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points by SR2Z 3 days ago | 0 comments
Considering the likelihood of Moonshot being able to collect a judgement for violating these terms in an American court is basically zero, and the relative ease of finding the weights without the licensing agreement, "have to pay" seems very generous.
[–] joshuaissac 3 days ago
> likelihood of Moonshot being able to collect a judgement for violating these terms in an American court is basically zero

Chinese companies sue American entities in American courts all the time.

For example, Alibaba won a judgement against the American government last week.[1]

1. https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/alibaba-wi...

[–] p-e-w 3 days ago
It baffles me that Western countries don’t seem to apply the principle of reciprocity in matters like this.

If Western companies can’t realistically win a lawsuit against the Chinese government in China, why should Chinese companies be able to do the reverse?

[–] BoxOfRain 2 days ago
Consider the second order effects, there's a reason Western systems emphasise equality before the law. Of course most real-world implementations fall far short, but the system makes equality before the law a goal for a very good reason.

Consider the alternative option, we weaken equality before the law when dealing with non-Western entities who are bound by legal systems we consider on strategic grounds to produce inferior justice. Not only would this by definition be a weakening of our standards of justice, it creates an enormous moral hazard. Common law systems like the UK and US rely strongly on precedent, imagine the kind of unjust precedents which might be set if we do not apply equality before the law strictly. On top of that, having weakened standards of justice to frustrate foreign opponents, what is going to stop the political apparatus from weakening standards of justice again to frustrate domestic groups it doesn't like?

Even if it leads to disadvantage on the global stage, in my opinion the risks associated with weakening equality before the law far outweigh the benefits. A legal system with strong integrity is an asset, and it shouldn't be spent cheaply on short-term geopolitical gain.

[–] 10111001 2 days ago
> Consider the alternative option, we weaken equality before the law when dealing with non-Western entities who are bound by legal systems we consider on strategic grounds to produce inferior justice.

Maybe the alternative is equality-before-the-law, but the judgement amount won by the Chinese company gets put in escrow until there's legal reciprocity, to create pressure for it.

[–] BoxOfRain 2 days ago
Holding payments in escrow has the problem of making the administration of justice contingent on the behaviour of a foreign government, which brings us back to where we started with equality before the law. How can we be said to have a higher standard of justice if we explicitly carry out the same kind of instrumental justice we're accusing others of?

Personally I think building trustworthy systems for international arbitration is the method most likely to succeed, if the aim is to come to a common standard of justice for commercial matters then courts on either side of the equation will always be considered suspect by the other side. Both credible international institutions and neutral third countries are a good way of doing this. Appeals to the virtues of different systems aren't going to work here, instead we have to create material incentives that favour a high standard of justice. A reduction in these kind of legal difficulties would improve trust and efficiency.

Obviously this approach has its limits but that's when things like diplomatic pressure, economic protectionism, and in the worst cases economic sanctions come into play. This is all the realm of the executive and legislature though, not the judiciary. The principle is not mere idealism, if we let day-to-day international relations contaminate the judicial process we are committing exactly the same sin that we're accusing China of. By keeping the instrumental aspects of foreign policy isolated in the executive and legislature, this problem is avoided in the interests of justice. It also helps avoid the perception of hypocrisy which is always a diplomatic advantage.

[–] mainecoder 3 days ago
because western countries operate on a principle of equality before the court regardless of who it is and this principle shall not be broken even if the those in court practice their laws differently. Creating another special system for addressing this would open a way for the abuse of justice thus it better to maintain the system as is.
[–] tshaddox 2 days ago
In general, I don’t understand why you’d expect “reciprocity” in that sense to be a factor in the legal system.

If an American citizen murders a Chinese tourist in America, would you expect the American legal system to prosecute the murderer?

And should it be relevant if (hypothetically) China would not prosecute the murder of an American tourist by a Chinese citizen in China?

[–] SR2Z 1 day ago
Murder and copyright violation are different tiers of crime. The path to justice is also much clearer in murders than in the question of "this model trained on mass-pirated data was distilled against the ToS into this other model which was released for free then fine-tuned and resold for dirt cheap."
[–] jeena 2 days ago
Because western countries at least like to pretend that the the rule of law means something.
[–] largbae 3 days ago
Most enterprises capable of running that much gear won't take that risk even if it is unenforceable. Oracle has made a great living threatening audits of companies who download its updates.
[–] SR2Z 3 days ago
Yeah, but only Western companies who might have to defend themselves in court. I have no doubt that pirated copies of Oracle DB and the JDK are frequently used in China.
[–] blackoil 3 days ago
That defense won't work in court.
[–] thinkybrewster 3 days ago
give it time.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ldKqlZVlkSM

(or, if you can give it even more time, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Swl__adGwlY )

[–] subw00f 3 days ago
Free* market
[–] KptMarchewa 3 days ago
> Considering the likelihood of Moonshot being able to collect a judgement for violating these terms in an American court is basically zero

Why? Americans are always yapping how China growth is basically fueled by IP theft, are you saying that it works both ways?

[–] 15155 3 days ago
Overusing a piece of software in violation of a TOS/license agreement is radically different than employing human agents to conduct on-the-ground corporate espionage.
[–] boomskats 3 days ago
Which only _they_ do. And _we_ don't.

After all, _their_ AI is just trained on stolen IP, right? Unlike _ours_?

I still can't get over how irresponsible it is of _them_ to release these weights for free. That means _anyone_ could gain access to their AI model now.

At least _we_ make sure access to _ours_ is fully controlled by _us_.

[–] dormento 3 days ago
People laugh, but it is impressive how often this has to be said, and how often it is ignored.

I'm still waiting for the media juggernauts to start beasting on the american hypescalers due to all the theft going around. I know for a fact that both Anthropic and OpenAI had access to some private github repos of mine in the past (due to clear artifacting in their training set). The thing is, they make so much money (allegedly), so they cannot be wrong (unlike the chinese). And this does not take into account all the hacking and system intrusion facilitated (and often perpetrated) by their systems!

[–] SR2Z 2 days ago
Of course it works both ways!