What an interesting take. One question, do you think stealing from a thief is morally okay? I'm just asking no judgement on my side.

I'd say it's more "Downloading LimeWire Pro from LimeWire" than actual theft.

If the legal system declares the first thief’s theft not theft then all bets are off.

> If the legal system declares the first thief’s theft not theft

But they didn't find it. The Big LLM provider accepted guilt and paid a fine.

You can argue whether it was a fair amount they paid, but there is no legal precedent that was set. It's still considered theft.

> But they didn't find it. The Big LLM provider accepted guilt and paid a fine.

That's not how it works. You have to give it back.

Otherwise, the distiller can just pay a fine (no larger than the original did) and be okay then, right ?

As i understand it, they accepted guilt for downloading stuff illegally. They didn’t accept guilt for incorporating all of human output into their model without consent.

True. It's the courts that failed humanity. Or perhaps the shits that invented copyright to start

Is it theft if another thief steal's the first thief's theft?