this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2025
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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When I click a link, I am sending a request to a server. I am asking that server to provide me with information. The server's operator is responsible for determining if and how the server should respond to my request. I don't control that server. I can't force it to send me data. I can only ask. If it is configured to accede to my request, it will start sending data, which may or may not be the data I requested. If it doesn't want to, it can tell me to pound sand. The operator of that server is responsible for the server's actions. The operator of that server is the uploader.
If Meta actually "just took it", we wouldn't be having a discussion about copyright. We would be talking about "Unlawful access to a computer".
They absolutely did.
Actively pursuing content is perfectly lawful.
You can't copy something you do not possess. The entity who copied it was the uploader, not the downloader. That uploader created and distributed a copy by sending a bitstream to the receiver. Putting that bitstream on their hard drive is "receiving" not "creating a copy".
A profit motive is only relevant if we are talking about a fair use exemption. They aren't raising a fair use defense.
Which they did not do. The uploader may have violated the law, but the downloader has not.
You seem intent on repeatedly misrepresenting the situation so this conversation is clearly going nowhere.
One of us seems intent on repeatedly misrepresenting the situation. I am inclined to leave the determination of that point to the reader.
I am the reader and I have made the determination that you are wrong. Plenty of people get letters for leeching only - just your presence in the swarm is all it takes, and that's all they check for before sending you a letter - at least in the US.
Rather narcissistic of you to assume you are our sole audience...
So what? You can write me a letter saying you have me on camera receiving a thumb drive that contains an infringing copy of the latest blockbuster release, and I'll say "So? There's nothing illegal about having received an infringing copy of the latest blockbuster release. Go talk to the guy who handed it to me."
Those letters are not formal accusations, and certainly aren't convictions. There is a reason why they are sending you a letter and not serving a leecher with a copyright lawsuit: They know that that suit would be thrown out when they can't actually claim a copy was made or distributed.
I don't know if this is news to you or not, but while you are leeching, you are also seeding.
If that were actually true (it's not), then explain this:
Either they were leeching (downloading) only, in which case the letters claiming infringement are without merit, or they were seeding (uploading) as well, and thus infringing.
(Technically, that's a false dichotomy... There's other possibilities I don't want to get into right now.)
Both things can be true at the same time - you can get a letter for leeching only AND usually when leeching you are also seeding. I don't know what your issue is with that statement.
The missing "usually" was the issue. When that was added, your statement became true... And it became functionally irrelevant to the issue at hand: Fecesbook took special care to leech only.
This argument has been around since the Napster era. Nobody has ever been successfully prosecuted for downloading, and until the law is rewritten to specifically include "receiving" as an offense, nobody ever will.
Of they ever tried to get that law enacted, it would fail unless "personal use" was exempted.
It's a distinction without a difference, because there is no reason to believe Meta's word that they blocked seeding when downloading. So whether it's always or usually makes no difference, because in either case, Meta should not be given the benefit of the doubt.
No, sorry, burden of proof is on the plaintiff, not the defendant. If you're suing, you have to prove the defendant's culpability; you can't simply assume it.
I'm not a court so absent any actual evidence from Meta, I can assume whatever I want. Meta can suck a dick.
Thomas Paine said that he who would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression, lest he set a precedent that will reach back to himself.
Your argument here seems to be "fuck meta". Does you opposition remain when it us an actual pirate bring accused? If so, fuck you. If not, why are you trying to lose this for the rest of us?
My argument is that just because the courts may give Meta the benefit of the doubt, it doesn't mean that you need to as well. It shouldn't be any surprise to you that you're getting the response you're getting here when you seem to be bending over backwards to find any excuse to give Meta a pass.
And no - wanting Meta to be fully investigated on the basis that they most likely did break the law has no bearing on wanting to oppress the enemy lol.
Fuck meta, this isn't about meta, this is about the legal fact that downloading is not infringement. Just because you don't like this particular downloader does not mean we have to set the precedent that downloading is infringement.
Sure, but you also don't need to give them full benefit of the doubt just because that's how the court operates. It's a perfectly reasonable stance to not believe their claim that they loopholed the law by not seeding, which I don't think is contradictory with supporting piracy. And comparing the mass ingestion of human creative work into an exploitative AI model to an individual person pirating for human consumption as if someone who is against one must be against the other is absurd.