It wasnt, that's why they paid a >billion dollar settlement over it, and now license/purchase them. I don't know if the people distilling are licensing those books/etc today, though
Clearly paying that fine didn't do anything to stop Anthropic from doing it again.
Buying a book doesn't make it legal to publish lossy compressed copies of it.
Also, the vast majority of authors whose work was copied against their wishes didn't receive any of that fine.
It sounds like your argument is that they paid a fine for breaking the law, and therefore it is okay they reap the benefits of breaking the law and are allowed to continue to do so?
> The looser use of IP (eg, any characters/celebrities in AI video models) is increasingly mentioned as an advantage of overseas models.
UHmmm you remember when Sam Altman changed his profile pic to look like a Disney version of his own face? Yeah neither do I.
Clearly US AI models are playing loose with the use of overseas IP just as much, and even publicly flaunting it, as if US-based IP is more worthy of protection but Gibli can suck it.
The grandparent claim was that they were surprised downloading books was legal, I was saying that it's not, as they did need to pay.
Whether the law is enough is another question (some cases are still ongoing), and whether the courts are awarding it widely enough is another, but they are facing genuine legal backlash that international firms aren't right now and are more cautious. Several billion is a genuine cost that can move their prices higher in a time of strong competition (see also other announcements with media firms, it's not just books).
It's true that "in the style of" (eg. Ghibli) is not currently legally protected, only actual character IP or using the Ghibli name. That's not inconsistent with US IP treatment.
