To cover its tracks, the social media company allegedly deviated from usual practices and attempted to conceal the torrenting by using Amazon Web Services.
The audacity lmao
The audacity lmao
I think you’ll find that it’s spelled “audible” 😉
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even if Meta limited seeding when the downloads were completed, as the company claims it does
That’s the real crime! Not even reaching for the 1 ratio!
exactly lol 0 street cred for that
Further, “Whether another user actually downloaded the content that Meta made available” through torrenting “is irrelevant,” the authors alleged. “Meta ‘reproduced’ the works as soon as it made them available to other peers.”
Is there existing case law for what making something “available” means? If I say “Alright, I’ll send you this book if you want, just ask,” have I made it available? What if, when someone asks, I don’t actually send them anything?
I’m thinking outside of contexts of piracy and torrenting, to be clear - like if a software license requires you to make any changed versions available to anyone who uses the software. Can you say it’s available if your distribution platform is configured to prevent downloads?
If not, then why would it be any different when torrenting?
Meta ‘reproduced’ the works as soon as it made them available to other peers.
The argument that a copyrighted work has been reproduced when “made available,” when “made available” has such a low bar is also perplexing. If I post an ad on Craigslist for the sale of the Mona Lisa, have I reproduced it?
What if it was for a car?
I’m selling a brand new 2026 Alfa Romeo 4E, DM me your offers. I’ve now “reproduced” a car - come at me, MPAA.
Further, “Whether another user actually downloaded the content that Meta made available” through torrenting “is irrelevant,” the authors alleged. “Meta ‘reproduced’ the works as soon as it made them available to other peers.”
A “peer” in bittorrent is someone else who is downloading the same file as you. This is opposed to a “seeder” which is also a peer but is only sending data, no longer receiving.
You don’t have to finish the file to share it though, that’s a major part of bittorrent. Each peer shares parts of the files that they’ve partially downloaded already. So Meta didn’t need to finish and share the whole file to have technically shared some parts of copyrighted works. Unless they just had uploading completely disabled, but they still “reproduced” those works by vectorizing them into an LLM. If Gemini can reproduce a copyrighted work “from memory” then that still counts.
Now, to be clear, fuck Meta but also fuck this argument. By the same logic, almost any computer on the internet is guilty of copyright infringement. Proxy servers, VPNs, basically any compute that routed those packets temporarily had (or still has for caches, logs, etc) copies of that protected data.
I don’t think copyrights and open global networks are compatible concepts in the long run. I wonder which the ruling class will destroy first? (Spoilers, how “open” is the internet anymore?)
If, like me, you just wanted to know what the Bob Dylan defence, is:
“Meta’s response in this case seems to be that a powerful technology corporation should not be held to the same standard as everyone else for illegal conduct.”
The authors mocked Meta for raising what they call “the Bob Dylan defense” of its torrenting, citing song lyrics from “Sweetheart Like You” that say, “Steal a little and they throw you in jail / Steal a lot and they make you king.”
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Rules for thee but not for me.
I want to shoot Zuckerberg in the metaverse where he can’t run away because he ain’t got legs. Because he is not a biped.
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