- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
In one of the AI lawsuits faced by Meta, the company stands accused of distributing pirated books. The authors who filed the class-action lawsuit allege that Meta shared books from the shadow library LibGen with third parties via BitTorrent. Meta, however, says that it took precautions to prevent ‘seeding’ content. In addition, the company clarifies that there is nothing ‘independently illegal’ about torrenting.
downvotes are because you are saying provably factually incorrect things.
Yeah? Then do it. Show me a law relevant to this case that makes downloading an infringement.
You will be able to cite plenty of unenforceable propaganda, sure. The RIAA, MPAA, and various other trolls have broadly misrepresented the topic. You’ll even find this sort of FUD repeated by certain officials and government agencies.
But you will not any actual law relevant to this case. You will not find any judicial precedent where someone has been found to have violated copyright law solely for requesting and receiving copyrighted material.
Copyright law does not provide an enforcement mechanism against a recipient, even when that recipient knowingly requests an infringing copy. The only available mechanisms are against the entity creating the copy, and the entity distributing the copy.
You can prove me wrong by citing US Code, Federal regulation, or judicial precedent. I will not accept corporate propaganda, nor statements made by government entities unless those statements actually carry the force of law.
The closest you will be able to come is a theory that the “receiver” is somehow conspiring or colluding with the “sender”, and the law and precedent on conspiracy/collusion doesn’t quite fit. (Private trackers are getting close to that line, though…)
when downloading something, you are making a copy. That copy is unauthorized. It’s illegal. The distributor didn’t give it to you, they still have their copy. And you just reproduced it again.
No, you are not. The uploader is the only entity capable of making the copy. You can’t make a copy of something you do not possess.
When I send you a file, two copies come to exist. The copy on my computer, and the copy I created and sent to you. I made the copy, and I distributed it. You simply received it.
The copy you received is, indeed, unauthorized, but the infringing party is me, not you. I am the one who created and distributed the copy.
Receiving an unauthorized copy is not a copyright violation. A bootleg DVD is illegal to sell; it is not illegal to buy or to own.
In Germany we definitely have this:
and we have Störerhaftung which can also get you in trouble even if you didn’t do it yourself.
In the USA it’d probably be something like https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106
which says the copyright holder has exclusive rights (1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies […]
Which is kind of what you do when downloading something. There will be a copy on your harddisk… And (1) does NOT limit this to redistribution, like (3)… I’m not sure how it turns out in practice. I don’t follow American court rulings that closely.
The uploader does that. Not the downloader. You can’t copy something you do not possess; the copy is created by the uploader. The copy on your harddisk was created and distributed by the uploader; you did not create the copy, nor did you distribute it. You merely received it.
you are literally choosing to run the software that writes it to your disk. You also (probably) take steps to ensure the uploader does not have access to your disk. You are in control of what gets saved
“Saving” is not “copying”. “Saving” is “receiving”.
I don’t have access to an original; I am physically incapable of creating a “copy”.
it’s a digital item. You can only make a copy
Make a copy of the spreadsheet on my desktop.
What’s that? You don’t have access to my desktop? How are you going to copy it, then?
You need the work to be distributed to you, and come to be in your possession, before you can make a copy. So, I can send you a copy of that spreadsheet. Two copies now exist: the one on my desktop, and the one I sent you. I made the copy. I am responsible for making the copy, and I am responsible for distributing it to you.
When you move it from your download folder to your desktop, there are still only two copies in the world. When you copy it from your desktop to a thumb drive, now there are three, and you are responsible for the last one.
You cannot make a copy of something you do not have.
Hehe, I don’t know if they don’t want to understand it, or if it’s a lack of technical knowledge… But yes. In the digital realm, a copy and the original are identical in every way, no matter how you twist it. And you can’t even properly transfer any item it in the same sense as it applies to physical items. (Unless we’re talking about quantum computers or something like that…)
Their similarity is not in question. The fact is that you cannot make a copy of something until you have received it. The copy you receive was not created by you: it was created by the sender. You are merely receiving that copy; you are not creating that copy.
There is a spreadsheet on my desktop. You cannot create a copy. I can create a copy and send it to you. Two copies now exist on the planet; I made the copy. You merely received.
Well, did the uploader push it onto my computer, or was it me who clicked on something and initiated the transfer? I’d say it’s the latter. So the downloader initiated the copying process… I mean if I steal an orange in the supermarket, we also don’t say it fell into my hands and somehow they’re guilty…
And additionally you might find other local laws like this: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/PEN/156.35
and generally, this is related to wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer… Which all seem to be crimes and something people get charged with if someone wants them convicted of a crime. See Aaron Swartz for example.
