Sep 4, 2026, 11:17 PMTraining AI models on copyrighted works is "squarely what transformative use is," EFF’s Tori Noble told Reason - these are "general purpose tools" and "exactly the kind of creation that copyright is designed to foster.” https://reason.com/2026/09/04/doj-says-barring-ai-training-on-copyrighted-material-could-severely-hamper-tech-progress/
@eff haha fucking no
@eff i'm disappointed. i really thought the EFF of all people would've had creatives' backs on this
@eff Making theft legal for useless finance clusters (aka billionaires) is a general purpose tool? I think its a very specific and narrow niche that only enables billionaires. This is a very mid shitty take.
@SalemsLot @eff this is a very clear and loud signal they've become the Electronic Fascist Foundation, imo.
@eff Much like how my tummy 'transforms' corn into a corn interspersed turd.
@UraniumNutt @eff and, tbh, hampering tech would be a good thing at this time.
@eff i cant believe eff is defending this.
@lilyyllyyllyly @eff I guess I am cancelling my contributions... sigh
EFF has always been a bit too libertarian for my taste but giving this support in Reason of all places...
@michel_slm @lilyyllyyllyly @eff EGGTD.
Sep 4, 2026, 11:48 PM@eff Uhm no? Training my own brain on copyrighted materials would land me in jail if I didn't pay for them... But the biggest companies get a free pass? I don't actually think this is the kind of "fostering" we want going on.
How is the EFF not on our side with this one?
@corigan01 @eff they have been peddling this position for years.
Sep 5, 2026, 5:05 AM@707Kat @eff I guess I never really paid enough attention to notice, I had figured the EFF was on our side and just left them alone to fight my own battles.
It sucks to feel I trusted them... It feels like the ground is crumbling as every major thing I thought was on our side turns out to be terrible (like linux, Debian, and most of FOSS right now).
I really need to start my own org at this point, I don't really know who else to trust.
@corigan01 @eff yeah it sucks. I think I only knew because it’s been a subject I have been paying really close attention to.
There are still good people and organizations out there. The EFF does do good regarding surveillance. People are banding together and building moats. But yes, it does make the landscape bleak for current existing organizations.
I think some of the ones that swing gAI will change their mind, as I have seen it elsewhere before. EFF I think not.
@707Kat @corigan01 @eff And unfortunately the Creative Commons are *not* one of the good organisations. They've got the same stance of training GenAI models. Have done for at least 5 years 😞
"AI" is a key element to modern mass surveillance, so they're clearly not *that* good at it either.
Sep 5, 2026, 8:41 AM@corigan01 @eff I don't think that the point is that they should not pay for the materials acquisition, but rather having access and the rights to use the materials without further licensing. Which I think is fair for individuals, but I don't agree with it on a moral ground when it comes to these big AI companies, due to the repercussions in the society.
@corigan01 @eff ianal but I thought viewing copyrighted works was always fair use, it’s the copying that needs a license. So if you obtain a movie to watch from wherever, you’re still in the clear, but you are not allowed to share it (without copyright owner permission).
But if you read a copyrighted book in a library, and reproduce it verbatim from memory, you can’t sell those copies.
@uint8_t @corigan01 @eff I always thought that kinda depended on where you live -- some states don't really care about private viewing, others do afaik.
@corigan01
Was just about to write this comment myself. As a student I'm expected to pay insane prices for even just a pdf in some ocasions. But somehow these companies should be allowed to acces that information for free? Fuck that.
@eff
Sep 4, 2026, 11:58 PM
😮 Seriously, is the organization that should be protecting our digital rights, now defending the abuse of extreme right billionaires, who are stealing our human creativity to make us all redundant?
Are you couped by MAGA?
The EFF has often had a tendency to side with whatever is most profitable for the big tech companies, for example suing the US government to prevent them from seizing consumer data held by Apple, but not raising so much as a whisper about Apple selling that same data to the US government. This may be why some people have referred to the EFF as "the Google lobby" or "the Facebook lobby."
They have, at times, overridden this tendency. I guess this is not one of these times.
@eff@mastodon.social@mastodon.social The EFF went asshole crypto / AI bro so long ago I forgot they ever had integrity.
