I’d encourage people to actually read the article. I know that the title kind of inspires a kneejerk reaction, but legally, this is kind of interesting and I believe has broad implications.
So, basically, there’s a company, Bright Data, scraping X comments for stuff like training AI.
X went after them because X wanted to (and does) sell those comments.
But while I think that it’s fine for X to attempt to disrupt Bright Data’s scraping attempts using technical means, they can’t use the law to restrict them on copyright grounds.
That might have implications for all sorts of things. Reddit’s legal position, as Reddit likes selling access to Reddit comments. Training AI on discussion in general. The ability of organizations like archive.org to archive publicly-available comments. Maybe it’ll make social media companies have their content not-publicly-accessible, if creating a closed club gives X more control over selling that content.
The gist, X can’t say: look that data isn’t mine so I can’t control the content (well to an extent). But also the data is mine and you can’t mine the data, well you can’t mine it without giving me a piece of the pie.
X tried the legal approach, and it didn’t make it far.
Yeah if something is publicly available for one use there isn’t really a compelling reason to make it cost money for another use just because the company didn’t see the original value in it. It makes no sense.
I do feel like these tech companies are starting to hide their content though. That’s going to make the Internet way less useful in the long run I think. But who knows what will come next to change things again.
Copyright preemption is a long-standing legal doctrine. Congress makes copyright laws. State law and contract law has to give way.
They can still use EU law to extract money, just not as much.
I don’t think it’s entirely clear what effect a login-wall would have. Facebook has been quite successful with that technique in the past. So there are some precedents. But I think today there is more understanding for the harmful effects these had.
Not saying you’re wrong, but it’s a bit late for that. EG Facebook, Inc. v. Power Ventures, Inc. was decided in 2009. We can only hope that these mistakes are not repeated.
I don’t understand why people here are so gung-ho on intellectual property. It doesn’t fit with the values that are otherwise espoused here and I worry that it indicates a more general rightward shift in economic policy preference.
Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, said the federal government required him to undergo random drug testing for a year after he smoked weed on Joe Rogan’s podcast in 2018, adding that the “whole of SpaceX” was impacted.
During an appearance on the “Full Send podcast,” released Thursday night, Musk said that he got “a lot of backlash,” including from SpaceX competitors, because weed isn’t legal on a federal level and SpaceX has federal-government contracts.
“The consequences for me and for SpaceX were actually not good,” the tech billionaire said on “Full Send,” adding that he hadn’t expected so much criticism. The 2018 interview with Rogan — which went viral at the time — took place in California, where marijuana is legal for both medical and recreational use.
“I had to have like random drug tests and stuff after that, to prove that I’m not like a drug addict,” Musk said, adding that the tests were required by the federal government. “They drug tested me for everything, and randomly. It wasn’t like ‘pick a day.’ I had like a whole year of random drug tests.”
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t just me but the whole company, the whole of SpaceX had to have random drug tests,” Musk continued. It’s unclear exactly how many workers this affected, but SpaceX had around 6,000 employees in early 2019.
Under the Drug-free Workplace Act of 1988, workers at any company that receives a federal contract of $100,000 or more are prohibited from using or distributing drugs in the workplace, and the firm must have a drug-free workplace policy.
And I am sure there is no shortage of doctors willing to write a ketamine prescription or twenty for Musk if he waves enough millions under their noses.
So the other companies with contracts under $100,000 can legally use and distribute drugs in the workplace? Where do I apply?? If there are none, anybody want to start a business with me?
I don’t know whether to be happy or sad. Musk’s loss is a win for AI companies that want to exploit content creators (and yes, I realize Musk also wanted to exploit them).
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