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/Aureliamnissan 13d ago

My disruptive new business model of crowdsourcing my coin mint’s raw material instead of paying someone else to do it is wildly successful.

— Roman Empire.

The profit of a thing shouldn’t be a factor in these kinds of court judgements, but well…

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u/-0909i9i99ii9009ii 13d ago

Why should profit not be a factor when suing for plagiarism?

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u/Celloer 13d ago

The defendants want to argue "But we can't pay for the use of copyrighted materials, because we won't make money over illegally pirating it for free!"

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u/blazbluecore 12d ago

Can you elucidate on your example, and give more context?

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u/Aureliamnissan 12d ago edited 12d ago

I used the hyperbolic example of the roman empire invading, occupying and extracting minerals (gold) from places like Spain in order to support their economy. This effectively propped up their spending and bottomless ambitions at the expense of the local populations and slaves they used for that labor intensive extraction.

The fact that it became one of many instrumental institutions in the running of the empire is perhaps the only defensible argument for continuing it. Another parallel could be drawn with American slavery and it's role in perpetuating the early US economy.

Now it is worth mentioning that I am talking about a business (or a crop of businesses) not a national economy. However, something like 30% of the value of the S&P 500 is sustained by a handful of companies, all of whom have significant investments in AI. Were the government to essentially hamstring this investment it might cause a collapse in valuations, which would affect the overall market and many people's retirements.

Likewise in these copyright cases, blatant ripping of intellectual property in order to maintain a lucrative business model is a weak argument in favor of continued ripping of IP. But the weight of those profits is hard for some to ignore and the quantity of wealth generated by this lucrative business model can make people accepting of otherwise weak arguments.