In 2011, Aaron Swartz was arrested after he downloaded millions of academic journal articles from JSTOR via the MIT network. He was charged under federal laws (including wire fraud and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) with up to 13 felony counts, carrying the possibility of decades in prison, large fines, and other penalties. These federal charges eventually lead to his death in 2013.
No AI company was ever charged under federal laws.
Jason Proctor is contributing to the CBC's live blog scroll from a legal perspective and as always, his stuff is illumniating. I'll paste his report in because it can get lost in the scroll easily.
"Creditors circle as cull looms
Jason Proctor
I'm Jason Proctor, a reporter with CBC Vancouver who looked into a series of lawsuits facing the owners of Universal Ostrich Farms Inc.
Last month, I spoke with three creditors who are watching today's ruling with great interest — and some skin in the game.
B.C. Supreme Court judges have ordered the farm's owners to repay debts worth more than $250,000 but, up until now, the creditors have been unable to collect. Normally in this kind of situation, a creditor would move to seize the business assets — but because in this case those assets are ostriches caught up in a legal battle, that's been challenging, to say the least.
All three creditors have tried to garnish the CFIA to intercept any money the agency might pay out as compensation for killing the birds (potentially up to $3,000 a bird, the CFIA says) but it remains to be seen how that will work. The creditors, however, told me they are anxious to recoup their losses.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/livestory/bc-ostrich-farm-decision-scoc-9.6968394?ts=1762453717737
This is only true for some flavors of "big accounts."
A number of the people I follow with thousands of followers are ONLY on the #Fediverse and most of the rest are only here and on Bluesky. I routinely block people here and on Bluesky (and across the bridge) who pull in the sewage from X and dump it in either place.
I'm not really interested in following people that wa…
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