Posts Tagged ‘Joe R. Lansdale’

Meta Rips Off The Author And Passes The Savings On To Skynet

Wednesday, September 27th, 2023

It turns out that Meta, AKA Facebook, used a giant database of pirated books known as “book3” for their AI generative training efforts.

Indeed, you can now search an index to see who was ripped off.

Did they rip me off? Not by name, as I have no published novels, but they did rip off Mike Ashley’s The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction, which has my story “Crucifixion Variations” in it, so yeah.

They ripped off Howard Waldrop:

  • Dream Factories and Radio Pictures
  • Going Home Again: Stories
  • Horse of a Different Color
  • Other Worlds, Better Lives
  • Things Will Never Be the Same

    • They ripped off a whole lot of Joe R. Lansdale.

    They ripped off a whole lot of George R. R. Martin (in multiple languages).

    There’s already been a lawsuit filed against Meta by Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman and Christopher Golden over using their material for training AIs, but there seems to be no mention of pirated books or book3.

    The fact that Meta is not only training AI on author’s works without their permission, but using pirated copies to do so adds insult to injury.

    And probably additional monetary damages from the resulting lawsuits.

    I expect the latest piracy revelations to lead to whole host of new lawsuits…

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    Posted in Crime, Media Watch | 12 Comments »

    Joe R. Lansdale: In Defense of Walmart

    Thursday, November 25th, 2010

    For those who haven’t heard of him, Joe R. Lansdale is a friend, a mentor, and a hell of a writer. He’s also not a conservative (don’t get him started on Bush 43). But I thought you might appreciate his defense of Walmart from the perspective of someone who grew up in a small east Texas town:

    If you’re poor and barely making it, or even if your income is middle-of-the-road, it’s good to get what you need at slashed prices, anytime of the day, seven days a week, in a big, ugly, over-lit store that closes only on Christmas and half a day on Christmas Eve. If you forgot to get a gift card and a six pack of tall boys, you have to think, “To hell with downtown.” What we got now in our downtown are specialty stores that provide things we can’t get at Walmart, like maybe a stuffed deer head for that special place over the mantle. The stuff we really need, hell, it’s at Walmart.

    Here’s something else. With Walmart in town, lots of people can be put to work, far more than downtown ever employed. Someone has to run a 24-hour store, check people out, sack groceries, push carts, place stock, work at the McDonald’s sequestered in the back. The workers have all skin colors, not something I saw a lot of downtown, except for immigrants unloading trucks.

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    Posted in Economics, Texas | No Comments »