French publishers and authors are suing Meta Platforms Inc. for copyright infringement, accusing the tech giant of using their books to train its generative artificial intelligence model without authorization.
French publishers and authors are suing Meta Platforms Inc. for copyright infringement, accusing the tech giant of using their books to train its generative artificial intelligence model without authorization.
Oh wow. That’s not a small misunderstanding.
Law is basically territorial. French police can arrest people in France. If, say, Russian police tries to arrest someone in France, then it is, at best, a criminal kidnapping and, at worst, an act of war. Extradition hearings are a thing because a country decides on its own terms, by its own laws, whether to hand over people to another jurisdiction.
Sovereignty is a big deal for countries. If you think about it in terms of kidnapped or armed, uniformed foreigners running around, then you understand why.
If France were to send out fines to people in the UK for driving on the wrong side of the road, then the UK would refuse to collect them. France could collect fines for something people have done in the UK only if these people pass through France. Obviously, that would cause serious international tension.
In the same way, if France awards special privileges to its citizens that allow them to collect money from people around the world, other countries would not entertain such demands. What France can do, is make laws that force French residents to pay money to people around the world. That’s how copyright law works.
There are international treaties on intellectual property. Signatory countries generally agree to have certain minimal standards in their laws. They also agree to treat all nationals equal. So, France couldn’t make special privileges for its citizens. They also agree that their copyright laws only apply in their territories.
So, I don’t see quite what a French court could be doing here, that would be compatible with international law.
Dude you’re misunderstanding this.
The French punishers can sue Facebook in the US for violating their copyright. But since Facebook also operates in France, they can sue them there. It’s that simple.
Copyright law is pretty powerful and generally global. If you write a book in France in French, I can’t translate and sell it in the US.
So the punishers can sue in the US but they’d probably not win. Facebook operating in France means it is subject to french laws and can be sued there.
I guess my post was too long. Yes, France could enforce a judgment against Meta by leaning on the French division of Meta. The question is, on what legal basis this would happen.
They are suing because of something that happened in the US, right? What argument is there to apply French law?
That’s not merely politically contentious. It is explicitly against internation law; treaties that France has signed.
Since Meta operates in France, it is being punished for something that happened in France. Legal representatives of the company as a whole are present in the EU. Divisions are not relevant to this discussion.
Is the argument that something that a multinational corporation does in one country, happens in all countries where the corporation is present? There’s no way that would stand up in court.
Why would they then give a shit about complying with ePrivacy and GDPR?
They have to comply with these laws in Europe. They do not comply with them outside of Europe.
They are operating in Europe.
They follow French law in France and US law in the US. How else could it work?
They can’t choose to apply US labor law in France. Do you think they can be made to follow French labor law in Silicon Valley?
Did they deploy their AI in Europe? The AI trained on stolen data? It’s like saying that you pirated a Disney movie in Europe and are selling derivative work from that in the US
That’s a good question. I just checked with Meta’s website. It says Meta AI is “not available” in my country, which is in the EU.