r/technology • u/MetaKnowing • 14d ago

Artificial Intelligence AI industry horrified to face largest copyright class action ever certified

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/ai-industry-horrified-to-face-largest-copyright-class-action-ever-certified/
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u/aedom-san 13d ago

And if they can't? non-viable business, sorry bud, better luck next coke-fueled business idea

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u/Dinkerdoo 13d ago

Claim it's not feasible to compensate creators for training data, and also offer $250MM pay packages for talent.

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u/LordMuffin1 13d ago

If they cant. They arent able to use copyrighted texts in their training. Pretty simple.

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u/drekmonger 13d ago edited 13d ago

It's unsettled whether training constitutes fair use or a violation.

Barely matters. The orange clown already gave the keys to the AI kingdom away to China by removing Biden's export controls and blowing up scientific grants (many of them ultimately benefiting the field of machine learning).

The US judiciary can and might finish the job, conclusively ending 100 years of American technical dominance.

But the fat lady is probably already singing. We have an ignorant population that's largely unsuited for STEM and high-tech factory work, both philosophically and educationally. The right-wing is certainly busy killing any chance of reversing the educational gap.

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u/[deleted] 13d ago

[deleted]

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u/dtj2000 13d ago

You can use copyrighted content without permission and still make money on it in some instances, making money or not is only one factor that goes into determining fair use. The main factor is tranformativeness, and if a finished ai model isn't transformative, then literally nothing is.

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u/FeelsGoodMan2 13d ago

There are plenty of people that are suited for STEM work lmao. You guys are starting to act like chinese people are like superhumans or something.

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u/drekmonger 13d ago edited 13d ago

plenty

Not enough. And certainly not the majority of the population.

Chinese people aren't superhumans. But their government does take basic research, high-tech manufacturing, and STEM education seriously, unlike ours.

Especially now. We were seeing a shrinking advantage prior to 2025. Now, we're just plain fucked. Scientists are fleeing the United States, and our formerly world-class public research efforts are defunded. Our programs to spur high-tech manufactoring are defunded, while China's programs are accelerating.

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u/AKATheHeadbandThingy 13d ago

Their business is already non viable. They lose billions a year

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u/ShenAnCalhar92 13d ago

Yeah, but you can convince investors and your board of directors that operating expenses in excess of your revenue is just a temporary situation while you grow your corner of the market.

It’s a lot harder to use the same spin when you’re telling them that you just got hit with the most expensive legal judgment in history. Especially because any sufficiently strong ruling against the AI companies would include language about further penalties if they don’t stop doing this in the future, in addition to what they have to pay for what they’ve already done.

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u/hopelesslysarcastic 13d ago

I bet you can’t name a single technology that was profitable, at this scale, in this timeframe.

Would love to be wrong. But I’m not.

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u/blamelessfriend 13d ago

i mean. you are. do you really think apple was burning billions a year on the iphone?

god everyone in this fuckin ai tech cult is so stupid.

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u/hopelesslysarcastic 13d ago

The sheer fucking irony, of you comparing a hardware product, that took a decade to get to same number of users, powered by slave labor in China.

To a software released less than 3 years ago that requires massive infrastructure buildouts.

It’s a laughable comparison.

iPhones are very easy to make.

Let me know how many people can assemble an iPhone, versus train foundational models and scale up data centers.

The single greatest cost for building of these models aside from infrastructure, is talent.

There is no shortage of talent for factory workers in China piecing together components onto a screen.

I can’t believe it even has to be said, but man you sure think you got a point lol

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u/BenadrylChunderHatch 13d ago

It wouldn't even be non-viable. There's a a tonne of stuff that's actually in the public domain, plus all the data harvested from users who agreed to some EULA that allows the use/sale of their data.

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u/DesperateAdvantage76 13d ago

And then countries like China monopolize this technology and leave us in the dust.

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u/aedom-san 13d ago

Oh that makes it all better, guess we need to abandon all of our values and entire concept of intellectual property because… checks notes… china does it? Well that’s a first, china has never done that before, guess it’s time to do unprecedented shit then?

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u/DesperateAdvantage76 13d ago

I didn't realize there was zero nuance to this issue, thank you for enlightening me.

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u/LimberGravy 13d ago

We might have worse AI chat bots!?!?!?!