this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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It's not the same issue at all.
Piracy distributes power. It allows disenfranchised or marginalized people to access information and participate in culture, no matter where they live or how much money they have. It subverts a top-down read-only culture by enabling read-write access for anyone.
Large-scale computing services like these so-called AIs consolidate power. They displace access to the original information and the headwaters of culture. They are for-profit services, tuned to the interests of specific American companies. They suppress read-write channels between author and audience.
One gives power to the people. One gives power to 5 massive corporations.
Extremely well-said.
Also, it's important to point out that the one that empowers people is the one that is consistently punished far more egregiously.
We have governments blocking the likes of Sci-Hub, Libgen, and Annas-Archive, but nobody is blocking Meta's LLMs for the same.
If they were treated similarly, I would be far less upset about Meta's arguments. However it's clear that governments prioritize the success of business over the success of humanity.
It's the opposite. Closing down public resources would be regulatory capture and that would be consolidation of power.
Who do you think can afford to pay billions in copyright to produce models? Only mega corporations and pirates. No more small AI companies. No more open source models.
I wish we could be talking about the power imbalances of corporate bodies exercised through the use of capital ownership, instead of squabbling about how that differential is manifested through a specific act of piracy.
The reason we view acts of piracy different when they are committed by corporate bodies is because of the power of their capital, not because the act itself is any different. The issue with Meta and OpenAI using pirated data in the production of LMM's is that they maintain ownership of the final product to be profited from, not that the LMM comes to exist in the first place (even if it is through questionable means). Had they come to create these models from data that they already owned (I need not remind you that they have already claimed their right to a truly sickening amount of it, without having paid a cent), their profiting from it wouldn't be any less problematic - LLM's will still undermine the security of the working class and consolidate wealth into fewer and fewer hands. If we were to apply copyright here as it's being advocated, nothing fundamental will change in that dynamic; in fact, it will only reinforce the basis of that power imbalance (ownership over capital being the primary vehicle) and delay the inevitable (continued consolidation).
If you're really concerned with these corporations growing larger and their influence spreading further, then you should be directing your efforts at disrupting that vehicle of influence, not legitimizing it. I understand there's an enraging double-standard at play here, but the solution isn't to double down on private ownership, it should be to undermine and seize it for common ownership so that everyone benefits from the advancement.
I wonder if piracy could even benefit these corporations in the long term? Do people who pirate games and movies in their teens and twenties frequently go on to purchase such things when they're older? I honestly don't know, but I would love to see a study. I certainly have seen people make that claim.
Microsoft famously never went after pirates in Asian countries because despite piracy, it made them the default operating system.
They wanted people to be so used to Windows that they would be willing to pirate it just to use a computer.
It worked and their OS dominance for consumer OSes continues.
There you go. Piracy helps. I'm sure game companies and TV producers and so on feel the same way quite often. People who pirate are free marketing for them because they'll tell other people about the product.
Further, piracy can be reduced or made to not impact you as much if you have the right business model.
Louis CK (before he wrecked his career) famously made millions selling his comedy special through his website for $5 a pop with no Digital Rights Management. You were able to download a copy and keep it forever.
With no DRM, this meant that copies of his special were able to be pirated easily. Prior to releasing this way, he had previously gone on piracy websites and made comments under his pirated specials politely asking people not to pirate, but understanding if they did it because they were too poor.
Despite massive piracy of his special, enough people were happy to pay $5 for a DRM-free copy of his comedy special and if I recall correctly me made $5 million+ on that first special he released like that. It was a massive hit and people were encouraging each other to buy a copy since it was so cheap and respected you as a consumer.
Gabe Newell wasn't wrong, a big part of piracy always was a service problem.