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.

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[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

There is no legal prohibition against asking someone for a copy of a work

No one asked for a copy, they just took it.

nor is there a prohibition against receiving a copy, even if that copy was illegally produced and/or illegally distributed.

They didn't "receive" a copy. No one dropped a hard drive off on their doorstep. They actively pursued the content and made a copy without permission for profit.

If you want to say they did something illegal, you have to argue that they were somehow in collusion with the uploader

Making a copy of copyrighted content without permission is illegal.

Edit: Downvotes? In a piracy community?

Piracy community can't be interested in facts?

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today -1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

No one asked for a copy, they just took it.

When I click a link, I am sending a request to a server. I am asking that server to provide me with information. The server's operator is responsible for determining if and how the server should respond to my request. I don't control that server. I can't force it to send me data. I can only ask. If it is configured to accede to my request, it will start sending data, which may or may not be the data I requested. If it doesn't want to, it can tell me to pound sand. The operator of that server is responsible for the server's actions. The operator of that server is the uploader.

If Meta actually "just took it", we wouldn't be having a discussion about copyright. We would be talking about "Unlawful access to a computer".

They didn't "receive" a copy.

They absolutely did.

They actively pursued the content...

Actively pursuing content is perfectly lawful.

...and made a copy without permission...

You can't copy something you do not possess. The entity who copied it was the uploader, not the downloader. That uploader created and distributed a copy by sending a bitstream to the receiver. Putting that bitstream on their hard drive is "receiving" not "creating a copy".

...for profit.

A profit motive is only relevant if we are talking about a fair use exemption. They aren't raising a fair use defense.

Making a copy of copyrighted content without permission is illegal.

Which they did not do. The uploader may have violated the law, but the downloader has not.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Actively pursuing content is perfectly lawful.

You seem intent on repeatedly misrepresenting the situation so this conversation is clearly going nowhere.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today -2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

One of us seems intent on repeatedly misrepresenting the situation. I am inclined to leave the determination of that point to the reader.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 5 months ago

It seems the readers have spoken.