Interesting excerpt:
> “We will have a trial on the pirated copies used to create Anthropic’s central library and the resulting damages,” Judge Alsup wrote in the decision. “That Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the internet will not absolve it of liability for theft but it may affect the extent of statutory damages.”
Language of “pirated” and “theft” are from the article. If they did realize a mistake and purchased copies after the fact, why should that be insufficient?
Choosing someone's bitstrings is like choosing to harvest someone's fields in a world where there's infinite space of fertile fields. You picked his, instead of finding a space in the infinite expanse to farm on your own.
If you start writing something you'll never generate a copyrighted work at random. When the work isn't available nothing is taken away from you even if you were strictly forbidden from reproducing the work.
Choosing someone's particular bitstring is only done because there's someone who has expended effort in preparing it.