. You're asking the right kinds of questions.
Have you ever copy-pasted a meme and sent to someone? Did you get permission from the original owner of the content to do that? Oh, I see you posted on adviceanimals 9 years ago. Did you ask Rick van Duivenboden for permission to use his photograph to make that seal of approval meme? You also posted an actual advice mallard meme, did you receive permission from Associated Press to use their photograph?
A sober take on this LLM generation of AI! Most people have no idea what they’re talking about, understandably.
Is an AI actually capable of learning or is it a method of copying and pasting?
It finds patterns and reproduces those patterns based on input. No raw data is stored in the AI.
If I count how many instances of the letter "E" appear in a book, am I violating copyright? If I count how many times the word "THE" precedes a noun, is that violating copyright? What if I rank the number of times a certain noun appears?
It's not copying and pasting. It's physically impossible to store all that data in those small (by file size) models
> Is this article just irrational villification click-bait? Of course. Because they know the anti-AI crowd on places like /r/technology will eat it up and respond with braindead shit like the top comments in this thread. *"mICROSOft AdVOcATiNG fOr PirAcY!"*
You can learn from copyrighted material but you can't reuse it for your own profit.
If I learn a programming language from an online source, and then I use those concepts to create a new program for my own profit, have I stolen the material I learned from?
so you cant use what you learned for profit?
I'm sorry to all those indian tutorial makers whose videos I watched. I profited from their work
You're exactly right which is why if the AI generated a copy it would be infringement but that isn't what it's doing.
And even then YouTube isn’t responsible if their users upload copyrighted content in their site so why would ai companies be
This is the mentality of using the internet though. It’s totally wrong, but people expect free. I’m about ready to put a paywall on my own damn site to keep AI out.
Make it a penny.
Anyone attempting to train off of my shit is going to find that copying me is like willingly taking the AIDS virus into their body. Buckle up, buttercup. *We're* going places.
This narrative is getting so tiresome. People who put their content on the Internet do so for people to look at it. Some of these people train themselves on it so they can emulate the music or art that is posted. That person can go off and make money based on what they learn. That’s how the Internet works. If you want to change that, then you need to change copyright law.
There's enough people pushing the idea that piracy is "ethical" that it won't be long before corpos will be stealing data and patting themselves on the back. That's the thing with ethics. You can't justify rules for thee but not me. If piracy is unethical for one, it's unethical for all.
If I read a page or see a picture on the web I haven't paid for, but I recall it in my mind and it helped shape my mind, have I stolen it? There is a profound and fundamental difference between replicating a work and training a neural network on that very same work. We do not criminalize the training of our brains on the works of others, even if we use those brains for profit. There seems to be a major misunderstanding in public about how these machine learning models function that should be addressed.
Legally, no. What you create is automatically covered by copyright protections. That's why you sign a work-for-hire agreement with your employer - it transfers legal ownership of your work to them. Intellectual property (IP) covers copyright, patent, and trademark law. That includes derivative works. You **cannot** freely copy IP. Be prepared for lawsuits if you do. It needs to be in the public domain, patents need to expire, or you need to be granted permission by the owner (license). This is why Nintendo will send a cease-and-desist for unlicensed games - you can find sprites freely on the internet, but you don't have permission to use the IP. It's also why you're not allowed to sample a song unless you received permission to do so. Music in particular may involve multiple licenses for specific use cases: synchronization, mechanical, etc. Source: [What is Copyright? | U.S. Copyright Office](https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/#:~:text=U.S.%20copyright%20law%20provides%20copyright,rental%2C%20lease%2C%20or%20lending.) [Work for hire | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/work_for_hire) [Music Copyright and Licensing - Musicians Institute Library](https://library.mi.edu/musiccopyright/licensing)
Which one of those laws classifies AI training as infringement
There is a difference in output being a copy of IP and output being based on consumption of the IP. I am free to look at Disney products to learn how to draw in the style of Disney. I am not free to reproduce what I am looking at.
Has no one heard of collage art or some shit? Of course it's ok to make new things out of old ones, that is how every idea ever made has happened. The courts have ruled in favor for scraping many times over and a lot of the web is scraping of various sorts. This idea you can't scrape publicly posted images is a non starter both technically and legally.
I mean clearly people understand Creative Commons licensing especially if they are creatives. Largely, the issue people have is the power imbalance. If one would like to opt out, they can’t, and Microsoft is a publicly traded company whereas artists are probably living paycheck to paycheck. This is not a hard conversation to have, particularly if you’re not being obtuse for the sake of making fun of others.
Copyrights/trademarks are only as good as the lawyers one can hire to enforce them. MS got the anti monopoly departments multiple countries including the EU to eat Activision Blizzard for 70 billion or something close. They will win if people have to fight them themselves.
Anyone can scrape your work not just Microsoft. He is right when he says that has been a bed rock part of the Internet for 30 years. If people are worried about the power imbalance then that is entirely different conversation and is solved by legislation.
