cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1330512
Below are direct quotes from the filings.
OpenAI
As noted in Paragraph 32, supra, the OpenAI Books2 dataset can be estimated to contain about 294,000 titles. The only “internet-based books corpora” that have ever offered that much material are notorious “shadow library” websites like Library Genesis (aka LibGen), Z-Library (aka B-4ok), Sci-Hub, and Bibliotik. The books aggregated by these websites have also been available in bulk via torrent systems. These flagrantly illegal shadow libraries have long been of interest to the AI-training community: for instance, an AI training dataset published in December 2020 by EleutherAI called “Books3” includes a recreation of the Bibliotik collection and contains nearly 200,000 books. On information and belief, the OpenAI Books2 dataset includes books copied from these “shadow libraries,” because those are the most sources of trainable books most similar in nature and size to OpenAI’s description of Books2.
Meta
Bibliotik is one of a number of notorious “shadow library” websites that also includes Library Genesis (aka LibGen), Z-Library (aka B-ok), and Sci-Hub. The books and other materials aggregated by these websites have also been available in bulk via torrent systems. These shadow libraries have long been of interest to the AI-training community because of the large quantity of copyrighted material they host. For that reason, these shadow libraries are also flagrantly illegal.
This article from Ars Tecnica covers a few more details. Filings are viewable at the law firm’s site here.
Absolutely peeved that according to laws: Libraries in a digital format literally cannot exist without being illegal. Archive.org only managed to exist as a Library because they enforced DRM which limited available rentals to the books they “bought” and had copies of.
This is because physical Libraries allow you to borrow their own copies, thus you can even read copyrighted material without asking for permission from the rights holder. So they could argue in court that the DRM only emulated the real thing.
Come COVID and they decide to be nice to people by temporarily stripping the rental bullocks. Their reward for a good deed is a sledgehammer to the stomach.
It matters not, books shall be, and remain forever free (For those that need them). One way or another. All I know is that I’ll never buy a book if I’m treated as a criminal.
Shadow libraries is such a metal name. Information should be free ya fucks. Eat shit.
“Flagrantly Illegal”
😂
I’m ok with PEOPLE reading books in any way for self improvement.
But, when a FUCKING COMPANY starts screwing with shit like this, thats when they crossed the line.
Sure but you understand that publishers dont give a fuck about any of that. They find any way to shut these things down they can. Not to mention the things on Sci-Hub and Libgen should be free public knowledge to anyone or anything that wants it. Its full of tax funded research papers and textbooks. That information should belong to everyone and everything. Thats not a crossed line. Thats consistency.
You really think people would spend a lifetime writing books if they couldn’t make money from it?
Things which are free have no value, both economic and societal. Even when we pirate stuff, at least our society encourages creative labour.
What makes you assume thats what I think at all? Also things that are free can bring tons of economic and societal value. That blanket statement is utterly moronic.
I can see economic, but what do you mean by no societal value?
Free access allows people to participate in culture and society that otherwise couldn’t. That seems like a positive.
Not even economic. There’s all of the textbooks on LibGen. Having access to those means even poor people can get a shot at learning with expensive textbooks. Having easier access to education means the population can be more productive and work in high impact fields.
No but this isn’t really limiting sales of the book in any way. I buy real used books, I buy new books sometimes. I go through a few audible credits a month. I also pirate books if I feel like it. I’ve had books I bought and gotten rid of, then years later decided to pirate it and read it again. Anyway used books are so ridiculously cheap it’s very rare for me to buy a book new, often it’s a gift for a friend.
I also use ChatGPT almost every day, and while I have asked it for the summary to a book I didn’t feel like reading, it has never once replaced “reading a book” in my life. You can also get the summary to most books on wikipedia if that’s all you want.
Some people would write books for free if they didn’t need to work to support themselves. Fame and the prestige of being a recognized expert are enough reward.
Hell, I’d do it just because I like sharing information and helping others out. Plus it’s a big project with a sense of accomplishment.
