Nvidia, one of the most valuable companies in the world, is just another damn intellectual property thief

[AZJonnie]

7. Just so it's clear to readers

The article's statement "Anna’s Archive, a site famous for giving free access to millions of copyrighted books and papers" downplays the fact that it is itself effectively an illegal operation in most of the world's jurisdictions. It's basically the infamous "Pirate Bay", but for written works instead of tv shows, movies, and video games. It does not "host" the copyrighted materials exactly, it acts like a search engine for these materials, which may be hosted other by illegal outfits like LibGen, Sci-Hub, and Z-Library, OR they provide links to (also illegal) peer-to-peer sources for said copyrighted materials, such as the many torrent networks.

Thus, it is a certainty that nVidia (though I doubt they're alone in this regard) was well aware that they were illegally acquiring these materials. While the question of whether it's 'legal' to train your models on copyrighted works that you actually purchase a copy of remains a murky one in the current legal environment (and will probably continue to be for some time), it feels like there should be zero question it would be illegal to train your models on copyrighted materials that you did not pay for.

I hope they are successful in their suit!

Also, fuck nVidia!