@eff so when these things mulch gpl code and shit it back out in another project without attribution that’s alright then? This is a profoundly shitty take that devalues the work of everyone so a handful of corporations can loot other peoples work without compensation, EFF of all organizations should be better than that.
@eff The irony here is that this is the same EFF that has worked to liberalize copyright law, this lawsuit being no different. Unpopular as AI training may be, I am a bit surprised to see the pushback to the EFF's actions (which honestly looks like a coordinated, corporate-backed effort to shore up support for copyright maximalism), but I get why taking a principled stand is unpopular since it necessarily entails defending unpopular positions occasionally. Even Techdirt defends the practice.
@eff And be warned, "stealing" in the context of copyright infringement is industry propaganda, as is "piracy".
Sep 5, 2026, 12:54 AM@Big_Blue_Gnu @eff I think people use the term "stealing" because AI is stealing their wages with the information it "learned" (stole) from them.
People are not defending copyright from human participants, but instead are pushing back on the very technology that took away the ability for them to learn and grow in the first place.
AI is an unfair game played by massive corporations, they are not paying their fair share to the real humans who made it, and instead are passing it off as their own (ie plagiarism).
I think a lot of the sentiment is about how AIs are effectively plagiarism because they steal the work without attribution and redistribute the accreditation of such work to the AI company.
Sep 5, 2026, 7:08 AM@Big_Blue_Gnu
They are stealing whenever their scrapers cause a website to become unavailable to other visitors - either through being overloaded, or by requiring login, or by adding Anubis with high enough difficulty that mobile phones can't solve the challenge.
AI is also destroying the incentives that allowed forums and Q&A sites to accumulate the knowledge that it is now scraping.
@eff
@Big_Blue_Gnu @eff Um, no. Our rage is not corporate-backed and is not copyright-maximalism. The idea that AI training is wrong is copyright-minimalist. It doesn't even depend on copyright, just "moral rights" of authors.
@dalias
@Big_Blue_Gnu @eff
First off, I agree that AI companies are bad and they stole from probably every single one of us and especially authors to work the way they do.
BUT, I think its important to recognize that we're at one hell of a cross roads.
On the one hand, we can agree with the AI companies and say that this is transformative and therefore fair use. We can still argue that the data was almost certainly stole via piracy, but the important argument by the AI company is turning books into training data and making an LLM is transformative.
On the other hand, we can agree with the media industry. That copyright laws need to be tightened and more strictly enforced so that an AI company can get in trouble if they produce content that even vaguely resembles a copyrighted IP. Disney will go after power cable companies for the damn Mickey Mouse plugs.
And I hate both of these options. I imagine most people hate both these options, but without a good "middle of the road" option at the moment, I'm gonna have to side with the AI companies on the question of fare use.
Everything else about their scheme is deplorable and easy to hate. I will be excited when the scheme fails.
I also recognize they're not "on our side" about copyright they are simply exploiting fair use. That said I think if they win, they will weaken IP laws over all.
@nagaram @Big_Blue_Gnu @eff Stop it! This is such a batshit delusional take. There is utterly no way in which fascist corporations and a fascist legal system are going to deliver *to us* the death of copyright! They are not trying to do that! They are seeking a carve-out to take from us while giving nothing back. They are seeking to make things strictly worse for us.
@dalias
@Big_Blue_Gnu @eff
What's the delusion here?
If there's a carve out, unless it explicitly states some cringe shit like "Copyright good and strong unless you're a recognized AI company" (which I won't rule out). Then is that not a weakening of copyright for the purposes of fare use?
I want to be convinced of this but I don't see a rational path for copyright specifically to be made worse. That doesn't make sense as a goal for the AI companies since the cost to end these class actions would probably be the cost of a single data center to get all the publishers off their back and then simply ignore the rest of us.
Best case is copyright gets weakened or we get another argument against it, or the most likely thing is the AI corpos settle with Penguin and the gang every time they get caught every couple of years.
@dalias
@Big_Blue_Gnu @eff
Saw some of your other posts and convos.
I think my understanding of the current state of the copyright debate is out of date.
