📰 New article from TorrentFreak
EU Report Distills AI-Training Lessons from Napster Piracy Era: Don’t Sue, License
Twenty-five years ago, the music industry waged war on Napster—suing, threatening, and shuttering. It felt like a victory… until everyone just switched to LimeWire. The lesson? You can’t sue innovation out of existence.
Now, history’s repeating itself—with AI instead of MP3s. Rightsholders are scrambling to sue tech giants over training data, but a new EU report says: Stop. Professor Christian Peukert’s analysis drops a truth bomb: lawsuits didn’t kill piracy, Spotify did. And AI? It’s not stealing—it’s learning. And it could be worth $97 billion a year in the U.S. alone.
The EU’s fix? Compulsory licensing. Think of it like a blanket royalty fee for AI companies to use all published content—no need to negotiate with 5 billion photographers. Small startups breathe easier. Rightsholders still get paid. And crucially? No opt-outs. Because if only 10% of your training data is missing, your AI turns into a biased mess. (And society loses out.)
The Napster-era courts said, “You can’t pay to break the law.” But Peukert flips it: Now, paying to learn is the smarter move.
The music industry eventually adapted. The film and publishing worlds better listen—before they spend another decade chasing ghosts in the cloud.