points by supermatt 2 days ago | 0 comments
No one is sweeping mens rea under the carpet. That he knew what he was doing isnt in dispute - its that the punishment didnt fit the crime. If that standard were applied evenly, then the CEOs of certain AI companies would each be facing millennia in prison for the volume of copyright infringement they knowingly and wilfully performed.
[–] 9x39 2 days ago
[–] bayindirh 2 days ago
> If you had them on camera doing it and proof they did it knowingly and willingly, then you could.
Better yet, they confessed it: "Microsoft exec called AI scraping 'the largest theft of labor in human history'" [0][1]
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49752056
[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/17/microsoft-exec-called-ai-s...
[–] supermatt 2 days ago
> proof they did it knowingly and willingly
But the emails from MZ explicitly approving LibGen leeching don’t count?
Limited liability doesn’t shield execs from personal accountability for illegal acts - money and power does.
Discovery forces evidence to be turned over, but only if it exists and you know about it. Does the evidence exist?
It did in Swartz’s case, unfortunately for him. We don’t excuse an individual just because it’s harder to hold a corporation accountable. States have immense power over corps old and new, btw, it’s a failure of the people to not demand that be exercised, but this whole discussion is a non sequitur already.