@Big_Blue_Gnu @eff When one of the (supposedly) main reasons 'copyright' was created was to incentivize creation (despite how corporate interests have perverted it over the decades), it's only natural to refuse to accept a machine whose stated fucking purpose is to push creators out of the market in favor of regurgitated slop from a machine made from copying those creators' works.
An artist attempting to survive off their creations cannot reasonably create if everyone who would have hired them just rings up the slop-o-matic instead. So if copyright truly is an "incentive to create", this behavior must not be considered "fair use."
Copyright needs to be reformed, yes, but this isn't reform. This is an attempt to overturn it for corporations in the name of profit, all while playing "rules for thee but not for me."
Sep 5, 2026, 2:09 AM@Big_Blue_Gnu @eff lol
@Big_Blue_Gnu @eff it has not even to do with copyright maximalism, “AI” is a deeply fascist technology and has a multitude of problems, on different axes, that, each alone, are already an absolute reason for it to need to be destroyed.
@Big_Blue_Gnu @eff just because people are pushing back, does not mean it's corporate backed. People are standing behind EFF's principles here, or at least what "we" thought they stood for. This is dissappointing on so many levels.
@Big_Blue_Gnu@mastodon.social @eff@mastodon.social
No they should've backed nyt, in an attempt to create an argument for any model trained on hard copyleft code to be inherently copyleft, and only be capable of creating copyleft works.
The more models that can be hit with the agpl stick the better.
Sep 5, 2026, 2:40 PM@Big_Blue_Gnu @eff "a principled stand" suck the shit out of my asshole. It is not a "principled stand" to leap to the defense of billionaire fascists while leaving people who are actually under threat twisting in the wind.
Sep 5, 2026, 12:42 AMExtremely Fucking Foolish
Sep 5, 2026, 3:52 AM@antinomian @eff Electronic Fash Foundation
@eff very disappointing, EFF.
@eff I am increasingly feeling like D-Fens in the fast food restaurant asking „ Can anybody tell me what's wrong with this picture?“.
Can anybody explain to me why hip-hop artists and other musicians have been sued into the ground for ten second samples instead of being lauded for creative transformative use?
Sep 5, 2026, 11:27 AM
@eff Well wont be donating to EFF any longer
Sep 5, 2026, 1:02 AMIt's so cool to watch every institution I've trusted bend the knee and kiss the ring of pedophile techbro fascists, one right after the other.
Please consider the last donation that I sent to EFF to be the LAST donation that I send.
Effectively Fucking Finished.
@eff I've been donating monthly since 2017. You just lost my support.
https://supporters.eff.org/donate/recurring for anyone else that needs to cancel.
Sep 5, 2026, 1:25 AM@fullywoolly @eff I think one really sad part about all this is the EFF still does good things... but they really need to stop this AI support right away!!
I don't know if people can ever fully trust an organization that supported AI ever again, but I think if they walk back this post and put out an official statement it would go a long way towards rebuilding that road.
Please EFF ... we need you... just not like this.
@corigan01 first Debian and now @eff
I don't know how I can trust them when this is their take. I don't know what redemption would even look like. A strongly worded letter wouldn't do it.
Sep 5, 2026, 1:50 AM@fullywoolly @eff I think that's fair, and I am also very heartbroken about Debian (gotta move my infra over to NetBSD or something now).
However, I am also slightly concerned that the other work they are pushing for might be unsupported if enough people leave the EFF. I am not saying that the EFFs actions are okay here, and we should seriously consider other options from now on, but we cannot forget about the other efforts they are doing to help keep our last remaining digital rights in check.
I really don't know what to make of all this (just like Debian), we need them, but they broke our trust and I don't know what the future holds now. I am very confused if I should even award them this last sliver of doubt.... I guess I just am still in denial that the EFF of all organizations would fumble this hard.
@corigan01 @eff yeah ... The grief and betrayal is hard. You don't have to act rashly. Take the time you need to process this.
@corigan01 @fullywoolly @eff I'm also disappointed by this stance enough to pause my support. That hurts because there is so much opportunity and need for the good work you can do and have done.
Please do better (literally).
@fullywoolly @eff here’s an alternative to EFF https://edri.org/
Also on mastodon!
@estibensito_ I'll take a look. Thanks!
