> news site unhappy about their content being scraped
Not surprising, but calling it "theft" only makes sense within the IP paradigm (we might do better without IP)
Not surprising, but calling it "theft" only makes sense within the IP paradigm (we might do better without IP)
News sites et al. provide content. Evidently that content, despite being intangible, has value to the people who consume it. The value LLMs are able to provide comes directly from the data they scrape, which they can now monetize.
I basically don't see how this is different from taking an apple from someone and selling it to someone else.
Like you have to assume that the lack of the piracy would lead to an actual sale. Which isnt the case at all.
You grow an apple. You plant the seeds and scare off pests for like 12 years and then harvest your first apple.
Apples are scarce resources. You are very much entitled to compensation when selling the apple.
However, despite all the labor, if you could magically copy the apple, feeding the entire human race an infinite amount of apples forever, you would be pretty much morally obligated to do it. Like you wouldnt be faulted for pursuing the value of your labor once, but the idea that you would restrict the flow of apples, arbitrarily, just to try and get the value of your labor for each of an infinite amount of apples is absurd. To further imply that someone was stealing if they stole a copied apple is laughable. Really, any of your infinite apples that rots away in storage rather than finding its way to a hungry person is stealing from the hungry person.
What matters, is scarcity. Non scarce resources really shouldnt follow the same rules as scarce ones.
They helped build an incredible tool that they should benefit from, so go ahead and reap the benefits, right?
There's a world of difference between someone downloading a book and a company basically burning down the entire publishing industry and making writing as a profession increasingly non-viable. The latter should be approached in the context of antitrust (leveraging a dominant position to knock over unrelated markets) and racketeering.
IP protections are a critical foundation that ensures the software engineering profession is a profitable one. I prefer to live in a world in which I can use my skills to feed my family, thanks.