It is NOT ILLEGAL TO ASK FOR A COPY. Copyright law does not prohibit you from asking me for a copy of a work. You are perfectly free to ask me for that copy.
I am not free to give you that copy. If I give you that copy, I am infringing on copyright, not you.
There isn’t anything infringement for me to offer to giver you a copy.
If I stand in front of MPAA headquarters with a big red button that says “I will make and give you an illegal copy of a movie if you press this button”, I have not violated copyright.
If you press the button, you have not violated copyright. You have merely indicated that you would like to receive an illegal copy; you have not created that copy, nor have you distributed a copy.
If you take the thumb drive I give you, and put it in your pocket, you still have not violated copyright. You still have not created a copy, nor have you distributed a copy. You are now in possession of that copy, but “possession” is not infringement. You would have to do something further with that copy before you would actually infringe on copyright: You would have to create an additional copy, or distribute the copy I gave you to someone else.
I violated copyright when I put the work on the thumb drive, and I violated it again when you received it, but you have done nothing illegal. You did not initiate the transfer; I did, either when I put the big red button out there, or when I handed you the thumb drive.
If you stick a knife in my face and tell me “your thumb drive or your life”, in addition to the numerous actual criminal penalties you face, the rights holder could, arguably, claim that you have infringed on copyright by distributing a copy.
if you’re found later with a bunch of pirated material, you’re the one who gets prosecuted, not whoever you dowloaded it from
Then you should be able to cite a case where this has happened.
What actually happens when you are found with a bunch of pirated material is… Nothing. Because it is not illegal to merely receive an unauthorized copy.
Sorry, this just isn’t correct. Yes, you can ask for almost anything and it’ll be alright and merely asking a question is completely legal.
The issue is, you then proceed to do a second step. And that is transferring the data. And that is a separate thing. You then initiate the actual transfer. Your computer actively does that. It keeps the transfer going and recieves the network packets. It literally copies them into RAM and then copies them again onto your harddrive. To make your local copy. The uploader merely reads it from their harddisk and hands it out, they do one copy operation less. Though they’re still the distributor.
I think any expert witness would testify in court, that your computer as the downloader does two copy operations, at least in the technical sense of the term. And that you’ve ultimately also initiated the transfer as the downloader due to how TCP/IP works.
The thumbdrive example is a bit construed. I think you might get away with that, though. Unless you plug it into your computer. Because then all the copying to RAM and harddrive etc starts again. But I think just pocketing it is posession (which doesn’t seem to be wrong), and not necessarily copying.
But like: how do other laws work where you live? Can you instruct someone to do something illegal and you’re fine? I can’t come up with anything normal, let’s say I hire someone to kidnap my child/wife to teach them a lesson. Or I hire a hitman to kill my arch enemy. Am I fine dong that? It’s a bit over the top. But where I live I can certainly get into trouble if I make people do something on my behalf. Which I’d argue doesn’t exactly happen here. It’s a bit more complicated… But your concept of law doesn’t seem to make much sense to me.
I don’t even have the data. I can’t do anything involving the actual data. I can’t copy it. I can’t transfer it. The UPLOADER is the only one with the capability of transferring the data.
No, it does not. It requests the data. The server is perfectly capable of answering that request with “Fuck off, I don’t want to.”
It keeps telling the server “I received that part, thanks, can I have some more?” The server is free to never start the transfer, or to stop it at any time.
Receiving those packets is neither “copying” nor “distributing”.
And then back again, into and out of ram every time you watch it… That’s not copying. If that was copying, you wouldn’t be able to use a DVD, as that act “copies” the disk every time you watch it. That theory has been raised a few times; to my knowledge, it has never been successful.
Generally speaking, yes. The examples you gave certainly don’t fit the general case, though. Suppose you’re my Uber driver. I break no law when I ask you to drive faster than the speed limit, or blow through a stop light. You’re free to refuse such requests.
You don’t seem to understand that there are 2 machines required to make a transfer. One uploads. One downloads. The two together make a copy. A machine cannot upload into the ether.
The law is called the DMCA but you’re clearly using some sort of mental gymnastics to argue that the act of piracy is not making a copy of copyrighted material, which is factually and legally incorrect.
The question isn’t whether a copy is being made. The question is who is making the copy. That person is the uploaded, not the downloaded.
The copy is created after the downloader originates the request. The uploader isn’t just manufacturing copies for no reason. The process requires 2 parties.
Undisputed. And irrelevant. The uploader is making and distributing the copy. The downloaded is merely receiving it.
You are truly hopeless to understand.