Training AI models on copyrighted works is "squarely what transformative use is," EFF’s Tori Noble told Reason - these are "general purpose tools" and "exactly the kind of creation that copyright is designed to foster.” https://reason.com/2026/09/04/doj-says-barring-ai-training-on-copyrighted-material-could-severely-hamper-tech-progress/
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@eff Wow, the irony is palpable in this one. This is the most "technically correct but in unintended way" take we've seen in a month.
Yes, this is *precisely* the kind of "creation" copyright is *designed to foster*. Corporation-centered, worker-oppressing framework to extract profit from others' labor and handwave away any complaints through legalese bullshit and arguing for fake moral superiority, when the reality is that multi-billion companies use copyright as a tool for oppression. genAI is just another iteration of "laws for thee but not for me", alongside many other oppressive things.
Shame on you.
@eff Okay so you're advocating piracy. I don't feel conflicted about it now. Can't have it both ways.
@eff Scale matters. Intent matters. A world-eating model, that benefits from every sentence ever written, cannot morally be locked up behind a paywall for the sole benefit of the few.
@eff interested to see what @pluralistic has to say about this…
@eff A technology only available to ultra-wealthy corporations that is built through copyright infringement is A-OK, but normal people can't have a a 4 second clip of Disney in the background of a video without getting sued.
Is that really what you're saying? I just want to be clear before I cancel my 25-year membership.
@eff what the fuck?
@eff I'm so confused. In front of me is Cindy Cohn's "Privacy's Defender". The opening pages read:
"(c) 2026 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used to train artificial intelligence systems or reproduced in any form [...]"
What kind of a f*cking pro-slop-technofascism stance did you assume over night? I'll be dropping my recurring titanium donation if you do not clean this shit up.
@eff have you lost your fucking minds
@eff you what???? :///
@eff well this is the heel turn of the decade, so disappointed to see you siding with the fash
@eff why the fuck are you siding with fascists?
@eff Yeah, nah.
"It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for him."
Yes and reading a book is transformative to my knowledge and mind, so just give me all the copyrighted works. Does anyone dispute that a human reading those works makes a human better/smarter/more creative?
I'm not a huge fan of copyright holder lawsuits. However, AI companies are stacking cash, while standing on the heads of all of human history. It's not a public works project for the betterment of society, it's not a library you can freely use. It's not even like the beginning of the internet, where infrastructure and networking allowed collaboration and content creation.
Love the EFF but I don't think I'd help the AI overlords in this. Spend the time on something better than this.
Heaven forbid that the courts set a precedent that OpenAI pay for content they use for training purposes. Maybe they could just let them use torrent like Meta did already. I mean it's accepted use right. (/s)
