• Echo Dot
    link
    fedilink
    English
    311 months ago

    We don’t need new laws we just need enforcement of existing laws. It is already illegal to copy copyrighted content, it’s just that the AI companies do it anyway and no one does anything about it.

    Enforcing respect for robots.txt doesn’t matter because the AI companies are already breaking the law.

    • @BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      211 months ago

      I think the issue is that existing laws don’t clearly draw a line that AI can cross. New laws may very well be necessary if you want any chance at enforcement.

      And without a law that defines documents like robots.txt as binding, enforcing respect for it isn’t “unnecessary”, it is impossible.

      I see no logic in complaining about lack of enforcement while actively opposing the ability to meaningfully enforce.

      • Echo Dot
        link
        fedilink
        English
        311 months ago

        Copyright law in general needs changing though that’s the real problem. I don’t see the advantage of legally mandating that a hacky workaround solution becomes a legally mandated requirement.

        Especially because there are many many legitimate reasons to ignore robots.txt including it being misconfigured or it just been set up for search engines when your bot isn’t a search engine crawler.