lemy.lol

In order to help train its AI models, Meta (and others) have been using pirated versions of copyrighted books, without the consent of authors or publishers. The company behind Facebook and Instagram faces an ongoing class-action lawsuit brought by authors including Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, and Christopher Golden, and one in which it has already scored a major (and surprising) victory: The Californian court concluded last year that using pirated books to train its Llama LLM did qualify as fair use.

You'd think this case would be as open-and-shut as it gets, but never underestimate an army of high-priced lawyers. Meta has now come up with the striking defense that uploading pirated books to strangers via BitTorrent qualifies as fair use. It further goes on to claim that this is double good, because it has helped establish the United States' leading position in the AI field.

Meta further argues that every author involved in the class-action has admitted they are unaware of any Llama LLM output that directly reproduces content from their books. It says if the authors cannot provide evidence of such infringing output or damage to sales, then this lawsuit is not about protecting their books but arguing against the training process itself (which the court has ruled is fair use).

Judge Vince Chhabria now has to decide whether to allow this defense, a decision that will have consequences for not only this but many other AI lawsuits involving things like shadow libraries. The BitTorrent uploading and distribution claims are the last element of this particular lawsuit, which has been rumbling on for three years now, to be settled.

Always fun to develop a record-selling game. You lose your job as a thanks! 🤮

Via webcomics name

An older article, but perennially relevant. Keep an eye out for Iranian sleeper cells! In other news...

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/196812

By waging war in the Middle East, Trump is set to further strain one of his key voter bases.

From Foreign Policy via this RSS feed

The Washington, DC-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) said it tracked posts that explicitly dehumanised, excluded, and incited violence against Muslims from 1 January to 5 March.

On the day the war began, the volume of such posts surged from just under 2,000 per day to more than 6,000, the report said. "Reposts dramatically amplify the visibility of harmful content, allowing it to spread far beyond the original accounts that generated it."

With reposts included, "the total mention volume of Islamophobic content rises to 279,417, representing an 11-fold amplification of the harmful original posts".

The content examined by CSOH encompassed a wide swath that included everything from personal hate-fuelled opinions to calls for lawmakers to institute strict anti-Muslim policy, including a "Muslim Exclusion Act" and the deportation of all Muslims.

https://www.oglaf.com/z-spot/

Bluesky post

Source

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/64975432

But this isn’t just about professors; it’s about all of us. This is the most flagrant attack on higher education in my lifetime. Why are politicians reducing public colleges and universities to vehicles of state propaganda? Why are self-proclaimed proponents of free speech turning around and using state repression to enforce speech codes on our campuses? Why can’t we speak openly about our social world in sociology classes? Why are unqualified appointees from the business world dictating to Ph.D.-holding academics how they should teach and which textbooks they must use?

What we really need are people beyond the university itself — the general public — speaking out about how ludicrous this all is. We are now living through an era of state censorship, politically motivated firings, and state-produced propaganda materials. If this isn’t authoritarianism in higher education, I don’t know what is.

Opinion piece by Zachary Levenson is associate professor of sociology at Florida International University. 

EDITED TO ADD (in case some miss my comment)

Imagine the following scenario: You’re teaching Introduction to Sociology at a community college in Florida, and today, you’re trying to explain the well-documented pay gap between men and women in the United States. You check the guidance you just received from your dean, who received instructions via email from the executive vice chancellor of the Florida College System. The instructions state explicitly that explaining “unequal outcomes between men and women” in terms of “institutional sexism” would violate state law.

Nancy Classics by Ernie Bushmiller for March 9, 2026 | GoComics

As a cracker, I then proceed to cook all the flavor out of then

Post by zjneushd
Socials: Danbooru

Unavailable at source, here's their Bluesky.

Das sah echt schon mal besser aus 😳