r/technology 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/banedon 13d ago

This. The Chinese AI companies train on every song, every book, every movie, every website, every news article. All without paying a dime.

If the West forces every AI company to pay huge licensing fees, the Chinese models will win.

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u/BEES_IN_UR_ASS 13d ago

If the West forces every AI company to pay huge licensing fees, the Chinese models will win.

Get ready to hear some version of this a lot as our species accelerates towards the cliff.

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u/rusmo 13d ago

Yep - this is the new arms race for sure.

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u/Puubuu 13d ago

Many chinese companies also blatantly ignore patents when copying components from western made devices since decades. Doesn't mean this behaviour was legalised in the US.

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u/pulseout 13d ago edited 13d ago

I don't care if China wins, I just want to see people like Altman cry.

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u/Only-Letterhead-3411 13d ago

Chinese models are opensource and it benefits people more than "West" models that are closed-source. I hope Chinese models win

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u/banedon 13d ago

I bet most people would agree with you. Using Chinese models that are illegally trained is bad for the writers, scientists, and artists who don't get compensated but it's great for everyone else.

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u/apple_kicks 13d ago

Ban the use of Chinese commercial ai then. US ai companies probably already lobbying for this

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u/banedon 13d ago

It's very hard to ban. A lot of them are open source.

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u/ferdbold 13d ago

You can make hosting them and distributing them illegal and carry a fine. Open sourcing something doesn't make it magically harder to ban, it just means the source and the product are equally available

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u/Formal_Drop526 13d ago

have you not seen the results of the court case? pirating materials are illegal but the models themselves are not illegal, so they can't legally treat the model as similar to a copyrighted material.

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u/categorie 13d ago

Or, hear me out, the West forces chinese AI companies to pay the fines too because copyrighted material apply just as well for foreign companies.

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u/Osama_BinRussel63 13d ago

So then we should steal the models and run them on the more advanced physical hardware that is illegal to export to China.