> Can you “use a computer” to watch a pirated film? Sure. Is it legal? Nah.

In many circumstances you can't mass distribute completely identical, non transformative, non fair use copies of large portions other people's copyrighted works, if thats what you meant.

But there are many exceptions to that rule where you are allowed to use or distribute other people's works. And just like a human being is allowed to use other people's copyrighted works in those many exceptions, a human is also allowed to use a computer to take advantage of those legal exceptions.

The only point here is that when you brought up that this uses a computer in your first post, thats not really a relevant detail.

A person can use those exceptions that allow them to use other people's copyrighted works, and they can do that with or without a computer and it is legal in those exceptions either way.

> If watching that pirated film helps you learn something, does that make it legal?

> If the film was pirated not by you but by some for-profit company that charges you for watching it, does that make it legal?

It depends on many factors. Yes there are many cases where yes it is legal to use other people's works.

Edit:

Evidence that I am right: you are right now commenting on a thread where a judge threw out all the copyright claims.

> In most circumstances you can't mass distribute completely identical, non transformative, non fair use copies of large portions other people's copyrighted works

That law was defined long before there was a capability to launder authorship at scale in the way being discussed. The law does not account for this novel capability.

The law is intended to protect IP, which promotes innovation and creativity by creating relevant incentives. If that was the intention of the law, and it is not interpreted in that way, it ought to be revised for it to continue to serve those objectives.

> Evidence that I am right: you are right now commenting on a thread where a judge threw out all the copyright claims.

This only shows that you read the headline. It does not show that you (or the judge) are correct about the core issue.

> The law does not account for the new capability.

Gotcha.

Well, fortunately, you are commenting on a post right now where the judge threw out the copyright claims.

So, apparently, I am correct that in this circumstance, that there is no illegal copyright infringement.

> promotes innovation and creativity

I'm this circumstance, it does seem to be promoting innovation and creativity because the AI stuff is allowed!

Glad you agree.

It’s not a discussion about how the law is being interpreted by a particular court; that much is clear. It’s about how it ought to be interpreted.

It's more likely that relevant legislation needs to change if folks want the law to be different, rather than look to courts.

I suppose it depends on the country. I heard the US is a somewhat unusual culture where concerns usually encoded in legislation in other countries instead battle it out in courts.

In the US there is a bunch of copyright legislation, and has been over time to deal with new things as they come up

No, we should absolutely be interested in figuring out what the law would even say today. It is not obvious. That's why this case is interesting.