So, Meta downloaded an unholy number of pirated books via the BitTorrent protocol to train its AI and is now arguing in court that seeding those books to strangers along the way counts as fair use. Because, you know, that's just how business works.
But wait, it gets way better!
At the same time, Spotify is cracking down on Anna's Archive, the very shadow library Meta torrented all those books from. Apparently some of the music on Anna's Archive is now a problem for them. Whether even their lawyers fully understand why remains unclear. They sure are not paying attention to history.
To complete the full circle of irony: Spotify infamously launched its own service by... pirating as much music as it could get its hands on before quietly sorting out the licenses later.
So to summarise: piracy is a crime, unless you're a billion-dollar company using it to build an empire, in which case it's either fair use, transformative or just a fun-fact origin story they don't put in the press kit.
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