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Microsoft’s AI boss thinks it’s perfectly OK to steal content if it’s on the open web
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2024
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And this is why I don't have ANY moral qualms about pirating shit: they'd do it to us in a heartbeat if there was a buck to be made.
Pirating Windows for your own personal, private use, which will never directly make you a single dollar: HIGHLY ILLEGAL
Scraping your creative works so they can make billions by selling automated processes that compete against your work: Perfectly fine and normal!
bunch of fuckin art pirates. crying about software piracy while they have their own bots pirating everyone's art.
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Sure bud, pirating some Microsoft Studio video games and windows ISOs right now. What? I found them on the open web!
Honestly just pirate their games since they keep buying every fucking studio they can get their grummy hands on
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I mean, Xbox one/series recently got proof of concept jailbreak, so... I think many people are on board with your thought
DMCA for them, no DMCA for us.
You're always morally justified to steal from Microsoft
So if I see it on the “open web”, I’m free to use it however I please? Oh, I get thrown in jail and everything I own taken away.
If companies are people per “citizens united”, why doesn’t the same apply to them?
And if a company makes a negligent decision, which kills a million people over time, why is no one being put on death row? They can and do have it both ways, but I can still wish for a just world where if companies are people, they can be put to death for mass casualties caused by their decisions.
so we can steal Microsoft's products?
Yes. Exactly. Although there isn't much left worth stealing from Microsoft.
(This was a low-key "Microsoft bad, Linux supreme", comment.)
(And now it's no longer low-key.)
(I'm using a touch-screen keyboard for writing this. And yet I can't open my doors using the keyboard. Ever wondered why that is?)
(Correct, because I forgot my keys at home and didn't put them on my keyboard.)
(Now it's just a –board.)
(Oral diarrhea over. Go get some guhd Linux!)
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In other news: we have lawyers to protect our copyrights, you don't. Suck it.
copying is not theft
"Copying is theft" is the argument of corporations for ages, but if they want our data and information, to integrate into their business, then, suddenly they have the rights to it.
If copying is not theft, then we have the rights to copy their software and AI models, as well, since it is available on the open web.
They got themselves into quite a contradiction.
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Issue is power imbalance.
There's a clear difference between a guy in his basement on his personal computer sampling music the original musicians almost never seen a single penny from, and a megacorp trying to drive out creative professionals from the industry in the hopes they can then proceed to hike up the prices to use their generative AI software.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of AI but I'm generally of the view that anything posted on the internet, visible without a login, is fair game for indexing a search engine, snapshotting a backup (like the internet archive's Wayback Machine), or running user extensions on (including ad blockers). Is training an AI model all that different?
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copying isn't stealing
If the model isn't overfitted it's also not even copying. By their nature LLMs are transformative which is the whole point of fair use.
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He spoke carelessly, but he didn't exactly say what the author said he said. You can in fact do many things with it. Copyright doesn't care what you do if you aren't copying. That's the definition of the word.
So I can pirate as many movies as I want as long as I'm only watching them?
Let these rich guys keep talking for a sec. I can get behind this somewhat.
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Aight, I'ma steal leaked Windows XP source code :3
There is a thing called usage licenses.
So its no longer intellectual property if its on the internet? The nerves on this guy...
So you could just copy and use every single helpful support article from Microsoft?
Oh shit, there aren't any
Just yet another proof, that the more 0's you have in your valuation, the less the laws apply to you
Apparently he thinks data is like the ducks you find in the park
Wait, you can steal from those ducks?
No one ever tells you this, but you can just take the ducks. Just like with the city pigeons. Just make sure you don't take a government drone by accident.
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Does Netflix count as the open web? It definitely feels like so, but I'm ready for a wealth hoarder to tell me otherwise!
I agree
Is his personal-information on the dark-web?
Is he saying that if his personal-information is on the dark-web, then it's perfectly-OK for everybody & their robot to be using it??
XOR is he saying that there are 2 kinds of law:
1 for protecting his entitlement,
the other for disallowing rights from the lives he consumes, through his beloved herd/corporation/pseudo-person?
( obviously, he's already answered the latter )
Oh hey, Microsoft support moving away from copyright! 
Essentially the joke everyone made about nfts.
He's right, information wants to be free. Don't support stronger copyright just to spite people it'll benefit
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Copyright infrigment is not theft, training models is not copyright infringement either. We need a law equivalent to when an artist says "he's inpired by someone else" . That it specifically is illegal to do that without permission if you use a machine. That will force big tech to pay a pittance for it and it will instakill all the small player.
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I think that with respect to content that’s already on microsoft.com, 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.
Yeah, that's how I've always thought of it.
You cant steal data. violating copyright (Which ai training does not do) is not theft.
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