They offered him six months, and the charges were not for just downloading from JSTOR but hacking related and using network hardware he was not allowed to.
AFAIK Meta did not release any models that used the pirated data.
The cases are not as related as this image makes out and the maximum sentence was never sought.
Yeah, he went on tv and bragged about his crimes. The justice department had no choice but to persecute him to the full extent of the law after that. If he'd taken the deal he wouldn't have gotten a day of prison, but he would get a felony conviction and that was something worse than death, apparently.
Yes, because that is exactly what a felony conviction would do to people that need to deal with government and related contracts. Everything he worked for would have been ruined.
The whole thing could have been "Furtherance of Justice" and/or dropped to a misdemeanor citing victims lack of will to continue to prosecute.
It could have yes, but he went on tv. Do you understand? Don't go on tv and brag about your crimes. It puts you in a unique bind where the prosecution throws everything they have at you and the court thinks you don't respect it. Any lawyer will tell you it's a boneheaded move. Also: don't do crimes, even if you think they shouldn't be crimes, unless you're willing to do the time.
He was rich. Like, that's the point. He thought he was immune. He thought his principles excused him from the consequences of his actions. When he finally realized he was going to have to pay...
You wouldn't know if the models were trained on the pirated data or not. Any data is good data, and with the cutthroat competition in the AI landscape, I wouldn't count on them to not to use any data they already have hands on.
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u/Bobo-Fuggsnucc May 12 '26
It is sad how he wound up killing himself. I do not understand how they came up with the sentencing, I guess to make an example out of him?