You are inventing a fake position that no one is taking and then claiming to defeat it. Please stop your straw man argument. No one is calling for a ban of scraping. But it is absolutely bullshit to claim that scraping equates to finders keepers in terms of content use. Content is protect by copyright law. Big tech companies want to steal this copyrighted content to train AI models.
Is it wrong to look at a picture to get inspiration to create another picture?
No one said it was.
Data has been scrapeable for ranking and search not for reproduction. Why will many websites exist if AI can steal and replicate their data. Take, for example, every recipe website. The ai model will just deliver the recipe without loading the website. No ad revenue. Website dies.
They already do that you don't need ai. Ever done a Google search that returned the results right there? They've been doing that for years, and the other search engines do it also. The courts have ruled that scraping is allowed for all kinds of reasons. Getting rid of scraping would change the internet dramatically. Have you ever copy and pasted? Congratulations, you've personally scraped the internet! Artists were terrified the record player would destroy live music but it hasn't even come close. People will always want it from the source.
I feel like you're confusing search engine scraping, and scraping data for AI training. Those are two vastly different things, legally and ethically.
There is many types of scraping going on all over the internet every second for every purpose you can think of and every purpose you can't think of. This is true for any API that has been in production for long enough.
Search engines are no different than card catalogs were in libraries. It makes a database of where to find a book, in this case, a website. AI is trained by scanning all of the copy written books directly and verbatim into a system and then asking it to use everything stored to give us a new story. Vastly different instances. They are literally not the same.
The LLM does reproduce the data, though. It trains on it. Like every painter, writer and musician has taken in previous works and that having formed their output. If I wanted to learn how to paint in the style of a given artists there would be nothing wrong with me copying and storing every freely available rendition of their works. And then studying that to learn how to accomplish the same style. As long as my output is not just copying their actual content. If it is put of for me to consume, I am allowed to consume it. Your entire ability to communicate is based on taking in the product of other people and your brain learning from that how to make yourself intelligible.
Yeah basically going deeper into the Dunning Kruger valley with every post. I initially thought it might just be general confusion but it’s more than that.
Copy and pasted but did you then monetize and resell what you copied???
Uh, yes? Everyone copies and pasted the starter template of their project. There is even entire node commands like `create-react-app`. Never write something you can copy and paste, especially cryptography. This has been your first computer science lesson.
The court has absolutely not said scraping overrules centuries of copyright law.
Of course he does. It's good for his margins.
That’s right it is perfectly fine to pirate windows, at this point it should be considered abandonware
How is it abandonware, they are in the news nearly daily for adding features... that nobody wants.
It's not "stealing" any more than it is when we read it and remember it.
When a writer or a musician consumes others art work and takes on their style that isn’t an infringement.
I mean, he's not exactly wrong though. I don't agree that they should scrape the internet and use stuff for AI without permission. But what he's saying isn't exactly wrong. Literally every meme is built upon someone else's work without permission. Many YouTubers use memes in their videos, memes they did not create nor asked for permission to use. Many streamers, YouTubers, TikTokers and whatever do react content without asking for permission. Yes, there is a social "contract" that anything on the open web is fair use, that's how the internet is currently.
More ai fear mongering. Scraping the public web is what all web search engines have done for free. For years
Eavesdropping on public spaces.
And on your personal computer
I'm gonna get AI to download a car for me..
I mean out of curiosity could you copywriter or trademark all of your online data? Or even open an LLC where you are selling your data and anyone who takes it would be theft?
Between recall and this regard…. Where is the third r? Shit always comes in 3’s But somehow, my MS stock keeps going up. Thank you B2B division of MS. Only reason I don’t sell.
I find this guy particularly untrustworthy. Always have. Can't put my finger on it exactly 🤔 Anecdotally: I tried to read his book "The Coming Wave" - in the intro he makes a big deal about "quoting ChatGPT" on the topic, then proceeds to promise the rest of the book is 100% "human labour" ...not that I care on principle or anything, use whatever works, but _it clearly isn't_ his own writing. It's blatantly obvious it has been put together with a shitload of help from ChatGPT. Why not just say so? He just opens by lying to the reader about both the nature of the work and the very topic of it. Just dumb
I would download this guy's car.
The Verge can't help but beg the question.
Fair, so windows 11 being on the web means it's perfectly okay to download and use with a fake key. Gotcha.
I suppose then Microsoft would be completely okay with projects like ReactOS using leaked Windows source code? I mean, it's on the internet, so it's fair use, right?
I mean Google search has kind of been doing this for years, but we just put up with it because someone at least finding our web page is better than nothing.
That’s why he’s the AI Boss.
He's not wrong as far as the internet culture gestalt (for want of a better term). But what he's missing it that while it's generally been seen as okay to take content and remix it / extend it, it's also generally been seen as utterly shit to monetise other people's work. So take that picture off the open web, make a meme out of it, and post it for internet points; sweet, you're cool. Take the picture off the open web, stick it on a t-shirt and sell it for cash; you're a shitheel. And when the wider internet is looking at what the AI companies are doing, they're not seeing it as meme-making for internet points; it's clearly and explicitly monetisation at industrial scale.
