Interesting Links for 06-09-2025

[andrewducker]

1. Graham Linehan goes on trial over harassment of trans teenager

(tags:LGBT bigotry transgender crime UK )

2. US imposes sanctions on Palestinians who asked for Israel war crimes probe

(tags:usa israel palestine OhForFucksSake )

3. M365 Copilot fails to up productivity in UK government trial

(tags:UK ai government )

4. Weak Forms: Why 'natives' and 'non-natives' sound different when they speak English

(tags:English language video sounds )

5. AI company Anthropic agrees to pay $1.5B to settle lawsuit with authors

(tags:publishing ai law )

Comments

[cmcmck]

When you listen to Linehan he sounds like a complete obssessive

[melchar]

The complete CoPilot experience: it sure seems shiny, but gets stuff wrong & ends up taking more time overall. Blarg!

[andrewducker]

That's certainly the impression I get.

[bens_dad]

Yes $1.5billion is a decent whack even split between half a million authors, but I'm not really happy with the ruling.

Firstly, the texts are now in Anthropic's products without the author's consent.
I suppose it isn't the same as a burglar buying the things he stole from you, because the authors still have their books and their rights to them, but the pirates acted illegally yet Anthropic still end up with what the wanted, even if they had to pay for it.

Worse, as I understand it, if they had been on a legitimate website Anthropic would not have had to pay for the books.

If an author cannot trust an AI not to hallucinate their work, they should be allowed to stop it going into the AI. This case does nothing to enable the author to deny access.

I guess I just don't like the US copyright system - you can have my words as long as you pay for them (and I may not get to negotiate the price).
Compare that with what I understand is the French system; if I don't want you using my words you cannot use them.

[calimac]

He also doesn't realize that if you want to put a tiny sound clip in context you need a few words from before it as well as after it.

[calimac]

That's not what the US copyright system says.

This case is a misapplication of "fair use," which - applied properly - means that you can make a short quote from someone else's work without having to pay them for it. Can you not do that in France?

[bens_dad]

I meant that under the US system redress is financial; if they breach your copyright they have to give you money.

IIUC in France the courts can stop you using the copies.

As a different example of the difference in French law read
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/photographs-of-eiffel-tower-at-night/
(The Eiffel Tower is out of copyright, but the lighting design on it is still protected).

[calimac]

I've seen cases in the US where the violating book was withdrawn from publication. This is usually in cases of outright plagiarism. Perhaps you are drawing unwarranted generalizations about US copyright from one peculiar and badly-decided case.

[autopope]

It gets even worse: they'll only pay out for works that were registered for copyright in the USA. In practice, some or most of the big five imprints stopped doing that some years ago, despite it being a contractual requirement in most author/publisher contracts!

[bens_dad]

Ouch.

A breach of contract to hold over a publisher must have its uses.
In this case that must make them liable, though three grand is not worth getting a lawyer over.