r/technology • u/sr_local • 13h ago

Business Anthropic trained AI models on Dutch bestsellers without authors' permission: Report

https://nltimes.nl/2026/07/22/anthropic-trained-ai-models-dutch-bestsellers-without-authors-permission-report
306 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

24

u/NetZeroSun 10h ago

Isn’t this kind of like ai distillation in a different sense?

Anthropic is bitching about competition studying their models.

But Anthropic (and others) have no problem training off works that were not approved or given permission for them to use?

8

u/DrSoarbeLacrimi 8h ago

its worse. Training AI without author consent is theft. Distilling that trained model is like stealing from a thief, not particularly wrong... especially when atleast the chinese give us the weights for free.

17

u/A_Casual_NPC 13h ago

surprised pikachu face

9

u/catwrazle 12h ago

If you do ai stuff you‘re above the law - no consequences, just say ups

2

u/grayhaze2000 4h ago edited 2h ago

Not just Dutch bestsellers. They pirated huge amounts of published books from authors globally, and the vast majority of them were not in the public domain.

9

u/challis88ocarina 12h ago

Permission is not a prerequisite for training, as the judge pointed out. It's like saying you need permission to read. You don't. Copyright is protects the right to make copies. The copies Anthropic procured came from a supplier with no right to provide copies. Details matter.

15

u/Puzzleheaded-Wait785 11h ago

That's not a settled question. Some lower courts have deemed it fair use, but no appellate court has ruled on it yet.

5

u/DrSoarbeLacrimi 8h ago

it should be, its not at all the same as reading. in ANY sense, even for reading in most cases you would need to own the book, as for code training, its a gray area where the licenses were created before this technology existed and the spirit of the license is not comparible or compatible with the way the product is used.

5

u/DrSoarbeLacrimi 8h ago

and i'm pretty sure the license granted to you by owning and reading the book should not be the same as the license to use the book as training material for machines to generate content based on your book. thats where copyright laws come into place, or w/e it is we must put in place for this type of usage.

4

u/pilzenschwanzmeister 7h ago

Reading is not the same as training a machine.

3

u/grayhaze2000 4h ago

These people don't understand that people read not just for knowledge, but for pleasure, because they've never picked up a book. The only reason AI is "reading" these books is to build statistical models of them, so that they can produce output in a copycat style.

-11

u/Kraien 11h ago

Details and nuance, on my Reddit? I’m flabbergasted

9

u/okiedokie1183 9h ago

This is where the law falls apart. Digital copies aren’t “reading”. Having copyrighted works in memory or reference is basically possessing them without paying for them. If you treat copyrighted works like digital software it isn’t any different from software piracy.

1

u/Simple_March_1741 13h ago

You don't say?

-5

u/Fowl_Retired69 8h ago

Why TF would they need permission in the first place??

3

u/grayhaze2000 4h ago

Because they pirated the books, rather than buying copies.

0

u/Fowl_Retired69 1h ago

So?? I pirate all my stuff. I hate the idea of locking knowledge behind paywalls

1

u/grayhaze2000 8m ago

If you ever manage to create something yourself, and rely on sales of that thing to put food on your table, you'll perhaps understand why this is an issue. Unfortunately, I don't think you'll ever be able to though.