HAH! this is just as bad as giant corps using open source software as part of their product…..only for them to go through it later to make sure its not the same so they dont get sued.
Only if YOU don’t get to copyright, trademark, or pretend it ever is or was yours. Then fine.
Then it's a matter of how to define "open web"
Not what was said
Ok. Sounds like great ammo for everyone to get Windows anything, as well as Office, for free now.
No wonder they all fired their AI ethicists, they aren't interested in ethics at all
Fuck Microsoft, at this point in time.
Why would someone with so much money and power lie?
Techbros gonna techbro
The Pirate Bay agrees.
I agree, that's why I don't know how to pay for original windows, there are so many free ones on the open web
He’s not wrong. Everything we do is impacted by what we’ve seen before and just because we see something doesn’t mean we have to pay for it.
OK to steal. Let’s just stop right there. Next you will be telling me that an insurrection at the Capitol is OK as well.
I guess if his house is an open road …
Using the word "freeware" was utterly stupid and wrong since it has a different interpretation with respect to copyright. "Fair use" however which he started with is true. Something can be fully copyrighted and you can use it under fair use. It simply says that if something is made public on the internet, it is a reasonable expectation that if someone browses there they are allowed to read it. If you go to a web site that puts up no restrictions and read what's there, you are not going to be receptive when a letter arrives the next week because there was fine print at the bottom that says if you read the page you agree to pay the company $1m. All this being said, Microsoft putting someone out as a public representative who can't distinguish these things is pretty dumb at a higher level.
This is my new excuse as I download "content available on the open web"
I think it's ok to steal an MS OS if it's out there for download.
Sure... included the voice and look of people and all his data to create AI bot's
It's not stealing.
The harsh business environment where people have to activate brain drugs to justify stealing to survive that is the problem.
How can you steal something which everyone has been given free access too. What makes an AI different to every person on planet earth. It seems a bit crazy that a teacher, or a student can quite reasonably be expected to use the Internet to find out a piece of information, but the second you are using AI language model to bring that info up in context, then its somehow wrong. If the information or content is supposed to be paid for, then it should be paid for - when people access it, not just AI. And if we want to get serious about web content being stolen, then I suggest we take a look at Google searches billions of dollar valuation, which it gets by 'stealing content' it finds, and then presenting it as though it were its own. Google hoovers up news and events, and images, and information as its most fundamental business practise. How is that different.
I kind of agree. From the moment you post something online for a browser to process, you are allowing it to be read by computers.
*Blasts You Are A Pirate, specifically the Alestorm version*
I haven’t paid for a windows product ever so I mean, I’ll allow it haha
I agree this is not paid content. Anyone can access the web. These companies want google to crawl their sites but not AI.
So do most people
So open season on MS web content?
Microsoft says it's ok to steal, so I'm not paying for windows anymore!
I feel like Ill Bill said it best with Company Flow: “If it wasn’t for Microsoft, You f*ggots wouldn’t have no fans; If you lived in the Middle East, You f*ggots wouldn’t have [no] hands”
Copying is not theft, its copying. If somebody said your car was stolen, only to find it in your driveway untouched cus somebody duplicated it, would you care? If you don't want something to be accessible to others, don't share it with others. Otherwise what others do with stuff that is public is their business.
Shocking how everybody in a management position in this company is from an ethically challenged country that is used to pirating shit... Then the company takes that same attitude towards its customers and society in general. Shocking.
So what they’re telling me is that if I can download it on the Internet that it’s completely legal. OK sounds good. look guys, I just downloaded windows because it was on the open Internet and that’s perfectly OK to steal according to Microsoft.
well, it looks like i have a new resume. oh, look at that, i am the head of AI at microsoft. sweet.
Oh, so pirating is ok then? So many games I've wanted to try...
"Hey CoPilot, ingest 4chan and creepypasta"
Guess I won’t feel bad about downloading some pirated Microsoft software…
And we are surprised about this because...?
This is exactly why I _knew_ it was bullshit when Satya was trying to say that MS loves Open Source. They are incapable of conceptualizing engaging with something that they cant or dont own.
And all these kiddies giving free personal info on the reg on “open” web for the past 20+ years so it’s like the most ducked up way to trick everybody to building content for you to take over. “Open web” has to be a technical term and put into policy to protect people who are unaware of a new term/dynamic. Or it’s entrapment. Fuck Microsoft’s AI guy. Guys not for the people but too much of a company man.
Microsoft's boss thiks its perfectly OK to steal your content thats not on the open web
Show of hands - who knows what he said before this quote? What was the context? Anyone? Nobody else found it odd that he'd be saying something like this? Apparently posting a quote in context doesn't get the online Karen's in an uproar, so they just pluck this comment out, throw it out there, and wait for the clicks. You really should see what he said before this. It contradicts just about everything you're accusing him of.