

You don’t have to finish the file to share it though, that’s a major part of bittorrent. Each peer shares parts of the files that they’ve partially downloaded already. So Meta didn’t need to finish and share the whole file to have technically shared some parts of copyrighted works. Unless they just had uploading completely disabled,
The argument was not that it didn’t matter if a user didn’t download the entirety of a work from Meta, but that it didn’t matter whether a user downloaded anything from Meta, regardless of whether Meta was a peer or seed at the time.
Theoretically, Meta could have disabled uploading but not blocked their client from signaling that they could upload. This would, according to that argument, still counts as reproducing the works, under the logic that signaling that it was available is the same as “making it available.”
but they still “reproduced” those works by vectorizing them into an LLM. If Gemini can reproduce a copyrighted work “from memory” then that still counts.
That’s irrelevant to the plaintiff’s argument. And beyond that, it would need to be proven on its own merits. This argument about torrenting wouldn’t be relevant if LLAMA were obviously a derivative creation that wasn’t subject to fair use protections.
It’s also irrelevant if Gemini can reproduce a work, as Meta did not create Gemini.
Does any Llama model reproduce the entirety of The Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman if you provide the first paragraph? Does it even get the first chapter? I highly doubt it.
By the same logic, almost any computer on the internet is guilty of copyright infringement. Proxy servers, VPNs, basically any compute that routed those packets temporarily had (or still has for caches, logs, etc) copies of that protected data.
There have been lawsuits against both ISPs and VPNs in recent years for being complicit in copyright infringement, but that’s a bit different. Generally speaking, there are laws, like the DMCA, that specifically limit the liability of network providers and network services, so long as they respect things like takedown notices.
This is an interesting parallel, but I feel like I missed some key part of it.
In the US, at least, we historically killed off a lot of deer’s natural predators - mostly wolves - and as a result, the deer population can get out of control, causing serious problems to the ecosystem. Hunters help to remedy that. The relatively small violences that they perform on an individual basis add up to improving the overall ecosystem.
That isn’t the same as being a bigot, or a sexist, or a fascist… and I don’t know why anyone would assume that a person holds those views because they’re mean and petty. They hold those views for a variety of reasons - sometimes because they’re a child or barely an adult and that’s just what they learned, and they either don’t know any better or haven’t cared enough to think it through; sometimes because they’ve been conditioned to think that way; sometimes because they’re sociopaths who recognize that it’s easier to oppress that particular group.
It doesn’t really matter what their reason is. Either way, they’re a worse person because of it, and often they’re overall a bad person, regardless of the rest of their views, actions, and contributions.
Being a hunter, by contrast, is neutral leaning positive.
It makes sense that a rational person who loves being in nature, who loves animals, who wants their local ecosystem to be successful, would as a result want to help out in some small way, even if that means they have to kill an animal to do so. It doesn’t make sense that a rational person who loves all people, who wants their local communities to be successful, would as a result want to oppress and harm the people in already marginalized groups.
I don’t think equating being bigoted with holding unjustifiable opinions does it justice. The way we use the word opinion generally applies to things that are trivial or unimportant, that don’t ultimately matter, e.g., likes and dislikes. Being a bigot is a viewpoint; it shapes you. For many bigots, their entire perspective is warped and wrong. And there’s a common misunderstanding that you can’t argue with someone’s opinions; because it’s just how they “feel.” But being a bigot, whether you’re sexist, racist, transphobic, queerphobic, homophobic, biphobic, etc., is a belief, and it’s one that, in most cases, the bigot chooses (consciously or not) to keep believing.
If an adult with functioning cognitive abilities refuses to question their bigoted beliefs, then they’ve made a choice to be a bigot.