gerwingleFeb 9, 2025
Chris Trottier
When Aaron Swartz does it, it’s prison time.

When Mark Zuckerberg does it, that’s just business.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/meta-torrented-over-81-7tb-of-pirated-books-to-train-ai-authors-say/
“Torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn’t feel right”: Meta emails unsealed

Meta's alleged torrenting and seeding of pirated books complicates copyright case.

Ars Technica
Feb 8, 2025 at 7:55pmWeb
Show threadferricoxideFeb 8, 2025
@[email protected]

Theft when a person does it, righteous when a corporation (of sufficient size) does it.
Show threadjfml - Jonas LaugsFeb 8, 2025
@atomicpoet That's capitalism for you. Laws are only for poor people that can't pay hundreds of lawyers (or donate a few million to a fellow felon who happens to be president of your country).
Show threadmike805Feb 8, 2025

@atomicpoet Now we know why Mark Zuckerberg was so vigorously kissing Donald Trump's ass.

If Zuck had continued his anti-Trump ways, he would right now be staring down a criminal indictment and enough copyright lawsuits to bankrupt his company.

Show threadVulcanTouristFeb 9, 2025

@atomicpoet

The silver lining is that I've inadvertently discovered Z-lib because of the article's exposure of Meta's misuse of it for profit.

Show threadKevin Karhan Feb 9, 2025
@atomicpoet true, true...
Show threadG. ClavierFeb 9, 2025

@atomicpoet Funny thing being that 20 years ago, Scwartz would have never been technically able to reach such scales of data piracy.

Now it’s just another monday in the press.

Show threadLea de Groot TZ+10Feb 9, 2025

@atomicpoet @paulshryock i saw a photo the other day, and it let me figure out, finally, what happened.

Aaron was brown

:(

Show threadJulien DeswaefFeb 9, 2025
@atomicpoet It's even worst than that. Aaron did not torrent. He downloaded scientific papers completely legally from a university account on a university campus network. Aaron did absolutely nothing with those downloads and we will never know what his intentions were. On the other hand, Zuck...
Show threadenthraxxxFeb 9, 2025
@atomicpoet Undoubtedly Facebook won't ever be bothered by this.
So to me, the only logical conclusion will be that torrent ing will be de facto legal.
Which is what every AI company seems to believe anyway!
Pirate everything! It's legal now.
Show threadMurphestophelese MurphMeisterFeb 9, 2025
@atomicpoet Of course, Aaron was downloading publicly funded papers to share, not regular books.